It will be interesting to see where the proposed sites are to be able to cover the same areas with 2 less helicopters. It's not as if they can play the same card that MCA used in UK about having new faster helicopters and needing fewer bases.
Chickens are currently coming home to roost with the MCA's 10-base solution. The 10-base solution document was written 12 days before the Contract Notice was published, that being a period when a lot of things were rushed! First problem was that it is 10 chosen from a set of 12 that had "evolved" rather than been selected logically. Second problem was that the differing total risk profile of different types of jobs were not taken into account when making the selection: it was only based on the lives saved amongst persons assisted. Many people would be shocked to discover that it is by a hair's breadth that Boulmer went instead of Lossiemouth (Inverness).
So it is possible to make significant errors with this stuff even when considerable effort is being made to get it right in a balanced way. If, on the other hand, your priority is pleasing every Air Corps veteran in the country then you are obviously going to mess this up.
An extra 20 Million a year for fewer assets? Someone is taking the p*ss.
Maybe it's the cost of NVIS implementation, including processing Irish citizenship for the instructors.
