I don't know what the plan was that these guys had. But there is no way they could raise Scottish unless they were at at least 5000ft in that area. Anything less and it is pretty spotty. And that is the case all the way until you get pretty near the coast on the other side. There are areas where it works at something around the height of the tops plus 1000 and there are areas it doesn't.
So fishbang and his colleagues are often trying to talk to people who cannot hear or need a relay - and within those constraints they do a very good job.
But at the endof the day this is very rugged countryside and you are responsible for what happens. I love madjock worrying about the state of my remains for the next of kin - that frankly is so far down my list of priorities I would never have thought of it!
Yesterday I went flying on a rough turbulent day. I did so in the full knowledge that I was going to remote and rugged places where if something happened I needed to pull off a very good forced landing and faced at best a very challenging walk. It sort of comes with the terriority - and frankly I love it. The scenery and freedom draws me and I enjoy it. Probably very much like the two unfortunate aviators.
Radio? it has its uses. Our Basic service generally in the UK is completely useless. Fishbang and his mates make it worthwhile in terms of search and rescue - but I usually fly far too low to make any practical use of it.
My alternative 'risk management' is a PLB - but I need to be at least conscious after my forced landing - cos there is no way I am messing about with it, if the engine fails or the turbulence rolls me over.
Whatever happened yesterday was very unfortunate, radio would in no way have prevented it. We had a incident very recently and a lot of people are saying the radio is VITAL, well for our incident it was being used - but it did not stop it occuring! It might even have contributed......
Flying in these areas can be dangerous. On an A to B flight when I'm just looking to 'get there' Scottish offer a good service. Yesterday they would not have heard me at all apart from when I chased some wave up to 6000.
Radio can be useful - but the way it is presently 'organised' in the UK seems designed to minimise that potential - and that creates a problem. Its main use would be traffic information - now of course explicitly banned under a basic service and to the south impossible to oftain when you need it.
But the bottom line is that whatever happened yesterday had nothing to do with radio. I suspect weather - but it would have been challenging to force land with the turbulence and wind gradients yesterday. We'll see eventually at least some suspicion of what happened from the AAIB.