fbw: doesn't your hair-raising story just illustrate perfectly the main problem with this debate?
Let me stress I am in no way seeking to denigrate the fantastic FREE service you provide - we are extremely lucky in Scotland. But in your "problem shared" scenario, if your cheeky chappy had continued across the North Channel on the last vestiges of vapour, run out halfway across and not got his mayday call out until he was below your cover so you were none the wiser, would you have concluded anything from not hearing from him again? If you were ultra-conscientious and started phoning round Newtownards etc to find out if he'd got there, and he hadn't, would you then have kicked off a full search?
Your 'fly on empty' pilot is in effect placing the burden on you for his safety, when you have very little capacity to help him (especially if he says no!) and he has deliberately put himself in a highly risky situation. It seems to me the difficulty is getting pilots like these to understand that they remain fully and solely responsible for their own safety, whether it's weather, terrain, fuel or whatever, and that just because they're talking to Scottish Info doesn't mean someone else is somehow guaranteeing their safety - or, worse still, somehow partially to blame if they go down.
NS