Now I am confused
The C130 will not be holding SAR standby, it's only taking on the role for the Falklands,
What has 1312 Flt been doing for the last 20 odd years then. Does this 'taking on' imply that we were not really doing it before or that it's new for the C130J?
I seem to recall that in a previous time on C130Ks during one of my visits 'down there' we adopted the callsign Rescue XX and popped around 200 miles west, found the correct fishing fleet on radar, vis ident the particular vessel, talked to it on Maritime VHF-FM, directed the Sea King to the correct vessel, and generally floated round as top cover whilst an injured Argentian sailor was picked up and flown to Stanley.
Is this the capability we are talking about as I believe it has been done on numerous occasions?