Muff Coupling and Sloppy - are you really going to try and pretend that what the AAC does in Brunei is SAR? Sitting in a hover winching a broken pongo out of a jungle clearing is not exactly running the full spectrum of SAROPS - would the AAC like to do a night deck on a sinking boat at the extreme of range and recover a dozen people? Not a chance in hell. Would you like to describe the extensive winch operating and winchman training that AAC crews are given before operating in Brunei - no probably not as they are only taught the very basics of winch operating (there is no winchman) by a Bristows pilot!
Any clown can kneel in the door and winch in and out (me included) but providing a professional winch operator who can cope with all aspects of SAROPs takes a lot of training which is why we do it the way we do.
Try talking to someone who has got a medal for a SAR job in Brunei (PC at MW) for example and he will tell you how f***ing hard it is without specially trained crews.
As for Belize - the AAC managed to get the Pumas out by claiming they could do all the jobs there with a Gazelle. This was much cheaper and was therefore carried out by a cost conscious MOD. The problem was that single pilot, single engine NVG clearings were not a clever idea and Lynx had to be sent to do the job instead. The Lynx is many things but it is not a SAR aircraft (homers? winch? stretcher carrying?) so please don't pretend that the role is anything like SAR.
The ex AAC pilots who have joined the RAF and gone SAR have all come to realise that the SAR role is very demanding and requires an extensive level of knowledge and training that the AAC cannot match.
The only reason that the 212 is going to Belize is because the Lynx is too expensive to operate there. Do please feel free to get a tour there and try a night letdown to an overwater hover and then pick up an object in the water (without crashing). Then come back and regale us with tales of how easy SAR is.