FighterControl

Iconic RN search and rescue helicopter to return to skies above Cornwall
By G_WIlkinson
CornwallLive.com
August 01, 2017
The skies of Cornwall will soon welcome back a couple of old friends — two helicopters that were once used by the Royal Navy for search and rescue.
The Ministry of Defence is returning two Sea King Mark 5 aircraft to service and they will once again have a life-saving role — to help train the German navy.
The aircraft were once used by 771 Naval Air Squadron for rescue missions across Cornwall from their base at RNAS Culdrose near Helston.
The iconic grey-and-red aircraft were a regular and popular sight around Cornwall and much admired by the public. Many of the aircraft date to 1979 or the early 1980s and one saw action in the Falklands War.
While one of the helicopters was kept on display behind the fence at Culdrose, as a testimony to the bravery of their air crews, the others were shipped away to storage by the navy in April 2016.
Responsibility for search and rescue was handed over to the new coastguard helicopters at Newquay.
Now two of them are being leased to HeliOperations UK so that the organisation can train aircrew in the German navy in search and rescue skills.
The retired Sea Kings will be retained as UK military aircraft, but will be operated from a training base at Portland in Dorset up until September 2018.
The maintenance activity required to bring these two aircraft back into service is being carried out at Culdrose and following ground runs, the first aircraft will commence its flight-test phase soon.
Both aircraft will eventually undergo a full respray, however locals to the Culdrose area may see the first aircraft completing its test flying programme still in its original search and rescue paint scheme as the re-spray is scheduled after this element has been completed.

We'll, I wasn't aware. Thank you for sharing this.

It's old news that wasn't in the public domain, so to most people on here it would be new news. I find that comment of it being old news rather arrogant, not everyone has access to information such as this

One is XV666, any ID for the other one please?

Not sure of the serial of the other HU.5, maybe some of the local chaps could help!

Here's some more info.

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-la ... wall-skies

EGVP wrote:One is XV666, any ID for the other one please?

The other is ZA166, arrived by road a couple days ago.

Thanks eagle driver for posting this info. It is nice to know that people are prepared to share their knowledge.

KyleG wrote:

EGVP wrote:One is XV666, any ID for the other one please?

The other is ZA166, arrived by road a couple days ago.

Ta!

Perhaps people could post on here as well as Facebook. Then we could be more up to date on such matters.

Not everyone is on Faceache nor do they want to be. And in my experience there is far more crap on there masquerading as info and far more people who think they know everything but actually know very little or nothing, than there has ever been on any forums I'm a member of.

So if you knew about it and that it wasn't on this forum, why not post it for the benefit of the rest rather than pour scorn on the fact that it wasn't here?

I for one am fed up with everyone being expected to be on every social media site that exists.

Thanks from us techno-denial boyz for the 'virtual retweet thingy'!

Josh B wrote:That might be the case, but the fact is the info that's been posted about above has been all over social media, complete with photos, info on the progress of the pair of them and there new operators complete with links..to various sources to confirm this..for several months Hence my sarcastic comment about "old news"
I guess the forum isn't as upto date as it once was

You must be having a giraffe! FC forum is a great centralised source of movements.

There is very little up to date military movements reports on social media - lots of news and articles for people who like watching planes but not a lot for the real enthusiast . (Civil is a different matter - but there are so many splinter groups - Heathrow, Gatwick, Farnborough etc)

There are airfield related groups such as the Brize group - fine but they are aimed rightly at local s, it is ridiculous to have to join every site just read that a hawk took off from learning for example. Fighter control has lots of up to date movements and heads up of interest for many airfields in one website

Aeroresource Twitter is full of seaking XV666 but what about the Qatar C-17 in Gatwick or the C-17 just landing at the hall?

Ah! I see what you mean.

I did hear there was some agro in the South west section a few years back.

I do sympathize - most of the Mildenhall movements are in the heads up / RCH section but as long as it is consistent it works for me.

Josh B wrote:

bizfreeq wrote:It's old news that wasn't in the public domain, so to most people on here it would be new news. I find that comment of it being old news rather arrogant, not everyone has access to information such as this

It's been all over the FC Facebook group pages for well over a month..!!! Hence my rather sarcastic comment about it being old news. Chris globe of all. People must have seen it.. Thought you were up on everything old boy?!

some of us don't use facebook and never will !!

I've been a bit busy. Two jobs and a business to run...

For all you techno-dinosaurs out-there ( me included!) Sea King HAS5 XV666 visited former NAS Lee-on-Solent on Friday 11th! It didn't take long to fix that then?
Credit to Richard Davies ( Fastjetsbest) with excellent photo's over on UKAR. Who said Forums are dead?

And carried on into Fleetlands

Supra wrote:For all you techno-dinosaurs out-there ( me included!) Sea King HAS5 XV666 visited former NAS Lee-on-Solent on Friday 11th! It didn't take long to fix that then?
Credit to Richard Davies ( Fastjetsbest) with excellent photo's over on UKAR. Who said Forums are dead?

I thought I saw a Sea King come out of HMS Daedalus on Friday and thought I was seeing things

10:50 XV666 inbound to Boscombe Down from Fleetlands as 'Heliops 01'. Called on 130.0 requesting SRA recovery and quoted long PPR number.

LT