Originally Posted by
turniphead
Re : 1 hour to Bleriot-Plage...
Where is the line of demarcation between English and French rescue services? FIR Boundary for aircraft or mid channel or what?
Does RNLI have views on efficiency of French services and what is the degree of co-operation and co-ordination between the two countries (especially when a broadcast MAYDAY on 121.5 is made?)
Dreadful thought if both French and UK services intercept the mayday call and then dither about who is going to respond!!
There is a line roughly down the centre of the channel, clearly visible on Google Earth. Surprised you haven't seen it from your cockpit!
In fact there is strong, close, intimate and effective co-operation with the French (and Dutch) with us helping them, and them helping us. For example we sent a boat near to Calais when their asset was on another job. The French also task the Channel Island lifeboats. It is about saving lives, after all. Similarly the two coastguards for the most part put aside national boundaries.
As to efficiency, the RNLI is the best in the world in every respect (not many British things you can say that about, especially Cricket Teams). Everybody else comes second. No particular views about the French
You might also be interested to know that we sell our de-commissioned lifeboats to third, and not-so-third world countries, where they continue to save lives, even though some are pretty long in the tooth.