As I understand it the contract is to provide AWSAR.
As I'm reliably informed by a mate next door, BRS would have had 24/7 AWSAR in place by now. Which was certainly something I was looking forward to having available, given the number of offshore flights we are doing, to effectively the middle of nowhere, cyclone season almost upon us and thousands of workers offshore.
As anyone who has crewed 24/7 AWSAR in the past will know it is 10 times more involved and difficult than LIMSAR, given the requirements for a bunch of gap analysis, risk assessments, CASA manual approvals and CASA exemptions etc. If HNZ are struggling to get day only LIMSAR up and running some 6 months late they will be in for a big shock when they move onto AWSAR, it just ain't easy and nor should it be, compared to offshore flights it has a significantly higher risk profile.
It can take months just to get exemptions trough CASA legal and then parliament, which cant be submitted until all manuals, training material etc is fully CASA approved. I cant see the service being available until the back end of next year, which is a shame. If there is anytime its needed that time is now, as Crab rightly points out we just have to hope that no ditching occurs on one of the later afternoon runs, a man overboard offshore at night or a serious injury on one of the many support vessels without a helideck.
Personally I don't like leaving things to chance.....anyway here's hoping!!
