G-LYNX

G-LYNX, constructor's number 102, was assembled at Yeovil in September 1978 and registered on 6 November that year. It first flew on 18 May 1979. Westland used it as a company demonstrator, showing it at the 1979 Paris Air Show and on a Scandinavian tour that October.

Gem 4 engines were fitted over the winter of 1979–80. Tours of Sweden, Switzerland and the Middle East followed, then equipment trials until 1983. After two years in store it was reworked in mid-1986 for a speed record attempt. Changes included Gem 60 engines with water-methanol injection, early BERP rotor blades and a WG.30 tailplane and fins.

On 11 August 1986 pilot Trevor Egginton and flight test engineer Derek Clews flew a 15 km course over the Somerset Levels near Glastonbury. They averaged 400.87 km/h (249.09 mph), about nine per cent faster than the previous record, held by a modified Mil Mi-24. The rotor tips reached Mach 0.97.

The helicopter appeared at Farnborough in 1986 and 1988. In 1991 it flew with LHTEC T800 engines in desert camouflage as ZB500. By mid-1992 it was in store, minus engines and transmission. It reached The Helicopter Museum on 19 January 1995, on loan for spares, and joined the permanent collection in January 2000.

From 2007 AgustaWestland returned it to record configuration, a job of more than 25,000 man-hours. It left Yeovil for Weston on 8 July 2011 and was unveiled on 11 August 2011, the record's 25th anniversary. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers gave it an Engineering Heritage Award on 25 September 2014.

Displayed at Weston-super-Mare in its 1986 record configuration, with BERP-tipped blades and the WG.30 tail unit fitted for the attempt.