Is this not all done and dusted?
No chance.
Planned implementation was not due to be complete until July 2017 but with a delayed AW189 deployment we are now looking at a further year before the contracted solution is implemented. That's if everything goes to plan.
So what has happened since the last few posts in April?
Well, sh1t loads of damned good SAR helicopter work for one thing. I put myself forward as one of many witnesses to that for both the Main UK SAR contract and GAP-North. Well done guys.
The really good bit is that when somebody needs an aircraft, there are 10 bases out there that each have at least one serviceable aircraft. (Usually 11 during the day.) Happy days are here again.
There are things that never appeared in the contract spec and that sort of thing can be a bit of a problem. For instance, the word DOG never appeared in the original tech matrix and doesn't appear in the final spec for the Main contract.
Regardless, everyone involved has got stuck in and barring tiny wrinkles in the training administration, it all works and search dogs are fine.
I do not expect that is the last problem.
. . .
In a recent Bristow Group earnings publication, we learned something of the plan for the AW189. They have set aside $115 million for buying the remaining eight AW189 SAR required. (So the register is correct that only three of those completed and flown so far are actually owned by BHL.) Then they tell us when they expect that money will be required, in a programme starting about now and ending in early 2018.
OK, so you get your techie guys all over the aircraft, then when it's OK you pay for it, then your techies mess with it some more, then your aircrew are all over it like a bad rash, and several months later it enters service? So add 3 to 6 months onto the purchase programme to get the implementation programme?
Meanwhile, all manner of 189 rumours from mid-2015 continue, with head and feet added. Some folks who were sold the idea of a S-92 career are still getting their heads round the new reality. Half the Coasties and MR guys are thinking 'Change? No change there then?' and the other half are just 'WTF?'
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