North Hampshire RAF team prepare to display helicopter
The Chinook role demonstration team make their public debut this weekend
A team from RAF Odiham near Basingstoke take off this weekend to display in front of more than fifty-thousand people.
The Chinook role demonstration team are due to show off the mighty helicopter at the RAF Cosford airshow. They hope it'll be the first of several airshows they can fly at across the summer.
Flight Lieutenant Matt Wehrle is the captain of the team and says it was a boyhood dream to fly the Chinook.
"The Chinook is the ultimate iconic air force helicopter isn't it? To have the privilege to display the Chinook on the role demo team this year is a career highlight it's something I'll never forget and myself and the team are so excited to bring it to the public through the course of the season.
"The Chinook has flown in some iconic conflicts over the years including the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan right through to the present day and obviously its got no sign of stopping any time soon.
"We're going to be doing the internal loading of the troops and the quad bike elements as well and then the main thing that we wanted to bring that is new is working with our 60 air assault partners who we work closely with anyway to bring you the 105mm artillery gun and this time it's a live gun so we'll be doing blank firing as part of the demonstration."
The three squadrons based at RAF Odiham share the role demo duties every year and this year it's the turn of 18 squadron.
As well as carrying troops the helicopter can lift up to eight tons of equipment and as well as military duties a helicopter is on 24/7 stand-by at Odiham to help civilian authorities in case of an emergency.
Last year several members of the team were posted to Cyprus where a Chinook was used for the first time to fight wildfires.