I have been reading this thread for some time and what seems to come across is that those who support the civil side of SAR and who are always having a go at Crab seem to be a mean spirited bunch who take great delight in inferring that Crab and his fellow RAF SAR crews would shirk the responsibility of going sandy side.
The comments about slippers and pipes seem to come up often, mainly from people who don't know what they are talking about. Many SAR crews have done their bit in the SH force and are rightly getting a spell away from the constant deployments.
The rumours are that the civil SAR bases are not particularly fun places to be with infighting, politics and resentment that CHC took over the contract from Bristow’s. Crab may well do well to stay away from such places!
While rivalry and good humoured banter has its place I think some are taking things too far. As has been said al SAR crews are there for one purpose and that is to save life.
2strops