NVG's intro'd to the RAF Seaking. 92/93. One (2hr) conversion sortie by visiting NVG qual'd QHI.
After that we (the operational crews) just integrated the use of NVG's into all our normal night training.
The NVG SOPS came years later!
Bertie,
Doesn't surprise me that the NVG convex was so brief, but...
Surely at the time, introducing NVG was an improvement to the existing capability, so the fact that it would have taken crews quite some time to get the hang of NVG didn't matter - during that time, little by little, capability was being enhanced. These days, the mil SAR flts have a great deal of NVG experience, and even newcomers, by the time they get captaincy, will have built up a good degree of proficiency at NVG work.
What this means is that, when mil SAR as we know it is scrapped, the time taken for SAR-H crews to get fully used to NVG will be a period of reduced capability as there will be a drop in the standard of what they can achieve compared to what experienced NVG operators can achieve now (whatever training the SAR-H hierarchy provide for their crews cannot instantly create crews fully proficient in NVG use). I would guess (and it's only a guess - please don't hang me!) that it would take longer for civ SAR crews to adapt to overland NVG work than it did mil crews, given that mil crews had done non-NVG overland work before the advent of NVG; a civ crew (through no fault of their own!) will have to learn night mountains and NVG procedures, whereas the RAF crews simply had to integrate NVG into what they already did overland.
No doubt this likely temporary drop in capability will simply be taken on risk...Crab may well be right that there may be a drop in capability for a while, but I don't think think those in charge will get too bothered about it. Oh well!
TOTD