Lt Fubar - they will fly for more than 10 years if they have appropriate airframe/rotor and avionics modifications - the airframe hours are very low compared to many S-61s in service. Even if they don't get an upgrade, the Out of Service Date is 2017 at the earliest.
I have been told the Merlin cabin is excellent for SAR but the fact remains that the trend towards higher disc loading for modern helicopters gives fierce downwash. A SAR helicopter is simply a delivery system for a winchman - if he cannot do his (often very difficult and dangerous) job properly because he and the casualty are sitting in a man-made tropical storm, then you have to say the important part of the job has been ignored.
I know the easy answer is to hover higher but you can't hover accurately without references and the higher you go the further you are away from them which degrades the stability of the winching platform and again makes the winchman's job more difficult/dangerous.
Skyepup - that observation was made by a senior RAF officer in 2002 or 3 at the SARForce conference - everything the MCA did was clearly with the aim of becoming more like the USCG, hence the desire to control all the SAR assets.