bolkow.
The fleet was added to with the Sea King Mk3a - the main differences to the crew being the avionics [much better apart from a little thing called the force sensing links, however, I believe these were re-worked eventually and they are better now - Crabb??]
Eric Ferret
The SAR-H competition does raise the bar somewhat from what the current Sea King and S61 fleet can offer - strictly speaking from the Sea King/S92 and AW139 comparison as it is this that is used as the bench mark not what we had at the beginning of 2007]. So, its not because they are old - although that has to be a factor as the older they get the more expensive it is to maintain - it is a capability based competition and thus looks to improve on what we have now.
It is open to debate on how to improve on what we have now. As I have said before, there are a lot of people in many of the the consortia who recognise the value that the civil side bring to the party AND the value the military bring to the party. It is finding that balance that they are all trying to do right now to offer solutions to the IPT making the selection.
Q Crabb.