I still manage to speak on a fairly regular basis to a few mates on 84. Generally, the boys are quite happy with their lot, given that the idiotic decision to go COMR remains. (LJ has given up, by the way and gone to pastures new, at least if it's who I think it was). Anyway, the 412 seems to be an aircraft that the boys are quite happy to get. They are getting some nice kit with it, such as higher skids, flir, wx radar, radalt hold etc. The feeling is that it will be a nice machine to fly. The boys are less chuffed at the prospect of working with non-military groundcrew. The Sqn has a vast amount of secondary duties, and the gc's do a lot of them. These will all transfer to the aircrew. That is not to mention the 16flt aac task that they will pick up. Basically, the boys will be working non-stop 24/7/365 - it will not be a good sqn to be on. It would be interesting to see what other military ppruners would make of all of their gc's becoming civvies, and the increased workload that goes hand in hand with it.
