how is this sustainable now with fewer crews?
Leopold,
You're quite right - it won't be easy! The funny thing is that it's a long time since all the flts had 5 full crews, and in fact 4 full crews would be an improvement for at least one flight - so it clearly is possible to manage with 4, even if 5 makes things much easier. I understand that the SAR Force hierarchy is attempting to redress the downsizing (and I hope they succeed), but the reality is that the downsizing is a theoretical move as we've been coping with 4 crews for quite some time.