[holding answer 4 March 2008]: As of February 2008, the UK routinely deployed Chinook, Sea King, Lynx and Apache helicopters in Afghanistan and Merlin, Puma and Lynx helicopters in support of operations in Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence keeps helicopter numbers and capability under constant review and the nature and scale of the assets we deploy can and does vary over time. I am withholding further details of our helicopter deployments as disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the armed forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As a result of experience on operations, we are taking steps to increase the robustness of our existing helicopter fleets, such as the purchase of the six Danish Merlin helicopters and the conversion of the eight Chinook Mk3 helicopters to a support helicopter role. We have carried out extensive modifications to improve the operational capability of our helicopters in response to urgent operational requirements, including fitting new rotor blades to a number of our Sea Kings to improve their performance in hot and high conditions, enabling their deployment to Afghanistan. We are also increasing the number of flying hours we will deliver each month to commanders on the ground in Afghanistan from our Chinook and Apache fleets.
As we have made clear previously, UK forces in Afghanistan make use of civil helicopters provided through a NATO contract and our forces also routinely draw upon helicopters provided by other ISAF nations.