Afghanistan — World’s Fastest Helicopter Boosts Battle Against Insurgents

The lat­est ver­sion of the world’s fastest heli­copter is bring­ing a vital boost to the UK’s bat­tle­field heli­copter capa­bil­i­ty in the arid deserts of Afghanistan.

The new Lynx Mk 9A
The new Lynx Mk 9A.
Pho­to cour­tesy Hel­mand Blog-Afghanistan
Click to enlarge

The mul­ti-role Lynx Mark 9A has giv­en the Army Air Corps a mas­sive­ly enhanced capa­bil­i­ty accord­ing to the crews that fly it. It’s a light and agile heli­copter for the rapid deploy­ment and extrac­tion of small num­bers of troops and it’s capa­ble of lift­ing sur­pris­ing­ly heavy loads for its size. The Lynx is flown in Afghanistan by 672 Squadron of the Army Air Corps. 

Deputy Squadron Com­man­der, Cap­tain Pete Marfleet from Kent said, “It’s fan­tas­tic to have the new Lynx MK9A with its upgrad­ed engines as it means we can be here through­out the sum­mer, sup­por­ing the troops on the ground through the tough­est time of the year. The increased air­craft per­for­mance means we can con­cen­trate on bring­ing the fight to the insurgents.” 

The aircraft’s val­ue in the bat­tle against insur­gents lies in its ver­sa­tile per­for­mance. The Lynx crews can track insur­gent move­ments and watch over vul­ner­a­ble areas with its sophis­ti­cat­ed sur­veil­lance cam­era. This “over­watch” capa­bil­i­ty helps in the pro­tec­tion of the mas­sive con­voys used to re-sup­ply front line troops in the for­ward oper­at­ing bases. 

The con­voys can be vul­ner­a­ble to attack as they track across vast swathes of desert from base to base but with the Lynx and its for­mi­da­ble weapons sys­tems cir­cling above, the insur­gents stay away. “I’d be con­cerned if we had lots of con­tacts every time we flew a mis­sion”, said Pete Marfleet. “Suc­cess for us means we’ve got a con­voy or a sup­port heli­copter in and out of a patrol base with­out any trou­ble. Just our pres­ence in the over­head and the threat from our weapons sys­tems means that the ene­my wise­ly keep their heads down.” 

In com­bat oper­a­tions the air­craft pro­vides both an offen­sive and a “Com­mand and Con­trol” capa­bil­i­ty by oper­at­ing over­head and direct­ing the bat­tle or pro­vid­ing the force com­man­der with a “birds eye” view of what’s hap­pen­ing on the ground. 

This ver­sion of the Lynx has been specif­i­cal­ly engi­neered to meet the chal­lenges of oper­at­ing in places like Afghanistan. Pre­vi­ous ver­sions strug­gled with tem­per­a­tures high­er than the mid-thir­ties Centi­grade. The sear­ing heat of the Afghan sum­mers reg­u­lar­ly sees tem­per­a­tures soar over 45o C which meant that the air­craft could only fly at night and even then their lift capac­i­ty was limited. 

672 Squadron’s Qual­i­fied Heli­copter Instruc­tor Dan­ny Rae, a vet­er­an War­rant Offi­cer with 30 years expe­ri­ence said, “This is a mas­sive­ly capa­ble air­craft. The envi­ron­ment in Afghanistan is chal­leng­ing to say the least but it copes extreme­ly well. The man­u­fac­tur­ers have done a fan­tas­tic job. Its capa­bil­i­ty means that we can take the fight to the ene­my if required.” 

Press release
Com­piled from Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand News Releases 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →