She has put to sea:
In the old days, the
Invincible class CVS normally operated nine ASW Sea Kings, but one of these was kept at readiness for SAR, and they also had to do things like VERTREP. After 2000, the Sea Kings were replaced by Merlins, with a Sea King doing utlity and SAR tasks. These days many of the SAR and utility taskings can be done by embarked Jungly HC4s, leaving the Merlin HM2 to concentrate on ASW. It has a greater range and endurance (five hours) than the old Sea King (about four hours) or indeed other current ASW helicopter types such as the MH-60R or the NH90.
820 NAS have got six cabs embarked. Somewhere I read that some elements of 824 NAS will join them. I imagine some Junglies will too.