Bill - the problems at Valley are not because they have 3s instead of 3As - it is all about ethos, pay and experience. Initially AW convinced themselves they could run a SAR flt and an OCU with a third less people than the RAF did - they couldn't and had to recruit more people but not before confidence had been lost in the engineering management. The pay is not sufficient to attract the desired level of capability and there are only a certain number of people who want to work at Valley - the same guys jump from FW contract to RW and back depending on who is offering the best deal. Then end result is that whilst many of the engineers might be good chaps, the management is often found wanting and there is a lack of the work ethic essential for SAR - handbagging snags to the next shift is almost de rigeur there and trying to pull the wool over the SAR captain's eyes to avoid having to do work on the aircraft is not unusual.
The 3As are more reliable and have far fewer avionic snags but they are still Sea Kings and break just as often but Chivenor's excellent availability is all down to superb engineers and management - we were extremely lucky that so many good guys transferred and stayed there.
Post SARH there will be fewer engineers required because that seems to be the industry standard but the whole SAR force will need experienced quality engineers and the contractor will have to pay appropriately for them.