Sorry Jiffni,
But the simple answer is that they are better at it than us. They get more practise due to their serviceability and from speaking to friends fresh out of the RN training squadron they are trained from day one of joining a Sqn to operate to what you and I know as CAT 3. If you do something your whole career, with experienced people in the left hand seat who have done it all their careers, then it becomes second nature. Also mate, you can't get away from the fact that they do it world wide and not just in one or 2 areas throughout their careers. I was in Belize when these guys were supporting a Royal Marine exercise last year and they just got into the theatre and cracked on....night CASEVAC through the jungle canopy on goggs. I take my hat off to them. We certainly could not have done that (apart from the fact that we did not have a winch....DOH...DOH!) The same goes for the weather stuff...from day one they see pants weather, fly in pants weather and therefore get use to it and manage to work round it. They either land on if it gets that bad, sit in a hover or just bang out IMC (With the IFR kit to allow a proper recovery or letdown over the sea). I would agree with JHC it appears natural to them because that has been their ethos for yonks (and being involved in nearly every operational deployment since the 60'S the operational reality caption combined with what appears to be a strong loyal bond with their customer, means that they just do the job)
Somehow I think that our lords and masters couldn't swallow the increased risk to progress down this route (although the treasury would love it!!) Lets be totally honest Jiffni, how many experienced guys have you got on your Sqn to start this process, all the experienced QHIs I know of are currently in the AH vacuum at Wallop, holding for their course. Sadly, lets look at 654's Lynx on SSII...and that was on an NVG take off for christs sake.....what hope would there have been for an NVG desert landing!!
No gonads on table to cover the 'Duty Of Care' tree hugging, cotton wool wrapping commanders, then unfortunately no new rules for us. Thank god the RN have taken jointery in all the good faith, played the game but when it came to the crunch of effecting their Service ethos and operational ability, someone did have the guts and the spine to stand up and be counted. Well done. I wish that someone would do it for us....I am all in favour of jointery but it appears too many people are trying to expand their own careers on the back of it, rather than striving for best practise.
[ 14 October 2001: Message edited by: The Bonk ]