Westland Lynx / Sea Lynx

Updated: October 2026 – A small gray helicopter touches down on the aft deck of a frigate, its fuselage short and compact, the rotor flat above the roof: for decades that was everyday life for German naval aviators. The Westland Lynx, known in the Bundeswehr as the Sea Lynx, is one of the defining military helicopters of Europe. It was agile enough for loops, fast enough for a world record and tough enough to operate from pitching ship decks. Now its time is coming to an end. Here is where it comes from, which versions exist, what the record is all about and where you can still see it.

What is the Westland Lynx?

The Lynx is a twin-engine, five-ton-class multirole helicopter from Britain. Westland Helicopters developed and built it in Yeovil in the county of Somerset. The manufacturer later merged into AgustaWestland and today belongs to Leonardo, whose British helicopter arm is still based in Yeovil.

The framework was a British-French helicopter agreement of February 1967. It covered three types: the Puma and the Gazelle under French leadership, and the Lynx under British leadership. Sud Aviation, later Aérospatiale, took on about 30 percent of the manufacturing work on the Lynx in return. In exchange, the type also flew with the French Navy.

Under the project designation WG.13, the first prototype took off on March 21, 1971. A total of 13 prototypes were built before series production began. In the end, according to standard reference works, around 450 Lynx of all versions were built (as of 2009).

The rotor as the centerpiece

What makes the Lynx technically special sits on top of the fuselage: a rigid rotor head machined from a single block of titanium, on which four honeycomb-construction composite blades are mounted. Unlike helicopters with flapping and lead-lag hinges, this system transmits control inputs very directly to the fuselage. The result is an agility unusual for a helicopter of this size. The Lynx is fully aerobatic and flies loops and rolls.

It is powered by two Rolls-Royce Gems, originally developed as the Bristol Siddeley BS.360. You can find more about the engine maker on the Rolls-Royce page. Late export versions of the Super Lynx alternatively received the American LHTEC CTS800.

The main versions

From the start, the Lynx was meant for two worlds: the battlefield on land and the decks of warships. The family is correspondingly broad.

Version	User	Notes
AH.1	British Army	First Army version, first production flight 1977, 113 built, skid landing gear
HAS.2 / Mk 2(FN)	Royal Navy, French Navy	First naval versions with wheeled landing gear and folding tail
HAS.3	Royal Navy	Improved naval version with more powerful Gem 42-1 engines
HMA.8	Royal Navy	Upgraded naval version based on the Super Lynx 100, with BERP rotor blades and thermal imager
Mk 88 / Mk 88A	German Navy	Sea Lynx, shipboard helicopter on frigates
Super Lynx 200/300	Export customers	Later export models, the Series 300 with a glass cockpit
AW159 Wildcat	United Kingdom, South Korea, among others	Further development, largely new technically

The Wildcat looks similar to the Lynx, but it is largely a new design: only about five percent of its parts are interchangeable with older Lynx versions. For spotters it is worth looking at the tail – the Wildcat has a redesigned tail boom and a more modern cockpit with large screens.

The Sea Lynx with the German Navy

For German spotters, the Lynx is above all a naval helicopter. The first Sea Lynx Mk 88 was built and brought into service in 1981; in total, Westland built 19 aircraft of this first version for Germany. The Mk 88 largely corresponded to the British HAS.2.

In 1996 the Navy ordered seven new Super Lynx Mk 88A, and in 1998 it decided to bring the existing aircraft up to this standard as well. After that, the entire fleet flew as the Mk 88A. According to figures from 2014, it comprised 22 helicopters. The serials come from the Bundeswehr block 83+; how the system works is explained in the article Registrations of Bundeswehr aircraft.

Shipboard helicopter on the frigates

The Sea Lynx was designed as a shipboard helicopter: it lives in the hangar of a frigate and extends its sensor and weapons reach far beyond the horizon. The frigates of the Bremen class (F122) each carried two Sea Lynx; the last ship of this class, the Lübeck, was decommissioned in December 2022. The Brandenburg class (F123) is also designed for two Sea Lynx, and the Sachsen class (F124) can accommodate two Lynx or NH90s.

On board, the Sea Lynx mainly handled anti-submarine warfare with dipping sonar and torpedoes, engaging surface targets, and reconnaissance, transport and rescue. Typical armament was light torpedoes, Sea Skua anti-ship missiles or a heavy machine gun in the door. Embarked on frigates, the Sea Lynx served, among other operations, in the EU’s Atalanta operation against piracy off Somalia.

From Kiel to Nordholz

Organizationally, the shipboard helicopters long belonged to Marinefliegergeschwader 3 at Nordholz. Since November 2012 they have been assigned to Marinefliegergeschwader 5, which at that time moved from Kiel-Holtenau to Nordholz. The wing has its own flying and technical squadrons for the Sea Lynx. Right next to the air base is the Aeronauticum Nordholz, which tells the story of naval aviation.

Cracks in the tail and poor availability

The late years of service were not entirely free of problems. In September 2014, the fleet was grounded after cracks in the tail section were found. From January 2015, individual aircraft were allowed to fly again with restrictions, and full flight operations only resumed in January 2017. In the first half of 2016, operational readiness was just around 22 percent – equal to only four to five flyable helicopters. The age of the airframes was showing.

The successor: NH90 Sea Tiger

The Sea Lynx is being replaced by the NH90 Sea Tiger. The Bundeswehr has ordered 31 aircraft, enough for 15 frigates with two helicopters each plus one test aircraft. The replacement at Nordholz began at the end of 2025 with the first Sea Tiger. In parallel, in August 2024 the Navy also retired the Sea King, the second Westland classic of naval aviation.

400.87 km/h: the speed record

On August 11, 1986, a Lynx made aviation history. Westland test pilot Trevor Egginton flew the company’s G-LYNX demonstrator over a 15 and 25 kilometer course at 400.87 km/h.

Two modifications made this possible. First, G-LYNX received uprated Gem 60 engines. Second, it carried the new BERP rotor blades (British Experimental Rotor Programme). Their distinctive swept-back, flattened blade tips delay the airflow problems on the advancing blade that slow ordinary rotor blades at high speeds. The technology later flowed into production versions such as the HMA.8 and into the AW101.

A Lynx had already set records in 1972: Westland pilot Roy Moxam reached 321.74 km/h over 15 and 25 kilometers and 318.5 km/h over a 100-kilometer closed circuit.

In action: the Falklands and the Gulf

The Lynx also became known through its combat missions. In the Falklands War of 1982, British naval Lynx flew submarine patrols. On May 3, 1982, a Lynx fired a Sea Skua missile in combat for the first time, targeting an Argentine patrol boat. In the Gulf War of 1991, Lynx with Sea Skua played an important role against Iraqi fast boats, and Army Lynx used TOW anti-tank missiles in British combat for the first time.

In Britain the era has now ended: the Royal Navy retired the Lynx on March 23, 2017, and the Army Air Corps followed in 2018 with the disbanding of 657 Squadron. According to available overviews, Lynx and Super Lynx remain in service in Algeria, Brazil, Malaysia, Oman, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, among others – but the exact numbers are constantly changing.

How to identify the Lynx with confidence

The Lynx is rather small for a twin-engine military helicopter. Three steps are usually enough to identify it.

Final certainty comes from the serial. You will find the basics of identifying rotorcraft in the guide How to identify helicopter types.

Common mix-ups

Where to find the Lynx

A flying Lynx is becoming a rarity in central Europe. These places still offer chances.

Location	Chance of a sighting	Why
Nordholz near Cuxhaven	declining	Home of Marinefliegergeschwader 5, replacement by the Sea Tiger under way
Naval bases on the North Sea and Baltic Sea	low	Shipboard helicopters only when frigates with an embarked Lynx call in
Aeronauticum Nordholz	On display	Naval aviation museum right at the air base
RNAS Yeovilton (United Kingdom)	On display	Fleet Air Arm Museum with a Lynx; its successor, the Wildcat, flies outside
Air shows and open days	low to medium	Static displays by foreign users, last appearances of German aircraft

In England the detour to Somerset is worthwhile: at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton you see the Lynx on display and the Wildcat in Royal Navy flight operations. If you like British military aviation, you should also have the Royal International Air Tattoo in Fairford on your list. In Germany, the Hubschraubermuseum Bückeburg (helicopter museum) offers a good overview of rotorcraft in the Bundeswehr.

Special rules apply around military sites, so read the article Photographing military airfields beforehand. Military helicopters do not always transmit usable ADS-B data; how to find them anyway is explained in Tracking military aircraft online. The Tag der Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr open day) and Navy open days are also good opportunities for a close-up look.

Photo tips for the Lynx

The Lynx is a rewarding subject: compact, agile and with a rotor head that looks especially good in motion.

You will find more on the technique in the guide Photographing propellers: the right shutter speed, and general tips in the article Helicopter spotting. With the sun position planner and the weather and wind data in Planetrack, you can see before your trip which direction the light and wind come from. Afterward, you post your sighting with photo, type, serial and spot directly in the community.

Conclusion

The Westland Lynx is a helicopter with character. Its rigid titanium rotor made it exceptionally agile, a modified example flew a world record in 1986 that is still recognized today, and on the frigates of the Royal Navy and the German Navy it was the ships’ flying eye for decades. In Britain it is already history; in Germany the NH90 Sea Tiger is replacing it right now. If you still want to see a Sea Lynx in the air, you should hurry – after that, museums and foreign users remain.