After flying more than 18,000 hours in Afghanistan, moving more than 7,900 tonnes of kit and stores and transporting over 130,000 personnel since 2009, RAF Merlin helicopters have finished their deployment in the Helmand region, where they have primarly flown troop transport missions.
The following images where released by the UK MoD, and show one of the large, partly disassembled choppers (the same used for the 2012 Olympic opener and latest 007 movie) inside a RAF C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft used to bring the Merlins back home.
Image credit: Sergeant Barry Pope, Crown copyright
David Cenciotti is a freelance journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written four books.
On Nov 12, the EH-101 of the Marina Militare that had been unable to depart on Nov. 11 (read here), because of a minor failure, took off from the Circus Maximus and Giovanni Maduli was […]
Four Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets belonging to the UK’s Royal Air Force deployed to Malaysia (where they took part to LIMA – Langkawi International Maritime & Aerospace Exhibition) last week thanks to the support provided […]
A quite rare variant of the Il-22 Coot-B was intercepted by the Royal Air Force Typhoon jets supporting NATO Baltic Air Policing. According to the UK Ministry of Defence, on May 14, 2019, two Typhoon […]
This website makes use of cookies, both proprietary or by third part, in order to improve your browsing experience. For more information check our cookies policy.
By closing this message, proceed surfing or using this website, you accept to use cookies. Don’t show this again
