Goodbye to the Lynx
 

https://www.verticalmag.com/news/farewell-to-the-lynx/

cheers

So not really "Goodbye", but just replaced by its more capable younger brother?

There are slightly older helicopters still in UK military service (Puma) but it is quite remarkable that this is the equivalent of a WW1 aircraft also serving in WW2 and almost the same amount of time again afterwards.

I think it proved its capabilities many times over. Age is just a number, and with Lynx they seemed to have got it right despite its 'vintage'. There' now't wrong with being old, you know! :)

I remember loading the WG13 into a Hercules at Boscombe Down to take it to the USA for its hot weather trials.

By 'eck, time flies when you're enjoying yourself.

Hi mate

What year was that? I recall in an RAF Airpower book in the 1980s - near the end there was a photo of a RN Lynx in the old high viz blue markings and roundels in the California desert - think was it 19/82 or 83 doing hot and high trials?

cheers

I never wrote that it was "wrong", but pointed out that the aircraft's length of service was remarkable. Mind you, it took them a while to overcome certain "issues" with the type. In "Cold War" Germany the army used to go to great lengths to "cam up" their deployed, field parked Lynxes. Then when their Gem engines were started they produced so much blue oil smoke that everyone for miles around used to say "Ooh, look, there's a Lynx starting up!" ;-)

Similarly remarkable is the longevity of other UK military helicopters, such as the Wessex and the Puma. The old, dyed-in-the-wool, RAF Wessex crews said in 1971 that the newly introduced Puma, apparently being made almost totally from plastic, "Could never last long in RAF service". But they're still going, albeit in HC2 form, almost 46 years on. The Chinook will undoubtedly go on for aeons.

<cough> Gazelle - only aircraft to serve all four arms of UK military (army, RAF, RN, Royal Marines) and the experimental establishments, still hanging on with the Army and Qinetiq.

Wow! Some seriously rose tinted specs from an army perspective! All I can remember is an underpowered, over-engineered aircraft with a cabin too small (army perspective remember!) with little or no armament. Glad it's gone.

ShyTorque ... no disrespect to the Lynx intended, I assure you. ;)

But ... Wildcat is still, essentially, a much evolved Lynx. As was the Spit F22 from the Mk 1 :)

Danny42C ... help me here!!

So ... what's the oldest RAF/RN/AAC type still serving, in whatever form/evolution? I'm not talking about Boscombe, but actual Service use?

I think it's already been mentioned....

Never could understand why we did that. Just made it look like a cammed up helicopter.

Along with the Lynx will disappear its splendid anti-ship missile system Sea Skua. As a young graduate in the mid-seventies, the homing head (or seeker) development was one of the first programmes I worked on. Almost forty years later, just before retirement, one of the last things I did was to plan the support for its final in-service extension programme.

EDIT (again) I'd forgotten the RC-135s....... those and the E3s are direct descendants of the Boeing 367, and the RCs will be the oldest airframes in Uk service

Oldest airframe in continual UK service would be the Sea King ASAC

S-61 1959, UK Sea King 1969

Hercules 1954 RAF H-1966; J - 1996

Peeps might be interested in my book on the subject which is available for preorder from the Navy Wings web site. All profits are going to them and any orders will be signed.

https://www.navywings.org.uk/

The Wildcat airframe is very different from a Lynx although looks familiar. Some of the transmission is the same as a Mk 9A. (for example main rotor head and blades) but the inside is totaly different. The MoD didn't pay for everything to be upgraded as it saved money by using legacy parts from the Lynx. The Korean AW 159 is different again (digital AFCS)

Discounting the Lancaster, the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the BBMF as display only a/c, might I nominated their Chipmunk's that are used for training pilots on tail dragger's, as the oldest air-frames in 'operational use' in today's RAF?

Have all the Army Lynx been retired now?

I know the Mk7s have, and many of the Mk9As have been used as Wildcat donors, but will there be any Mk9/9A still in service after the FAA retirement in March?

PS: For LJC - having clicked on the link I see who you are. Have been very much enjoying your novels, sir. :ok: