E8ter..we are in angry agreement with each other I see.....save to say SDSR2015 is a long way away...and all those "buy back issues" etc will be seen in yet another (cutting?) light by then.....there is a case for continued mil investment in UK based rotary (IMO a transformed SARF)...depending on what roles and military style requirements you place on them, including their inter-departmental use too...an issue not addressed as yet except in the narrow SAR-H construct and which did little to address this properly. Another issue they could have tackled was vfm fixed wing provision too...and how sad the inevitable MoD protectionism of the Nimrod based capability now looks. Maybe it will ever be so given the UK Government's sad record on sorting inter-departmental issues effectively, despite all the ministerial rhetoric to the contrary.