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Old 28th January 2026 | 16:42
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Northernstar
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Joined: Jul 2006
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From: The 4th dimentia.....
Whilst Sikorsky may have dropped the ball when proposing S92, they failed to provide performance data but it was between S92 and AW101 by that stage of the process, there is clear demonstration in Tromsų, and now Svalbard of the SAR capability of the airframe, and it is purely a SAR function here.
Therefore it is not a case of apples and oranges. AW101 in Norway is purely a SAR airframe and only available for SAR tasking. That is 330Sqn's job.
Serviceability of Portugal AW101 is horrific, on occasion sub 20%. There are plenty of former Portugal Air Force SAR AW101 crew in the offshore arena now to provide their opinion.
Clearly the NAWSAR airframes are vastly superior in many ways, but at what cost? What is the unit price and hourly operating cost of the asset? CHC Norway crew will argue heavily that their S92 performance has never fallen short of the mission requirement, SAR and only SAR.
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