Droopystop - if I come across as crabby, it is not because I have any beef with the civvy SAR crews at all. The SAR related threads have all tried to compare the capability and cost of military SAR (especially RAF) with that of the existing Bristows S61 at the 4 MCA flights in UK.
In order to back up their opinions on how cheap civvy SAR is, various posters have claimed that the capability of mil and civvy is the same (this is not knocking the skills and commitmment of the MCA crews at all). The capability of the S61 with its equipment fit does not match the RAF Sea Kings in all areas and the crews get a third of the training hours - these facts are conveniently forgotten when the mud slinging starts.