Hi Guys - nice to see your comments.
TOD - I empathise with your comment - of course if I was caught out and had to stay longer in a difficult situation than neccessary I would not be too happy if a helicopter could otherwise be made available(has happened to me by the way... but less of that at the mo). The strategic point though is that there are so many life boats and CG cliff and MR teams that these rescues happen all the time without helos including when the weather is unflyable particualry at the point of rescue, eg, I believe in recent years about 12000 maritme rescues annually to the UK SAR helos >1000 (most of the nearly 2000 annual helo rescues now being "overland".) - and similar is increasingly applying to overland medevacs and rescues as the air ambulance service becomes more effective (albeit daylight only at present.) It is simply not true therefore to suggest as many do that many lives are put in peril by a helo not being availble - some may be made more uncomfortable - but such non SAR helo rescues and transits are by far the higher proportion of rescues in our UK SAR region to date. If I could wave a magic wand and find the very large amount of money to provide resources to rescue all by helo I would most certainly do it - but that is never going to happen and many in difficulties will always have to rely on the non SAR helo rescue means - it has always been so and always will be - where does this argument stop - a SAR baset every 30 miles along the coast? - I don't think so.
Now Crab my friend - while I appreciate your well rehearsed views on the neccesity of Chivenor, I have cringed at some of the semi nonsense gushing out of the local press - it is not helpful to a rational debate on this matter from a professional perspective. I offer the following points: Some if not most of those missons you (and I) have been involved in are done by the helo as a matter of choice as selected by the CG, police and ARRC - not because a helo is truely essential - and as for the local rescues (ie within say 30 miles of Chiv) - it is arguable who would get there first - which of the local lifeboats or the air ambulance would you prefer? Conversely you as well as I have probably watched the Appledore L/B set of on a misson that we felt would have been nice for us to be called out to - and I am sure every SAR flt can reflect on similar circumstances. The main point remains - there is a plethora of rescue services in the UK and many missons do not need the helo as an "essential" resource - helpful as it can be if it is available - and their is not a litany of medical cases as a result reflecting on how the casualties would have been much better if they had been helo rescued instead - or litigation case either! IMO we keep our capaple helos at readiness for the really signicant jobs where their capability is indispensable - for example any inaccesible location (maritime or land), urgent missons where clearly the helo is the speediest response in a genuine life saving or urgent medical situation, or in major incidents as last night so conclusively showed and where the helo can offer real value and essential capability to the situation.
I do not support the argument that the SAR-H requirement will not have sufficent assets acrosss the country on standby to meet the needs of incidents as we saw at Cockermouth. The historic statistics are very indicative as to how likely such surge ops are needed and how many concurrent helo ops are needed elsewhere, and the requirement reflects this - this drives the value for money argument. I will not probe too far on the likely airframe availability arguments - but feel confident that 12 1st standby modern ac are likely to be more available than the present miltiary availability we have seen over at least the last 10 years. Obviously we can never safeguard the future entirely and in every location. Sods law says that you could choose any area of the country for what happened last night and implicit in it means denuding some part of the country of 1st standby cover for a period of time. It is a simple value for money neccesity that a balance has to be struck on how many bases and where and how many platforms you need at readiness to cover the majority but never all of potential rescue circumstances. To second guess where the next "local" rescue is required when a helo is already away is an impossible game -but surely that has always been the case once the standby cab has departed on a misson form its base locale. In due course if op demand really does change signifcantly (NB the Norwegians are predicting a doubling of their rescure requirements over their new procurement timescale once the Artic ice receedes away permanently by 2030) then the SAR-H contract will need amendment to reflect changing circumstances and as required by the government, but at present there appears little of any substantive argument that more than 12 helos at readiness cannot achieve the tasks as often needed and as shown over the last 40 years. As for ad hoc second standby availability - the true cost of this in airframe numbers and peronnel (see EWTD too!) rapidly drive you to an unaffordable contract - and the same would be true of a totally government owend service IMO. My guess is we might see more of last night but less of the maritime oil and fishing stuff as these activites wane substantially. There will always be the time when overall coverage is at risk no matter how many helos you have - 2nd standby or otherwise - on those few occasions (as probably last night) when many (but not all) of the 1st standby ac have deployed clearly on the one hand local capability had dissapeared elsewhere (ie Chiv to Cockermouth), but also ask how often there has then been a need for a local rescue at the denuded flight where the helo was essential, and if so could not be completed by other rescue agencies such as the RNLI etc. If it really does need a helo then one can either diverted from the other main misson (temporarily) or sent form a flight further away - this has always been the case and this will not change under SAR-H. Indeed the situation may well be even more efficent as all 12 standby aircraft will always be available to the same standard as managed by one provider and in close liaison with one controlling agency - the ARCC - this is the 1st time this has been possible in the UK - and will bring some important improvements with it, including a more rapid response in redepolying ac to those bases that might be unserviceable or need reinforcing without any "ownership" issues slowing the process. There maybe only 12 ac on 1st standby required by SAR-H, but none of us yet know how many airframes either of the bidders is putting forward as the total fleet size and therefore what will be available to ensure effective coverage when required across the country and meet the contracted requirements without penalty.
As for your point about the busy nature of Chivenor (the 20minuters eh?
) - well many SAR flights are busy these days for sure, and a few jobs here and there makes little difference to the need for the 1st standby to be available as possible - by the way - how many of those busy jobs needed the 2nd standby?? - I suspect very few. It is also a fact that many flights are busy because they are there and therfore can be called on many of these missons as matter of choice. We all know that similar nodes of intense activity dissappeared when their local flights closed - look at Leuchars, Manston and Brawdy. Some of these jobs were picked up by the remaining bases but many went straight to the other local rescue resources or dissapeared altogther as an urgent rescue requirement. I'm sorry guys but I have always viewed SAR flights as basing facilites for a national capability that can provide area coverage in the broader vicinity not immediate local rescue at short range ie point defence! That is often taken care of as we indicated previously.
By the way - £6Bn was just a sensible guess from previous experience - if the original project budget is £5Bn (and that was 4 years ago!) then inflation and the realities of properly costed bids suggest to me that the actual cost is bound to be higher - £6Bn was a rationale guess for the sake of my argument. I suspect if either bidder is coming in very much higher than that then there will be no SAR-H contract!
Cheers