Certainly not criticising the SAR boys, but ref:
Maybe the Chinook could take on SAR standby duties 24/7
I see from my logbook for almost exactly 11 years ago to the day that I went with the rest of our standby Chinook crew on a SAR task from Odiham to 260 nm SW of Cork - MV Christaniki or something like that. We were also used to back up the SAR boys in the FI from time to time.
Sadly, the Cork task was the last time I ever flew with Jon Tapper - greatly missed.