Context
This feature is labelled to distinguish Australian, UK, international, historical and externally reported activity. Those contexts are not interchangeable.
An operational first
Glamox reports that a US Coast Guard helicopter completed the first night landing by a foreign-partner aircraft on a Royal Navy Batch 2 Offshore Patrol Vessel, using the Helicopter Visual Landing Aid System aboard HMS Trent.
The landing took place off Miami during aviation training for day and night operations.
The trial demonstrated that the landing aid could support a coalition aircraft operating from an unfamiliar flight deck. Glamox links that flexibility to missions in which partner aircraft may need to use the ship, including disaster-relief and aid operations in the Caribbean.
The delivery connection
The same Glamox account states that the system was installed aboard HMS Trent in 2025 by its customer du Pré Marine, working in a wider delivery environment that included UK Defence Equipment & Support and UK Docks Marine Services.
Glamox describes the HVLAS as a complete LED flight-deck lighting system. Its stabilised horizon bar keeps a visual reference aligned despite ship movement, and its three-colour glide-path indicator tells an approaching pilot whether the aircraft is on the correct path, too high or too low.
Deck-edge lights and focused beam lines add precise position cues in low visibility and during night-vision-goggle operations. The source also records military-grade Night Vision Imaging System navigation lights for HMS Trent and HMS Spey, placing the landing aid within a broader aviation-lighting package.
The milestone is presented as an outcome of wider UK and international work, not as an Australian project claim.