If the MoD employee so much as answers
Tucumseh,
I applaud your championing of the poor MoD employee as victim of circumstances, but this may not be what has happened here...
Will the RAF/RN Sea Kings need replacing/refurbishing?
Will the RW training system cope with having to provide crews for the SAR force which it hadn't expected to have to do in the near future?
How will MOD continue to fund a SAR force it expected to lose - can we expect financial cuts elsewhere to compensate?
Will the current SAR assets remain where they are?
Biggus,
1. Probably, unless the delay is only a year or two (seems unlikely that this mess will get sorted so quickly).
2. Yes, easily - in fact, the extension of Mil SAR is potentially a very good thing for people in the training system who were expecting to find themselves in a Puma/Merlin/Chinook but have been put on indefinite hold
3. ...by not buying the extra Chinooks which were funded by ditching Mil SAR?
4. No idea - one hopes so, but if we can do without an MPA, carriers, etc etc, we may well have to do without 12 SAR helicopter bases.
Here's a solution, far from perfect, but then what is?
Refurb the existing Sea Kings, bring out of storage the pinger ones, mil takes over all SAR bases. If there's enough money (as if!), upgrade/refurb all the Sea Kings to one standard eg Mk 8; if not, make the 3s and 3As into Mk 8s, and the 5s/6s into Mk 9s with less fuel/windows etc. No huge problem if some of the aircraft have shorter legs - base them on the south and east coasts, while the ex-3s/3As do Culdrose up the west coast where the long-range work happens. One organisation, all mil aircrew (some RAF, some RN), contracted engineers, and the force does National Standby and various other Govt tasks as well as SAR. Hey presto!