Trg hours
Hi all (and Crab)
RAF SAR, as I understand it (and it's where I fly but not where I belong (which should make my ID obvious to all in the business), allows its crews to train for up to 4 hrs per day, with an allowance to 4:30 for Leconfield and Boulmer when they go mountain training to avoid the transit time limiting useful work.
It is permitted, but not required or enforced, to complete 4 hrs trg in a shift. I tend to do so, because I only get 2 capt shifts each month in which to meet the mandatory trg requirements. In my experience, most crews do about 3.5 hrs trg in a shift if they are not interrupted by operations (or, as has been mentioned, the generic unserviceability of the RAF SAR Force).
We are rule bound as regards training to be achieved. A very serious question for the analysts preparing the future SAR contracts is how much trg is needed. The current RAF standard is undoubtedly required for the low-hours first tourist pilots that form much of the RAF element of UK SAR (else how are they to progress to Op Capt in a reasonable time). It is also required for people like me (actually I think I'm unique) who do the job only occasionally to make sure we are up to scratch. Whether it is required for the majority of the RAF SARF, who have been in the business in their current appointment for 1000 hrs+, or for the RN crews who mostly have been somewhere and done that around the world, or for the civvie SAR crews who are mostly suberbly experienced before they ever came to civ SAR and have been there and done that, is debatable.
All this trg costs money. It improves our SAR capability. The question is what the tradeoff is between better kit and more trg to do the job better.
The future SAR contractor's bid will be the accepted answer to that. The question that the future SAR contractor has to answer has yet to be defined.
Sven