A STATE-of-the-art Royal Navy warship affiliated to Great Yarmouth has launched two helicopters.

Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless launched two helicopters from its flight deck, greatly enhancing its warfare capabilities – a procedure which will become routine.

In the past, all Royal Navy frigates and destroyers have maintained the capacity to carry and launch a single helicopter.

But the Type 45s were built to routinely double this capability and thereby provide improved airborne surveillance and weapon strike effectiveness, lending superior protection support to the ship.

And the two Lynx aircraft from 815 NAS in Yeovilton, which took to the skies from HMS Dauntless in the Atlantic recently, became the first to achieve this aviation milestone.

Dauntless, the second of the Royal Navy’s new Daring Class destroyers, has been conducting naval exercises with the French, Russian and US naval forces.

With an 18-strong team (known as a ‘Flight’) embarked in HMS Dauntless, the ship has been involved in writing the rule book for the tactical employment of two Lynx Mk 8 helicopters from a Type 45.

The vessel, launched in 2007 and commissioned in June last year, visited Yarmouth in October when it was opened to the public.