If it all gets too much the Air Ambulance Services and Police Helicopters can always fit winch's extend their AOC's to CAP999 and take quite a lot of the smaller jobs inland. In fact no need to bother with a winch, just short line the rescue man in.
Maybe some of the more well off MRT's could fund raise for their own local helicopters and therefore provide even faster response times.
SAR provision in the UK will change. Who would have thought 30 years ago that there would be so many Air Ambulances in the UK funded by public donation.
The die has been cast and the new DfT/ HMCG service will, no doubt, provide a suitable service. It will draw on those with previous SAR experience from both the Military and CG Contracts and in less than 5 years everybody will have forgotten that there was Military SAR as other organisations and agencies increasingly provide a service. By then the bitching will be why the CG service is superior and the MRT/RNLI/Police rescue helicopters are not!
By then the Military will decide that it might just need an Expeditionary SAR force but without any experience left it will be left to new blood to re-invent the wheel with new aircraft and new equipment.
As the advocate to the devil - Happy Christmas and may the New Year and subsequent years bring more change to keep us busy on PPRuNe.
