It is rare that I am moved to post, but I am driven by the ill informed load of cobblers that have been written on this thread.. .. .FJJP. .84 Sqn lost it's UN role in 1986 and retains it's blue band as a political casevac role which is a bit of a wast of time in reality. The Cyprus government have no say on 84 Sqn's establishment in Cyprus, in fact, under the Treaty of Establishment, I think that you will find that the UK has powers way beyond that which are now considered acceptable.. .. .Yellow & Red. .I agree the Cypriots are a good bunch of guys and want to do their own SAR, but they have one basic snag, they do not train. Whilst they maintain an acceptable standard of capability for certain tasks, when the SAR jobs are beyond them, they call for the RAF. At least they know their limitations.. .. .The Seaking is only marginally younger than Walter, has a better performance than the Wessex at a similar fuel weight, and has the benefit? of being in service with the mainstream SAR Force. The airframe does not exist which meets all of the pipe dreams of the job spec, so lets go for the best of the bad job and stay military. 84 Sqn is probably the most difficult sqn in the Air Force to put a support contract on because of it's most diverse tasking. If you want flexability, stay military, you want cheap, pay the monkeys and go civvy.. .There is not the money to go for a Rolls Royce solution to the problem, so lets ignore the chair bound army staff officers driving the spec, and go for a solution which offers some compatabilitiy (albeit of a museum nature) which at least will maintain some flexability.. .. .All this banter is a waste of time anyway, cause we will get the cheapest solution. Flexability is an excuse for cockups.. .. .Head down, look out for the flack.