Chaps, I think we might have a small amount of confusion creeping in. No one, that I can see, on this thread has really attacked the Police units. They do a different job to the one this thread relates to.
Secondly, the military training is good and has matured through hard learned lessons from all over the world - remember its better to learn from someone else's experience than your own! However, now it is as cost effective as possible but still delivering the required standard as dictated by the military end user - and before someone attacks that statement I mean we pay as low a rate as possible for the training we demand is provided not, we could do it completely differently and cheaper see next paragraph!
The future, well, we could change the way we do business. You could stream line the training by serving as a winchmen for the first 3-years then moving on to become a winch operator. This will allow a huge amount of on the job training. Remember, we pile a load of training into the winch operator at the moment because he has to be able to do the job on his very first shift - as do the rest of the crew - but, he is the pivotal lynchpin to a crew working well or just adequately - no I am not a winch op I am a pilot!
Do we over train? Possibly, but you have to look at the raw material we start with. You can't write an essay if you don't know the alphabet! Please, do not red pen this post like others on the military forum!!!! So, we start with the very basics and work up to how to safely cut corners. If you go straight to the operational stuff you DO miss why your doing something and it could come back to bite! Or not? And there is the question? Overtrain and cover all bases, or take a risk and only train for some?
Now, who can do the training in the future?
Well, there are other places to train, there are places here too. But with SAR-H we will inevitably have a joint civil and miltary school - yes, there will be military personnel in future SAR.
Lets try constructive comments rather than we are better than you or vice versa - we are all the same we just do it differently [well a bit differently].