I guess the RAF always had a pool of experienced personnel to draw upon to fill their jobs. By this I mean RAF crews were born “ready qualified”
Everyone has to start somewhere otherwise the world would stop. Oh sorry I forgot – the world has stopped as far as old guard is concerned 
Oh dear. The point is that RAF rearcrew doing their first shift on a SAR flight will have had a year of dedicated SAR training at Valley (SARTU long course then Sea King OCU). This is on top of basic crewman training and most will also have done tours on SH. As a result, even those who are true
ab initio have acquitted themselves extremely well in tricky SAROps in their first weeks and months on shift.
Could someone provide an idea of the proportion of civ rearcrew who have no previous mil experience, and what route those individuals took to get onto a civ SAR flight? I don't recall this being mentioned on here previously but I admit I haven't checked all 1400 posts...