Plus we don't get many hurricanes...
Yet, TC, yet! The weather is changing they say... we may be getting hot n hi in December yet!
Going back a few posts to that comment on the Met getting a hoist. No inside line here, but I got the impression that the attitude was that the craft could carry it so get it and [as the cost was relatively small] try out the methods rather than just talk about them.... same with the rappelling gear.
It is possible that the pressure came from the firearms boys... brilliant idea
moving them out of Lippitts Hill where they were alongside the ASU and plonking them in a different county also outside London, badly served by roads and twice as far as they were from the centre of the Capital.
So now to get a team airlifted in they have to send the helicopter that is 14 miles from the centre out to the south east about [I guess] 20 miles to bring them back West ... Yes well thought out that one.
Last time they went down this winching road in 1980 they had a single winch for the Bell 222's but took it off the day after the unit launch put it in the store [until they had time to consider its worth] where it stayed until the 355s arrived. I guess it went to Portugal with the 222s!