Well for normal peace time ops most sail with one as the operating costs climb when you take more. However ref you comments, it has been know for forward operating vessels with a single spot to have a few helo’s operating from them. A RN T42 managed to have head to toa in her hanger, one across the hanger door another burning and turning on the spot and often one ready to land on, yes that makes 5 and yes it did happen during the First Gulf War, was there to see it. The T42 was used as a FOL for the task as the Lynx where taking out the Iraq’ navy at the time as nothing else had the weapons to do so.
It was not easy as we also had Sea King’s coming in too from time to time too.:)
Shipmate,
I would love to see a photo of that scenario…my current job looks at helicopter interoperability alongside some of the most seasoned Senior Maintanance Ratings from the RN Lynx world and I have just put your scenario to them. There is no way you could get 5 or 4 or 3 Lynx on a T42 and work the flight deck….a T23 maybe! You physically cannot put 2x Lx in the hangar (you can just fit a mk8), if you had a Lx across the hangar doors you could not operate an aircraft on the spot due to the landing and airborne scatter. You could just fit 2x Lx alongside each other on the spot but the distance between the port main wheel of one ac and the stbd main wheel of the other is 6 inches. This has been achieved in the past but…one of the aircraft had its main blades removed.
All the best
Si
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