PS. As for airframe availability, we all know how short of airframes we are but one has to wonder how we only manage to generate a third of the fleet (J) as serviceable/deployed at any one time. Perhaps if the eng lines were properly manned we'd be able to generate more aircraft.... If only there were lots of ME engineers soon to be looking for jobs
Stoppers - you're right. Maybe we could generate more airframes if we had the engineers!
As for 'Herk SAR' - we could always stop the ageing Ks doing anything else and put them into the low fatigue SAR cover role for the next 3 years.
Buy some more ASRA kits and train the remaining crews in AR/drop procedures.
Might just fill the gap until MRA4
