Why in the UK do Police and HEMS twins not have winch trained crew and winches?
Fair question, ChippyChop, as that's how it's done in your neck of the woods, but here are a few reasons why not in the UK:
1. After you've added Tetra comms, Skyshout, Nightsun, FLIR camera system, Tracker etc to a police-operated basic light twin, there's very little spare payload for rescue hoist, survivor and useful fuel.
2. Recurrent training on a HEMS / police unit is minimal, whereas training covers the majority of the flying on a dedicated SAR unit. Police / HEMS budgets would have to be significantly increased to cater for this (now is a bad time nationally to propose this...).
3. Any increase in recurrent training commitment would probably mean a reduction in availability for 'primary role' police / HEMS work.
4. Initial SAR training would probably be prohibitively expensive for police or HEMS operators under the current model.
5. The UK (mainland, at least) has a dedicated SAR service already that fills all the gaps described in points 1-4 above. Duplication is unlikely to be cost-effective.
E99