Instead of catching the Landor 747 leaving Cardiff as planned, so as not to waste the day of leave, I spent yesterday down at Yeovil again. Thought I might give that little Portuguese Lynx one last blast, seeing as I’ve been hunting it since lockdown ended (and slightly before COVID, which seems a thousand years ago).
Historic Helicopters is training and building currency for future airshows, and getting some hours on their fleet and crews. To this end, I was delighted to hear their Junglie Sea King call up on the scanner. I had long thought that I would never see another U.K. Sea King in the air again after they were all retired, but it was fantastic to see and hear the old girl again:
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There were a few of the usual suspects, ‘415 has shifted onto Sea Venom trials now. It took off with this one bolted onto the weapons wing, and came back from the Bristol Channel without it.
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6. And ‘513 biffed off to Boscombe for the day, with a full load of Martlets, and came back later.
Buuuuut it was that sodding little buggering Portuguese Lynx I was after. On previous visits this year, it’s been out every single time and never flown, but today I *finally* bagged the oh fudge.
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It came back in some really golden golden hour light, the last couple of minutes of sunlight, where all the sky turned red-gold, weird colours:
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And a bonus, the old ETPS Ripple Lynx has been preserved, but repainted - it now has colours mimicking G-LYNX at the Helicopter Museum in Weston.
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So it was an interesting day today; I took more photos of Lynx and Sea Kings than I did Merlins and Wildcats, which is a bit odd for the Leonardo facility!
Thanks for looking, I hope they are of interest.
C&C very welcome, as always.
Thanks,
Tom
