As an ex fire officer on the ground receiving the A/A, what we found was that the ariving unit would do his own recay where we could we would run out hose lines if we had them spare to facilitate some form of fire cover for the ariving aircraft but in experiece that we had with the hems unit, we did not have the time or the man power to be able to assist greatly in any form of help to the unit and most of the time the pilot made his own plan.
You will find also that although fire service and other units would love to be able to offer assistance to the ariving aircraft manpower is so tight these days, that they just do not have the people there to give up to additional tasks.
likewise in the earliar thread which service should provide the manpower and who would pay the bill. as we are all aware that the air ambulance is the best form of support for ground crews but the bean counters dont see it that way and would throw up all sorts of arguments / regulations etc that may be detramental to what the idea of this discusion is all about.
It is usefull for the ground crews to have a full understanding of Helicopter ops as they work with them a lot but from there stop
nice idea in principal but leave to the commader of the aircraft would be the best plan. that way it stops the bean counters screwing things up.
Sincerely
Bravo 99 (AJB)