chopperman
I too would like to stick in my ten pennith worth, firstly please do not confuse the ablities of military and coastguard SAR crews, military crewman are medically and physically fit, they are fully medically trained and maintain their currency in this, they are trained in met, air traffic control, navigation and highly aware of flight safety practices, they have comprehensive knowledge of maps and charts, aviation publications and instructional techniques. most of them have usually served in various conflicts overseas which prepares them for the most challenging conditions imaginable. they constantly practice diver drops,cliff winching, confined area landings, underslung loadlifting, navex and pinex this is all on top of the standard decks and drums which the coastguard think is all that is required for SAR, they are constantly overseen by standards to ensure they all sing from the same songsheet and their medical skills are constantly evaluted and kept up to date.
Their counterparts in the coastguard outfits however are either retired military crews intheir mid to late fifties, lots of experience but their physical ability and medical fitness are rather questionable. or they have been trained by bristows from rampies or public transport winchmen/cabin crew, their training comprises of on the job winch training with little or no met, air traffic or nav skills, apparently some of them have done a dicky cours at RAF valley to tick a box, again these guys are not required to pass any fitness or medical exams to get a job, their medical training is by no means as comprehensive as the military yet they claim to have paramedic status.
I am a firm believer that the calibre of people being hired by Bond are far in excess of those employed by bristow. the winchops are aparently all ex mil sar crewmen with age on their side and the winchmen come from highly proffessional backrounds such as hems paramedics and divers etc, if one or two come from rampies or a painter and decorator then i am sure they must have shown potential to pass the strict criteria demanded by bond.
I think bristow and chc need to take a leaf from bonds book!!
personally if I fancied leaving the military then I am quite positive which outfit I'd rather work for.
and as a survivor in the north sea I think I'd rather have a physically fit young paramedic fish me out rather than a grandpa with his colostomy bag getting in the way!