Hi Crab - yes I think any objective assessment of where the SAR-H overall requirement and constraints have taken us has almost nullified any original aspirations for open minded innovation and providing a solution that delivers as originally concieved (by some anyway!). That said - its only when you come to test many such novel ideas in detail (particulary when the detailed costs are available) that you realise that many such ideas just prove unaffordable without better customer commitment at all decison making levels - and that is just not forthcoming at the moment.
The PIW debate I believe is not a driver for coastal location overall given the broader UK requirements - if that was so we would need many more op bases along the coast to provide the true short range/notice reaction that survival dictates across the UK - while there is a case (and don't I know it for some reason!
) for having a larger number of coastal readiness bases (perhaps simply founded along air ambulance lines for cost and efficiency reasons) this was off the agenda once the 12 base lock down was directed by the SAR-H customer. There are some close mathmatics and costings to be done to get the balance right particularly if you have a mixed fleet and a large number of op locations (NB I do not say bases!), and like it or not, decisions to be made as to which locations would be 24hr all weather and which might be (VMC) daylight only - crewing dictates this if nothing else if the overall budget is to be affordable (never mind if it comes in at some nafarious limit such £5B and is driven by that extraordinarily facile legislation called the EWTD!)
As for all weather recovery to coastal bases - not neccessairly a winning argument these days if the right base recovery aids are provided and on for that odd occasion (lets face it it don't happen that often!)that a diversion is required then suitable prenominated locations are selected by long term planning and agreements - eg Southend for Wattisham - I disagree that it is essential to recover to base to maintain an effective standby posture for a short period until the weather clears if it proves that bad, nice as it can be.
As the guy who fought to prevent Wattisham happening as a location I need no further comments!!
- what a waste of transit time that has proved to be - think of the cost of ownership of such a location over 30 years!! - yet another example of why sticking with the present 12 bases for optimum operation was ridiculous, and from an original decison that was mostly dictated by the need to place an RAF SAR flt on what was then percieved to be an RAF flying base and MoD territory (remember St Mawgan too!) - that insular thinking is not how to produce a UK wide approach to efficient SAR helo cover.
So there we go - I have a work to do - no doubt chat more later
Cheers
