see:
http://www.alexhamilton.net/big-cats-over-basrah.htm
'Big Cats over Basrah'
My first commission for the Royal Air Force.
A Puma helicopter from 230 (Tiger) Squadron over Iraq's 2nd. city of Basrah during Opration Telic III in 2004. The Squadrons surveillance aircraft first deployed to Iraq in October 2003 and were constantly in the forefront of combat support operations against local insurgents and Former Republican Guard Extremists. The ever-present threat from ground fire is evident, and the Puma is seen deploying its flares to combat a possible Surface to Air Missile launch.
"There is a first time for everything! When I joined the Guild of Aviation Artists, one of my goals was to become more involved with professional pilots, and their organisations. As you might notice from my gallery, this has largely been aimed at the RAF. You can maybe then imagine how proud and excited I was when I recently handed over my first commission for the RAF.
The Squadron was 230 Sdn. operating the Aerospatiale Puma HC1 in the surveillance role. They had contacted me with regard to having a pictorial record of their recent deployment to Basrah, Iraq.
I had never painted a helicopter before, so this would be the first. My initial brief was in the hallowed rooms of The RAF Club (also a first for me!). They had a pretty good idea of what they wanted in as much as a back three-quarter view of the aircraft firing decoy flares over the city......."
see
http://www.alexhamilton.net/news.htm
Years ago one of the big Jane's yearbooks revealed that Pumas in NI were using a Ferranti Barr and Stroud thermal imager (?) called 'Pleasant 3', IIRC, and more recently a read something about P4 (perhaps on another platform) while Doug Barrie in Av Week wrote obliquely about some new surveillance kit on UK helos in Iraq that he called 'Broadsword', but I have to confess that this was all new to me......