Does this also not demonstrate the greater flexibility of modern, high speed RIPS equipped aircraft?
No it demonstrates that the UK SAR service is spread too thinly.
Never Fretter - as you know, fatigue is a very subjective thing to assess and varies from person to person and from day to day with those same people - however, when urgent lifesaving was required, it came down to the crew (not just the captain) to decide if they were fit to perform the rescue.
During the Gloucester floods, one crew flew 12 hours continuously - yes they were tired at the end but they didn't pull stumps and go home just because they were at the technical end of crew duty time.
Many mil SAR crews will have flown multiple jobs in a duty period - especially in the Summer or periods of very bad weather - the point of SAR was that you didn't operate like an airline, it was a military organisation which allowed self-regulation within broad crew duty limits and the ability of the crew or senior management to extend those limits if the situation required.
Have I flown when fatigued? Yes. Were the risks mitigated as much as possible by the crew? Yes. Did we have any accidents or incidents operating that way? None that could be directly attributed to fatigue.
Now the brave new world might see SAR differently and insist that it is conducted within stricter civilian rules and regs - if that is the way it must be then so be it but if it compromises the quality of SAR service and UK cover then not much will have been achieved by the contractorisation will it?
Edward - both NI and IOM were normal jobs for the flight at Valley so why would it be a long drag for Caernafon?