Exercise Merlin Vortex

摘要

The UK started the year with just 18 helicopters supporting Operation Herrick in Afghanistan - six Chinook support helicopters, four Lynx light utility helicopters, and eight Apache attack helicopters. Responding to demands for more rotary wing capacity (usually while denying that there was any shortage) the number of Chinooks has been boosted to ten, more Lynx and Sea Kings have been deployed, though the limited hot-and-high performance of these has restricted their usefulness, and two Chinooks have recently been lost.