To be fair to both sides of the camp the degree to which you have been exposed to fog-flying will colour your judgement. Remember the crabs were first exposed to Sea King Ops in an RN environment - an Anti Submarine environment. They no doubt learned to be confident in foggy days because we had come to terms with those conditions many years before.
When the fleet depends on you protecting them from submarine threats you need a real day-night all-weather capability. The Fleet AIr Arm developed that capability to the point that we had systems and trained pilots capable of flying the mission totally blind in fog at night from the moment you disappeared over the side of the ship into the inky gloom til the moment you returned and landed back on board. Gaining the confidence in the systems and the training is a very important step towards being able to add SAROPS to the list of capabilities. Remember for us SAR was a SECONDARY role that we were all trained for and all expected to do well at despite this not being our primary activity.
I am not surprised that SAROPS are conducted in fog and conducted safely and effectively, it is merely an extension of the skills the RAF were given in those early days of the 1970s by crews (RAF & RN) who had the skills and the confidence to take it on with all the benefits of a 'looker' on the radar (search radar not weather radar). Remember that RAF SAR is a PRIMARY role, that's all they do so they have the opportunity to polish the basic fog-flying skills and can do it well and do it safely.
Epiphany holds a view that I identify with whole-heartedly and I don't criticise him for holding it. We all need to know and understand our own limitations and because I believe Epiphany comes from a military rather than a naval background he would not have had the opportunity the allow fog-flying to become an every-day event. If you are not trained to work in fog then don't go there.
Now do as the headmaster says, stop this 'mine is bigger than yours' nonsense and lets return to a more interesting discussion.
G.
