Just back from the west and saw in the local newspaper that BAE had reneged on the Filton Heliport plan [you can check out the link through Helihub news in the last couple of days].
Not only that it seems that the work being done on the various airframes [downlink upgrades and such like] is severely affecting the availability of spares.
We might have expected it from the Explorer fleet but it seems that the EC135 fleet is similarly 'disadvantaged' and Filton is offline even though there are nominally more 135s to play with than 902s.
Plan A envisaged a slightly larger cull than took place so the pressure is more obvious under Plan B which has still to be realised. i.e. South Yorkshire remained in being so removing another 902 from the spares pool and at the same time increasing the need. In February G-WONN leaves S&E Wales and obliges NPAS to dream up another EC135 to replace it from a fleet that is clearly struggling to provide spare aircraft for existing unseen downtime. There appears to be a need to import another airframe even if it is only a temporary measure.
They have an aircraft of course but it is in Norway and non-standard for UK use, with weeks if not months to reconfigure it.
The Met remains quiet. Why would they join this thing just now?