What a great piece of work Ned.
This year there have been some busy times for some teams in Scottish Mountain Rescue as COVID-19 restrictions eased and people got back out there but unfit after months of sitting at home! Some of us were unfit too and could have done with a helicopter ride but that wasn't to be. The UK SAR Helicopter Service has been operating under a sensible range of COVID-19 restrictions and that means keeping their distance from us and other 'SAR stakeholders'. They have been busy and done some great work. Just a few days ago I watched Rescue 151 do a very long winch, with HI-line, out of a river gorge with high surrounding tree cover, with their usual careful professionalism. In my patch at least, we have fortunately not had any of the big searches that require large scale helicopter deployment. As the year draws to a close, we can see the prospect of some of the restrictions unrolling during the coming months.
2021 started with our friends at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency being all stoked up and ready to go with the bid process for the 2nd generation SAR aviation contract. That stalled for undisclosed reasons (when it got to the stage that a government minister had to use some big words). However, 6 weeks later the UKSAR2G process was again good to go and has been progressing steadily, though rather invisibly much of the time, through the year. Watching closely! A contract award is expect during Autumn 2022. The remaining bidders are Bristow Helicopters Limited and EEA Helicopters Operations B.V (CHC). The usual suspects.