the lynx was over maintained due to the fact that the Mod drives such things . the Merlin is only now getting down to the levels of scheduled servicing that it should of had from the start, but this is driven by cost. The message is getting through the JSF will have no servicing other than AF/BF/TRS. I have spent many years on Lynx and it required far less work than a Sea King to keep serviceable and was easier to work on .

hi
nigel

The carriers were removed because they were causing cracking in the torsion box, the carriers were sent back to the Sea king IPT, I would think that most have been scrapped by now.I don’t think that they were used much I would think with 4 mk46/stingrays the endurance was greatly reduced.This was at a time when the seakings would ripple fly for up to a week at a time this required 3 aircraft in the air 24 hours a day, one on the target area and one flying to the area and one heading back to the ship hard on man and machine.
About this time the weapons carriers were changed, the old carriers required the weapon loaders to torque load four “crutch assemblies” which required the supervisor to carry a torque wrench,a pain when loading at night rotors running. They were replaced by the EMERU which is still in use on the Merlin today.i think they have small wedges which provide the logditudinal stabillity.

Tony

hi nigel

yes I still work at culdrose, after a period of teaching in schools I went back to avation.
A few years ago I was offered a job teaching at the sea king school but felt that the sea kings days were numbered, which seems to of been a bit premature as they seem to have been extended to at least 2015/2016 little did I think at the start of the 80’s when I first started working on them that they would still be flying into 2011.

My last four years in the navy was spent in Sea king/Jetstreem tech support at a time when the merlin was coming into service.It was the later models that were sent to sultan first,a combination of capstain wiring on the latter models and better construction methods on the earlier models.
At least you do not have xv666 known as “damian” many times when dis embarking from one of the carriers we would use the help of 771 and it was considered a bad omen to come ashore in her.
I still have many friends in the sea king world so if you are ever stuck just post and I will try and help. of course the old bird is still flying and I am bounded by the same restrictions as service personel with regards restrictive information.

Tony

Finally got round to scanning a few zoomi shots