Ooops, nearly forgot - the RAF aren't allowed to land or take off from ships on NVD are they? Why's that then?
Nope and neither are RN SAR! That is because of the boat drivers not the aircrew - the Mk 4s are the only ones cleared for NVD DLs.
Unfortunately that attitude to not needing NVD overwater was probably a contributing factor to the very sad mid air in the gulf. Both crews would have seen each other had they been wearing goggles.
The soupcon of overland experience means you don't watch the stats, most SAROps in the UKFIR are overland
Therefore a strong base of RAF overland capability with a soupcon of RN over-water experience (which the crabs do at least as well because we train more) has got to be the template for future UKSAR
Strangely, given your strong opinion of the RN SAR, the majority shareholder in UK SAR is the RAF, followed by the MCA and then, in last position.......
And don't start mentioning Prestwick as the busiest SAR flt as a defence - you know as well as I do that their stats are based on medevacs every night during the winter months which, whilst being exciting due to poor weather are not really SAR jobs, more Air Ambulance tasks.
PS you mean scraping the bottom of the barrel not scrapping surely, and you went down through that earlier