How did the RAF cope before they haad NVG? NVG only came in earnest in the last part of the 80's/early nineties so the Sea Kings and Wessex had been ploughing around for a long time before NVG - quite sucessfully too. The rules will eventually allow civvy SAR crews to fly using NVG to the same extent that the mil do now. It's just a matter of time. It will probably be that the mil will retain an element of the new crew composition so they will be there to set and maintain the standard of NVG flying that the regulators will require. From then on the civvy crews will gain the necessary experience and the rest will be history with the experience base being transferred.