Royal Australian Navy’s landing helicopter dock ship HMAS Canberra recently celebrated 2,000 deck landings.
It was nine months after commissioning that Canberra reached 1,000 deck landings but only seven months on and the ship has doubled the mark.
Canberra’s Commander Air, Commander Adrian Capner said it takes other ships in the Royal Australian Navy years to achieve 2,000 landings, but given Canberra’s multi-spot capability the milestone has been reached quickly.
The 2000th deck landing was achieved while Canberra was deployed operationally for the first time . The ship was called upon to support Operation Fiji Assist 2016, Australian Government’s contribution to the international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief response after Tropical Cyclone Winston struck Fiji on February 20.
Canberra sailed from Brisbane in late February after embarking more than 350 Australian Defence Force personnel, 30 vehicles, 60 tonnes of emergency relief supplies and two additional MRH-90 helicopters.
Four Army MRH-90 helicopters from the 5th Aviation Regiment were also assigned to the operation and assisted in delivering humanitarian stores from the ship to the Fijian people.