Are you saying that unless you are military you can't possibly be up to the job?
Not at all but you must acknowledge that the training and experience gained from military service would cost a small fortune to replicate in the civilian environment - therefore any civilian training establishment would either cost a great deal to run or have to accept a far lower ability and experience level onto the front line than the military did.
Most winchmen/women and winchops I know keep themselves very physically fit - including a lot of gym work - because they understand how demanding the role can be, especially dealing with casualties in the water. How many ambulance paramedics do the same? Not many judging by the ones I have seen in the last 15 years - that is the suggested pool from which to select future winchmen............
Norfolk
If you take someone straight from from the mil there is a great tendency for them to adopt the 'we used to do it this way in the RAF/RN etc', a most undesirable outcome
yet that is exactly what has happened in civsar for so many years except that it was dominated by the RN who couldn't see the difference in training and skills the RAF brought to the party. Strangely enough, there were two very good guys who joined civsar straight from the mil (RAF) and quickly ended up as training officers.
PAS was all about retention of good quality and experienced people and that is where the low pay rates from Bristow will have an effect - if there are any better offers or contracts then people will vote with their feet and it will just accelerate the need to train in-house with an inevitable reduction in capability/experience on the SAR flights