LYNX FAREWELL FLYPAST FRIDAY 17 MARCH 2017
Millions of people across Southern England have the chance to wave goodbye to the last Navy Lynx when the helicopters conduct a five-hour farewell flypast.
After 41 years’ service in different models and variants – and paint schemes – the helicopter which has been mainstay of RN destroyer and frigate operations around the globe retires at the end of the month.
Like the Search and Rescue and Junglie Sea Kings which bowed out before them, the fliers of 815 Naval Air Squadron at Yeovilton, the Lynx home for most of its Fleet Air Arm career, are determined to perform a ‘farewell tour’ of sites most in the UK most associated with their helicopter.
Weather permitting, two flypasts are planned for Friday March 17 – a morning one in the South West, then over Southern and South-East England in the afternoon, punctuated with a short refuelling stop at RAF Odiham.
The 815 team are hoping schools, former Lynx men and women, enthusiasts and supporters will turn out to wave the formation of helicopters as they pass overhead.
The flypast will be followed by a formal decommissioning ceremony the following week in Yeovilton before 815 converts into a Wildcat squadron, providing the Lynx’s successor for destroyers and frigates.

These helicopters were always a favourite of mine from when I lived at Yeovil, being built just down the road from where I lived. They were just about the best aircraft of their type anywhere and always put on a good show at Yeovilton.

©Peter Guilliatt (cc)