Hi Deliverance - perhaps I'm being a bit thick here but can't wrap my brain around quite what your're trying to say altogether.
My points above where effectively my own views on what an ideal approach to sorting out the future of UK SAR helos might be - particularly with regard to basing etc. As for the SAR-H PFI - well there's another matter - is it ultimately value for money that the taxpayer forks out much more over a 25-30 year period for a service that would be cheaper to purchase if we did it ourselves and paid up front - no I don't think so!! But thats the way Government has gone (as with many other major programmes) as it has insufficent immediate cash to do anything else (certainly now!!) without a complete priority volt face and even greater tax rises than we can expect next year anyway...and so here we are...
As for what level of service will result from the SAR-H contract - well I have to disagree in the most part. While there is no doubt that transfering from a majority military ownership will reduce ultimate flexibility to get a much larger military owned and manned fleet airborne in extremis ( and bear in mind that has rarely happened in the numbers I am thinking of) - then yes there will be a reduction in ulimate capability in this respect. However, I am in little doubt that despite some major criticisms I could make of the conceptual and policy approach of the SAR-H customer community, other detail of the requirement as I understand it has been rigorous enough to ensure as good and in some respects better capability than we have at present- Do not underestimate either the flexibility and efficiencies that will come from having a single all weather long range modern fleet operated across the UK by one organisation under one tasking authority - its never happend before, and given my own experience, its been a long time coming. This in itself will be one vast capability improvement over whats gone before.
My points in the previous messages were my own exaspiration that so much more could have been achieved if the UK Customer had given a proper open book approach to any bidders to resolve the future - Oh how niave I am!!. It was never going to happen given the funding issues and politics involved sadly. Take a look at how Norway is approaching the same problem - some lessons to learn there I think!
Cheers
