A couple of very good points there Crab.
COST
Costs in the previous contract process were like an uncontollable creeping fungus as the bean counters tried to guess what was going to happen across a 25 year contract period. I know that there was concern at the Treasury and I know that down through the DfT to the MCA and Coastguard, every civil service manager has received the message that this new contract process is a cost cutting exercise.
That legacy has made it that little bit more difficult for those chasing a competent technical specification.
Scapegoat? Certainly, one has to ask why moves that took place in early 2007 and mid-2008, and had been raised in a number of fora, took until December 2010 to emerge as a serious problem.
SPARE AIRCRAFT
Up until late 2012, spare aircraft in the bidders' proposed SAR fleets were something that typically amounted to one aircraft per type for training and one or maybe two aircraft per type for maintenance. That is why I felt comfortable posting here about those numbers at the time. Availability stats were available for aircraft of the same, or closely related, types in recent UK SAR service and the news was good. Reliability was good and servicing times were short.
Suddenly, sufficient aircraft of each type were required to equip all ten bases. If one type were grounded by the regulator, the service would continue. This happened in late 2012.
The spare aircraft will no doubt be routinely treated as though it were the local base spare but in truth it is a spare for the neighbouring base that uses the other aircraft type. Therefore, as you say, 'there seems to be no formal requirement for a second standby'.
Interestingly, we moved from a contract process where costs were spirally high above the original estimated range to one where, in spite of a new requirement for maybe 50% more aircraft than previously envisaged, costs came in 19.9% cheaper than the estimated range.