Just a couple of points for the mix!
1. The Lynx has the well known floating characteristics of a large, heavy breeze block. The lovely piccie of the Lynx during the trails was taken after the aircraft was gently lowered into the water from a crane! The other snag with the rear bags is that they float very close (too close) to the hot exhaust i.e. 'Pop!'. Thanks Westlands.
2. The system for keeping up to date as to where mother is is well known to all who have used it before. It is fraught with errors but enables the ship to remain sneaky in our wonderful EW spectrum filled world. Want to know where the Brit is? Look for the hole in the EW cover. The plot is not just kept in the Ops room however! There should have been a double plot on the bridge, just a point that the BOI will surely find.
3. Gulf is a lovely place to do winching. Piece of P**s.
4. Generally the Bags won't give FIS, two types of NATO control for ASuW, you know what they are.
5. As far as I know there has been no talk of fuel contamination and the reasons behind ditching where they did will, no doubt, come out.
6. The level of currency of front line aviation has always been a problem in the age of sweeping defence cuts and the flying hours cutback but we must remember that the crews fly thousands of hours a year in total. A single cockup should not blacken the whole view of Lynx crews carrying out their duties in some of the most tricky conditions in the world.(Not talking about the Gulf areas here ;-))
Steel helmet on, wait for the flak!