Forty years German Navy Lynx operations
On 30 August 2021, German Navy (GN) Marinefliegergeschwader 5 (MFG5) celebrated forty years of Lynx operations with a formation of eight Super Lynx Mk88A helicopters.
Originally the German Navy ordered nineteen Sea Lynx Mk88 helicopters and the first Sea Lynx was delivered in 1981. In 1996, the GN purchased seven additional Super Lynx Mk88As and in 1998 they decided to upgrade the existing fleet of Mk88s. Seventeen Sea Lynx Mk88s were planned to be upgraded to Super Lynx Mk88A, but fifteen were actually implemented.
The helicopters have been deployed to several conflict areas in the world on board German Navy frigates. Their homebase is Fliegerhorst Nordholz in Lower Saxony where they operate together with the Westland Sea King Mk41.
In November 2020, Scramble Magazine reported on the selection of the NH90-MRFH Sea Tiger as a successor of the current fleet of Super Lynx helicopters. The German parliament approved a 2.3 billion euro contract for the purchase of 31 Airbus Sea Tiger helicopters for the German Navy. Delivery of the first Sea Tigers will start in 2024. In total thirty Sea Tigers will be operated by MFG5 at Nordholz and one Sea Tiger will be used with the Wehrtechnische Dienststelle für Luftfahrzeuge 61 (WTD61) at Manching/Ingolstadt for test purposes.
The following 22 Lynx helicopters are still active with MFG5:
Photo by Marco @ Sea Lynx Mk88A (twitter @kalamapa)