Fleet Air Arm engineers have recreated a treasured family photograph their fathers appeared in over a quarter of a century ago.

Harvey Lewis and Sam Skelson, assigned to the Royal Navy frigate HMS Iron Duke, made the modernised image while maintaining the ship’s Wildcat helicopter. The Type 23 vessel was patrolling UK waters at the time.

Group Shot in 1999 - PO Gaz Lewis is second from the left back row and LAEM Andrew Skelson is front row on far right. | MoD Crown Copyright/SWNS

placeholder image — Group Shot in 1999 - PO Gaz Lewis is second from the left back row and LAEM Andrew Skelson is front row on far right. | MoD Crown Copyright/SWNS

Group Shot in 2025 - AET Harvey Lewis is third from left, back row, LAET Sam Skelson is bottom row on far right. Fleet Air Arm engineers recreating a picture with colleagues 26 years apart. | MoD Crown Copyright/SWNS

It was when 24-year-old Harvey, an Air Engineering Technician from Portsmouth, was chatting with his dad Gaz and mentioned the rest of his team – Flight 05 from 815 Naval Air Squadron based at RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset – that the name Skelson rang a distinct bell.

In 1999, a then Petty Officer Gaz Lewis was serving with one Leading Air Engineering Mechanic Andrew Skelson aboard HMS Exeter, which was deployed to the northern Gulf on Operation Bolton – helping to enforce a no-fly zone over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Twenty-six years later, and Gaz, who went on to transfer to the RAF and earn a commission as an officer, mentioned the photograph taken of the Flight at work – back then it was a Lynx Mk3 helicopter, the forerunner of the Wildcat, they looked after.

The Royal Navy said while Wildcat is considerably more advanced than its predecessor, the routine and practices of a ship’s Flight have remained relatively unchanged – the helicopter still relies on a dedicated team of air and ground crew to maintain and operate it, assigned to a frigate or destroyer for weeks or months at a time.

Among the duties which have barely changed in three decades, is the task of folding and spreading the aircraft’s main rotor blades at sea.

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“After talking to my dad about work and the team I have on 05 Flt, he perked up when I mentioned one particular name,” said AET Lewis, who has four years’ service under his belt. “He quickly dug through his old photographs and we discovered that he had served with Sam Skelson’s father all those years ago.

“It’s incredible to think that both of their sons ended up on a flight together too. It’s also worth noting that I’m wearing my dad’s old flight deck jacket that he wore in the original photograph.”

Harvey’s shipmate Sam is a Leading Air Engineer Technician who’s spent eight years in the Fleet Air Arm and lives in Dorset. As for their dads, Gaz Lewis has settled on the Isle of Wight while Andrew Skelson, now 62, lives in Leicester.