Ops Norm
you are quite right, the night surveillance in a helicopter was training on the run and is a good operation, working (well used to, not sure these days) with some bulky and sometimes inefficient electronic gear. The crew co ordination was good, especially doing a low level night sun run on a trawler on a moonless night. Working with FLIR and NVGs all ground breaking.
QR staff have provided some quality check and training in the past and Reef used to have a very good C&T pilot.
These days I hear all Observer and winch op check and training is carried out in house, as some outside agencies have given a few bad reports and recommeded more training for some.
Hopefully the boys and girls up there get the wages the are asking for and deserve.
I wonder if it's still the case, if anyone doesn't want to live in Cairns (engineers excepted) they have to pay their own way to Cairns to catch the flight to Horn Is.