The SAR-H programme is all about value for money over the 30 year contract -so where possible you don't spend money you don't need to if its not in the customer's requirements, or contract yourself into uncertainty which might lead to unexpected bills. Once the contract is signed- thats it for the 30 years! So if a base is forecast to be too expensive (particularly as compared to the other 11) - best you move down the road to no effect on SAR ops but immense improvement in cost of operation.
As for medevacs - yes they are in the requirement too...once in the publc domain people will be surprised just how detailed the requirements are and how demanding (rightly so) they are on the contractor. That said - as the air ambulance system improves further (perhaps in to night ops) than the requirement on the SAR-H service may reduce - we shall see. Remember too that the NHS/DofH pays the MoD/DfT for the Medevac service using SAR heloe (mostly at night) and has done for many years - so that will not change either.
As for Chiv and Boulmer on daylight only - the rescue stats for many years show a very limited need for night ops close to those bases compared with all the other (high risk) areas in the UK which are closer to the other 10 bases. Indeed most of the time the rescue provision is by our immensely capable RNLI (we have more lifeboats per coastal mile than any other nation on earth and they do 20 times more maritme rescues than the SAR helo service per annum)) and the coast guard cliff rescue teams, as well as ever increasing police and air ambulance assets. In a contracting game where value for money is all to the customer it is essential that "non essential" resources are not scoped into the contract which over 30 years would add considerably to the cost.....in a fixed price (inflation proofed) budget which although very large is not open ended. While I personally think HMG should have paid for a 24 hr service out of these places as a contingency but it looks as though this is not going to happen unless the incoming government is prepared to fund the SAR-H budget by the few percent more to make it so. Remember if it were to happen there would be a need for a few more aircrews, relevant spares holdings and probably at least 1 more aircraft....so it is in the multi million cost arena over 30 years).
What we also don't know yet is how many cabs will be in the total Soteria SAR-H S92 fleet -so that will indicate what flexibility there might be to generate additonal ac beyond the 12 that will be on nominal standby across the UK. I think most people will be impressed with the availabilty requirements placed on Soteria from its standby aircraft, and what penalties are in the contract to incentivise availability levels way above that previously achieved by single aircaft at each base. For years excellent military first standby aircraft availability has always relied on the use of 2 or sometimes 3 aircraft (or more in the RN's case!) at each base ....a much better ratio is achieveable with modern platforms operating under a EASA approved engineering regime. Watch this space.....
Cheers
Last edited by Tallsar; 10th Feb 2010 at 20:16.