Maritime Environment Training
I’m fairly sure that SAR training is not currently high on the agenda of the Herc fleet.
Sometime last year a Maritime sortie was flown by a Herc with some former Nimrod crew as observers on board. It became apparent that the C-130 crew needed some training at least in recognising different ship types. Their reliance on the ‘Shipspot’ system is not enough. A training package was made and this now sits in the Falkland Islands pre-deployment training box. As far as I know it is not routinely taught to all C-130 crews.
Not their fault but without training and experience they will struggle to understand the Maritime environment. They already have a full time task supporting our current Afghan adventure and everything else.
If we were to only train a ‘small number’ of crews in the role how would you manage those ‘few’ to always be ‘on call’? To do the job properly to achieve around the clock cover you would need to train a lot of already overstretched crews for a role they may never need to be called on.
There is little or no corporate knowledge of the maritime environment in their fleet to call on.
They are already doing a first class professional job it seems unfair to ask them to take on another one without any training.