10 hours a month per crew seems reasonable, certainly for a crew with a reasonable level of experience. Having read the requirement off the site, its clear some can be carried forward too as now. How much is allocated to an RAF crew Crab? What we don't know is how much Type Rating and SAR role training will be offered prior to deployment on a new SAR base. I suspect it will be a good deal. Despite the naysayers, there is no way any of the credible bidders want to expose themselves as not delivering a high standard of service and capability. Everyone can argue about a few hours a month here and there, but the reality is that military SAR has had it good for too long in terms of flying hours allocation, so its time to get the balance right across the whole UK SAR show.
Despite Crab's pessimism I think there will be many experienced RAF and RN crews that will come over to us, so that will underpin the intial capability in depth. I know that at least one of the Bidders has a good training pipeline for new aircrew too so that will help sustain the longer term, and along with the CAA now looking at a proper Technical Aircrew licensing system, its hard not to believe that there is too much scaremongering going on here.
