Bristow briefed on their roadshows that each flight had an allocation for training of 600 hrs under the new contract. That's 50 hours per month or a little over 1.6 hours per day, I didn't just make the figure up.
They then said, when questioned, that additional trg would be achieved on Ops - what they meant is that a rescue could be counted towards stats chasing.
However, anyone from a SAR backgorund will know that the training value of most SAROPs is negligible and using it as a currency requirement is just disingenuous. It means that they can look like their crews are current and offset some of the training against operational hours that the Govt pays for rather than dedicated training hours that are included in the contract.
The result - quality of training reduces, currency looks good so KPIs are met, yet operational capability is gradually eroded since no-one practices anything but the basics.
I have no doubt that there are no obvious training caps at the moment because steady state hasn't been reached on the contract.
I do know that some conversion courses have included precious little SAR training compared to what the military would have done.
The UK is going to get what it pays for................
PS let me know when they start doing night wets and beacon homing.............