Vecvec and freeride - I have never said our serviceability is good - quite the opposite, it is appalling and part of it is that we overmaintain our aircraft. This poor performance is the main reason we will be civilianised as it just costs too much to keep our aging Sea Kings going.
The RN tend to use SAR as a rest tour and many pilots only do one tour on it - the RAF SAR force has a high proportion of SAR pilots with several thousands of hours on type and in role so maybe the RAF and civvy standards are closer and the RN lag behind?
As to the civilian serviceability - if you don't fly the aircraft, it needs no servicing and therefore it is always available. Can you put your hand on your heart and tell me a U/S aircraft has never been declared 'on state' just to keep the figures looking good and the contract running smoothly?
I know that Lee uses 2 engineers on shift when we have 10 at Chivenor but we have 2 aircraft to keep going (in an effort to produce a 2nd standby which we are required to do - not so at Portland or Lee) as well as military tasking and a Mk3A OCU to run.
The playing field is not level in this game of privatisation and the military always looks more expensive until you look at all the other stuff you get from the mil operation (all the other Sea King jobs at Culdrose for example)