It will be interesting to see if the official HMG announcement on GAP matches the (well founded?) rumours on here!
As for the supposed winners... it wouldn't be a surprise if Bristow returned to the UK SAR stage at this juncture. However, looking at some recent posts on here, they will not have a chance to prove their new service as it will not have entered service before the long term UK SAR decison has been made. GAP requires a service from July 2013, whereas the DfT's online competition schedule for the long term UK SAR service states that this competition will be done and dusted by Feb 2013. We shall have to await any announcement sometime this February as to how many companies and consortia have been invited to compete. I would be very surprised if only Bristow, CHC and Bond have applied!
