Crab@etc,
I found your first paragraph unnecessarily hostile, and demeaning to the AAC operators in N Borneo.
I recently returned from Loan Service with the RBAirF (Air Wing? wossat?), and remember 2 occasions which may be of interest to you. The first, while I was out of country on leave, involved a nighttime callout 80nm+ N of Bandar. The Bruneian duty crew - a very SAR-uncurrent Blackhawk foursome - declared themselves unable to comply; probably quite rightly in view of the state of their training. The AAC at the other end accepted the task and carried it out successfully. Now, you can argue the merits or otherwise of night decks without coupled-everything and 20 hours training per month, but the fact is that they did it.
The other occasion was (yet another) army exped in trouble in Lowes Gully near Gg Kota Kinabalu, across the border in Sabah. Again, the AAC launched and effected a successful rescue not only of the original survivors but, I believe, of a couple of Central Europeans who were grateful of the extract but miffed at having to leave their kit behind.
Now, I agree that both undertakings may have been a lot easier and stress-less if the operators practised constantly for these tasks and little else. However, your dismissal of their skills without full knowledge of recent events is unacceptable to me.
Oh, and hovering over a jungle clearing in Temburong in the middle of a thunderstorm is easily as challenging as anything I ever did around the coasts of the UK...
Don't be so easily baited by the last line in Muff Cup's wind-up - he may be right when he says that a paraffin budgie isn't always necessary, but a more reasoned, less aggressively impetuous reply might get your message across better.