To be fair, I am not commenting on current ops and the stories were from the last decade - but, I have those stories from very reliable (and multiple) sources so I suggest people stop being quite so precious.
The MCA second standby has been easy to understand - the 1st aircraft is full SAR spec and the second is usually non-FCS, non auto hover, non-FLIR and without a seconds crew to man it.
The RAF 1st and second standby are both full SAR spec (when they are serviceable obviously) and have a seconds crew at RS60.
3Dcam - if you have access to the RCS, which I believe you have, then you know exactly what our serviceability state is.