Italian Navy Portsmouth Dockyard

[Gruncle 01]

Managed to get a couple of photographs of the 2 Italian AW101 on the flight deck in reasonable light today.
AW101 MM81636/2:21 Portsmouth Dockyard 16/02/2024 by Michael Skinner, on Flickr

AW101 MM81485/2:06 Portsmouth Dockyard 16/02/2024 by Michael Skinner, on Flickr

[Professor_M]

Very nice - well caught .

Always great to see Italian helicopters visiting these shores.

[Mustang531]

Nice to see these, thanks for sharing them with us. There were times when I went down to Portsmouth when there were various visiting shops in the base, only to find their helicopters were tucked up inside their hangars. All a bit frustrating really.

[Vulture 01]

Looks as if there are two different types of '101 there: a CSAR and an ASW. Anyone know what he Italian designations might be?

[POL]

MM81636 is an MH-101A, MM81485 is an SH-101A...unless anyone thinks differently? The Italian designation system is utterly broken.

[Gladio]

Designations correct. There were also four EH-101A (2-09 - 2-12), which was the EH 101 Heliborn Early Warning variant, but the kit didn't perform to the spec, and the four are supposed to be 'being converted for general duties'....