The 2001 Provision And Coverage Report, by a working group of the UK SAR Operator's Group, started with the following statement.
"The National Audit Office referred, in their February 1998 Report on HM Coastguard: Civil Maritime Search and Rescue (para 2.42), to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) strategic review of defence requirements, which was to include an examination of the provision of military search and rescue (SAR) services. It stated that the HMCG bases at Lee on Solent and Portland relied to some extent upon backup from military helicopters based at RNAS Culdrose and RAF Wattisham. The Report suggested that following that review “…it would be appropriate to assess the implications for HM Coastguard’s helicopter coverage, so that any rationalisation could be implemented when the contracts for the Solent and Portland helicopter bases come up for renewal …” "
So it was 17 years ago that somebody noticed at least some of the basic problems with previous contracts and it will probably be 2017 before the full solution is operational. Some of the reporting issues highlighted back then still haven't been fixed.
In 2006 an update was done for the MCA by Anatec UK Ltd.
Those reports are no longer on the net. I have copies of the 2001 report and the 2006 update if anyone is interested.
In 2011, the Assurance Review of Search and Rescue Helicopter Basing was done for the DfT by Atkins Defence. it is still on GOV.UK:
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...copter-service [See 'UK Search and Rescue Helicopters Infrastructure']
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...review-sar.pdf
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...-selection.pdf
"Aircraft with still air speed of 120kts or less would fail to satisfy the surge key user requirement in a 10 base solution."
