Bristow inherited a sizeable number of very professional, very well trained rearcrew (winchmen and winch Ops) from the RAF and RN when they took the contract - but a number of those guys were on the mature side and injury, retirement, illness etc gives a natural wastage.
A number of winchmen moved up to winch op positions which is why Bristow were recruiting paramedics to train as winchmen - I believe this has worked generally due to very careful selection and good training.
But, Bristow were supposed to create a training school - expensive stuff so it didn't happen - and now they are running out of ex-mil experience to call on.
The aspiration, as I understand it, is to create that training school at Lee on Solent which would be excellent but expensive.
If they don't spend the money, they will run out of technical rearcrew in the new UK contract - not to mention having other, new contracts to service.
They have such a wealth of rearcrew training expertise inherited from the mil that it seems a no-brainer to train ab-initio winchmen and winch ops, not only for UK SAR but the other contracts around the world.
Thanks Crab, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled and hopefully be seeing some progress on this soon. I'd like to think with my rearcrew experience so far that I'd stand a good chance at an ab initio Winch Op position. Does anyone know what Bristow are like to work for? I've heard things like they aren't great at understanding family circumstances/commitments, and that within SAR you are expected to cover at any UK base? Don't know how true what I've heard it is. But I have learnt in life that what you do is not as important as who you do it for!