Hilife - your figures are skewed - the RN might have 15 Mk5s but only use 2 per flight (Culdrose and Prestwick) to provide SAR - the others are for MCT and other training.
Similarly the RAF uses 2 aircraft per flight = 12 with 4 providing an OCU, 2 in the Falklands and the remainder in depth servicing (due to the age of the aircraft).
So to provide UK SAR for 8 flights the military only needs 12 RAF and 4 RN aircraft - ie 2 per flight which is pretty much what will be provided post SARH.
SARH will cost £5bn+ 2 new aircraft for each of the exisiting 12 SAR flights even at £50million a throw is only £1.2 bn - add maybe half again to include spares and extras and you have £1.8Bn - is it really going to cost £3.2Bn in fuel and wages to run 12 SAR flts over the next 25 years?
I accept that civilianisation is going to happen since the MoD can't see anything except Afghanistan and don't care about SAR but this process has gone off the rails and is not good value for money for the taxpayer.