LJ. .. .Lets review. .. .Mention has NOT been made that a 3-a autopilot will suffice.. .. .Over many years, it has been demonstrated that the Wessex is an effective day VFR SAR platform. Many people, some no doubt known to you, have demonstrated that with skill and care it can be an effective SAR platform in more adverse conditions. . .. .Therefore the statement that a 3-a autopilot on a SAR cab is "as much use as a chocolate kettle" needs a greater defence than you give it. . .Regarding the VC-10 / IL-62 question.. .If the IL-62 had a full UK CAA certification (chance of a single failure being catastrophic - 1 in 10 to the minus 8 I think is the standard), and the contractor offered me 99.9% despatch reliability, and the operating costs were half of the most beautiful airliner ever, and if what I wanted was the capability of an IL-62, then yes I would take it.. .. .Regarding the Sea King question.. .SK is a cold war relic. The original design was to fight the anti-sub war across the North Atlantic. Its hot & high performance is appalling. The spec for the Wessex replacement must have contained some hot & high perf standards. If you put them up here, I'm sure some SAR boy (SARBoy Loser are you there?) will check the Sea King ODM against them and tell you just what chance you have of complying with GSU standards in the hover with a SK in Cyp.. .. .Regarding the expense.. .Your Sqn runs SAR Standby. Therefore you have at least 3 crews, and knowing the RAF propensity for goldplating the solution, probably 4 or 5. Thats between 9 and 15 aircrew. Your GCs outnumber you 4 to 1. So you have 36 to 60 GCs. For how many aircraft? Any contractor would be bankrupt at that level of manning. A COMR solution requires UK certified aircraft operated by licensed engineers - the work standard should be OK, or the CAA has a lot to answer for (it does, but that's another story). Modern aircraft are orders of magnitude more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than Wessex / SK vintage, thus much cheaper.. .. .Also, if you go SK you will need (assuming 4 crews - see above) 4 extra pilots. Even with the shortcuts being taken from JEFTS to Shawbury thats probably an up-front investment around £8M. You also double your training hours. A S-61 costs about £1500/hr. With the RAF propensity for gold-plating (see above) and given that the SK is a more complex machine, you are probably talking £3k/ hr x 4 pilots x 120? hrs/yr = 1.44M/ yr just in trg costs. Add on 4 x 40k in pay and double it (the usual rule regarding personnel costs) and we are hitting really frightening sums of money before we have ripped the well-worn RN airframes that are presumably being scrapped for good reason to bits and paid Wastelands more telephone numbers to put them back together in a usable state.. .. .Meanwhile, we are closing FJ Sqns, scrapping SHAR, the hospitals are cr@p, the railways are falling apart, the roads are jammed, my tax bill is outrageous and St Tony wants Blair Force One.. .. .Sorry LJ, the numbers don't add up.. .. .With apologies for usurping AGs place in the scheme of things!. .. .Sven