surveillance for the Royal Navy task force off
the Libyan coast, but also identifying ground
targets for allied air forces to attack. The
ASaC7 crews teamed up with Army Air Corps
Apache AH1 attack helicopters embarked
on HMS Ocean to launch night-time strike
missions against Libyan tank columns deep
inland.
The effectiveness of the ASaC7s
in the Libya operations was a major
factor in securing funding to develop a
successor system, known as Crowsnest,
for AgustaWestland Merlins that will be
embarked on the new Queen Elizabeth Class
aircraft carriers.UK SAR FORCE
Perhaps the most high-profile role of the
Westland Sea King has been SAR around
the UK. Although the original justification for
the establishment of the military SAR force
around the country was to recover downed
military aviators, it increasingly became used
for the rescue of civilian mariners in trouble
at sea, mountaineers lost in remote areas
or dramatic interventions during large-scale
natural disasters.
The Royal Navy Sea Kings augmented
the Wessex in the SAR role when extra range
was required on a mission. The first Sea King
HU5 to take over fully from the Wessex stood
SAR alert from April 1988.
Fleet Air Arm crews had responsibility
for the South West and South Coast from
RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall and also stood
alert to cover the southwest of Scotland and
surrounding area from the HMS Gannet base
at Prestwick airport.
The yellow-painted Sea Kings of the RAF
SAR Force covered Wales, northern Scotland
and the east coast of England. The RAF first
Sea King HAR3s entered service in 1978 with
19 delivered in all. For their SAR role they
were fitted with the MEL ARI 5955 search
radar. Six more Sea Kings were purchased
and were designated HAR3A. The main
difference was they had more modern cockpit
avionics as well as an improved MEL ARI
5955/2 search radar and a better navigation
radar. The first of these variants entered
service in 1996.
For more than 30 years the military SAR
crews stood alert duty 24/7 to scramble to
rescue people in distress. Over this time,
several high profile operations defined them
as calm professionals, who regularly saved
several hundred lives each year.
The 1979 Fastnet disaster was the first
large-scale rescue operation involving Royal
Navy Sea Kings when the famous yacht race
was hit by force 10 winds and mountainous
seas. Culdrose mobilised its Sea King force
to pick up scores of survivors from life rafts or
rescue others from overturned yachts.
For the RAF SAR Force, the biggest
test came in 1988 when the Piper Alpha oil
platform exploded in the North Sea. Sea
Kings from RAF Lossiemouth and Boulmer
and Coastguard Sikorsky S-61s winched
dozens of men from the sea as the oilplatform burned a few hundred yards away.
The Royal Navy SAR Sea Kings used the
MEL Sea Searcher radar, mounted above
the cabin behind the rotor hub, to locate their
‘target’ of interest.
Under a $12m contract awarded in 2001,
the RAF’s Sea Kings were fitted with FLIR
Systems’ Star-Q multi sensor system, which
comprises of a thermal imaging system and a
daytime TV camera. The Royal Navy’s HU5s
became operational with FLIR Systems’ Star
SAFIRE III electro-optical/infrared turret in
September 2009.
The Sea King was in the news again when
seven RAF and RN helicopters plucked 150
stranded people from the roofs of houses and
cars when the Cornish village of Boscastle
was engulfed by flash floods in 2004.
Dramatic video footage showed the streets
being turned into rivers. Helicopters from
Culdrose and nearby RMB Chivenor were on
the scene in minutes and began lifting people
to safety. A small team of RAF officers arrived
to co-ordinate the rescue with the police and
make sure a flow of helicopters kept arriving
over the town. Miraculously, everyone in
danger was lifted to safety by the Sea Kings.
Three years later, when large areas of
the west of England were submerged byflooding, the RAF SAR Force was mobilised
again and set about rescuing those cut off
by the deluge, recovering 120 across the
country. At the height of the floods, iconic
television imagery showed RAF Sea Kings
saving people from farmhouse roofs within
sight of Tewkesbury Abbey. The fame of the
RAF SAR force was further enhanced when
HRH Prince William served an operational
tour as a Sea King pilot with ‘C’ Flight of 22
Sqn at RAF Valley, Anglesey, in 2010.RETIRING THE SEA KING
The Royal Navy and RAF have been looking
to retire their Sea Kings since the mid-1980s
when the project to develop the Westland
Merlin started. The first to be replaced
were the anti-submarine Sea King HAS6s
squadrons, which traded in their veteran
helicopters for Merlin HM1s between 1989
and 2003. Five surplus ASW HAS6s were
converted to HAS6(CR) standard for the
utility role and used by the CHF. This variant
entered service in 2004 and was retired in
2010.
The original plan was to replace the
SAR Sea Kings with helicopters purchased
with private finance but operated partly
by military crews. The 2010 Strategichttp://www.aviation-news.co.uk 37The FLIR Systems’ Star-Q multi sensor system turret can be seen inboard of the left sponson.
Crown CopyrightRoyal Navy Sea Kings prior to departure from RNAS Yeovilton in November 1992. Four
helicopters embarked RFA Argus bound for Bosnia where they operated with UNBRITFOR in
the casualty evacuation role. The fifth example was an air spare. Key Collection32-38_seakingDC.mfDC.mfDC.mfDCDC.indd 37 08/01/2016 14:36