Originally Posted by
DOUBLE BOGEY
Crab I get it.............I just don’t like it!
Without getting me knob out and waving it about.... I have done my fair share of difficult tasks, in the dark, alone (apart from my 2 paramedics), in an unstabilised machine over inhospitable terrain, with no surface lighting trying to help injured people. Not once but thousands of times. And then JAR-OPS came and along with it some new rules. AFCS, sensible limits and more equipment and some aviation training for the medics. After so much risk taken, so much luck expended, it took me a few years to realise the true value of regulation and sensible rule making.
Crab you are right, we have not done the same job. You had a state of the art helicopter (not a clapped out old 355), you had a stick buddy trained and capable of supporting you (not a couple of wide eyed passengers). You had a complex tasking and tracking centre (not a NATS box), you had a winch and winchman, (I had to balance my skid toes on the rocks to let the medics out and the casualty in), hell I bet you even had a real NAVAID (not a Trimble Transpack riveted to the glare shield that vibrated like a whores handbag).
Your trouble is you really believe you are the one, the only one who has “Been there and done that” And my trouble is, given the utter ****e you often spout, I can’t believe you have ever been there at all.
I have learned, thankfully not the hard way, that rules and limits are my friend. They exist to guide me on my way. And many years ago I recognised that my real job, that of a professional aviator, is to follow them to the best of my knowledge and ability. I don’t alway get this bit right......but deep inside I really want too. I am risk averse. I am careful. I am mindful that my passengers are victims of my decisions and skills.
You on on the other hand preach heresy to me. I will never get you or understand where you are coming from.
So I ask you the very simply question. Would you have ended up on that dash cam or would you have turned back before this option vanished. What really does the Crab think and believe?
Double Bogey - I'm sensing that maybe you don't like Crab? I've never met Crab, though I know that he exists, since I retired just (I think) before he joined the RAFSAR force, or Wing as I prefer to remember it, but I share his belief that you just don't get it!
During the '70's I flew SH Wessex in Germany (18Sqn) then (72 Sqn) in NI before spending 22 years on 22, 202, and 78 Sqn's flying SAR Wessex and Sea Kings. I was a Flight Commander for 4 years (hence chief authoriser - but all our Captains were self authorising) in Scotland and again Flt Cdr in Wales and Falklands at various times as a Spec Aircrew pilot. We hover taxied in cloud on occasions, sometimes up mountains, sometimes at night too. It's what we did, just like our predecessors on the bloody Whirlind, (which was always safe single engine as they used to boast! That btw was a joke). I know of no aircraft loss due to this practice and the spirit and airmanship that achieved this is what made RAFSAR the best SAR outfit in the world at the time. Only the RN would disagree with that, but they were only amateurs!
So DB, get over it and move on.