Chivenor Seakings to stand down night time rescues
 

According to the defence minister, Chivenor and Boulmer will cut their 24hr rescue to 12 hrs and daytime only from 2012 as he says the 'new helicopters' will be much faster and will be able to respond from bases further away at night.

So that means only Culdrose will be providing a night time rescue capability along with Lee-on-Solent to cover the whole of the south of England and English Channel because Chivenor and Portland are only 12hr daytime stations.


So, has our MoD got wiff of what helicopter type we will be procuring or leasing yet?
And i suppose we will be still continuing to rely on the USAFE to provide long range SAR support with their HH-60G's as we did with their MH-53M's because our Government can't be arsed to utilise the AR capability of the Merlin...

The theory that you can reduce the number of bases (effectively what you are doing at night) and retain the same level of SAR cover is massively flawed, especially since Culdrose is expected (by the RN at least) to be one of the last flights to get the new aircraft and 'go civvy'.

Even if Valley were to be one of the first flights to 'go civvy' or simply re-equip with the new aircraft (again unlikely since their engineering is piggybacked on the OCU which will need to keep the military flight supplied with Sea King crews until 2017 (the date the SARH transfer is supposed to be completed).

It will leave some big holes in the coverage at night which none of us in the front-line think is acceptable at all.

Does no-one look at how many jobs we do at night from Chivenor?

As soon as either Valley or Culdrose is used to cover Chiv's patch at night you have no SAR cover either in the whole of N Wales and the Irish Sea (in the case of Valley) or none for the whole of the SW approaches, Scillies, Channel Islands or the W half of the Channel.

What idiot thinks this is a good idea? This is not driven by good sense or a desire to provide 'no lesser service' as promised by SARH - this is cost-cutting, pure and simple and it will cost lives.

Maybe they plan to use Airwolf for the nightime SAR role, I seem to remember that it was very fast, over Mach 1 apparently.....

airwolf - helicopter tv series at rotaryaction.com

It's been a while since I was on SAR, so things probably have changed but the primary purpose of the RAF SAR was to rescue RAF aircrew. What RAF aircraft are flying at night down that part of the world?

So from that point of view it perhaps makes financial sense. If you follow that arguement though, it'll be only Monday to Friday next.

Saintsman - Hercules, Chinook, Merlin, Apache, Lynx - I think that warrants proper SAR cover.

I thought we are required to provide SAR cover within the UK FIR, in fact out to 30W, under the terms of some post WW2 argeement/convention.

Of course the definition of SAR cover might be open to interpretation...

I was at CU, though not a SAR boy, 30 years ago. Would the proposed SAR assets/availability, post 2012, be able to manage with another Fastnet?

I thought there was already a plan (pre 2012) for RAF SAR flights to go down to 12 hour (day time) ops for periods of time due to a lack of manning?

If true, how can the MoD then justify a requirement to have 24 hr coverage at all bases for SAR(H)?

Calli

Any comment from the Boulmer point of view?

I am sure that the boys and girls at Boulmer feel equally annoyed at this ill-thought out concept of ops. They are a busy flight and if you take them out of the equation at night there is a huge gap up the East coast between Leconfield and Lossiemouth - maybe the Minister is expecting Bond to plug this gap!!!

Out of our 205 jobs so far this year, 45 have been at night after 2100 and would not, under the proposed regime have been conducted unless an aircraft from Culdrose or Valley were diverted into our patch.

It is like suggesting that having fewer but faster ambulances will improve the NHS stats and service - neatly forgetting that once your asset is tasked, you have no back-up or overlap for hundreds of miles.

Much statistical analysis has been done of SAROPs and interpreted in different ways; when you see a cluster of jobs near to SAR Flts you can either conclude that having the flt there tends to generate jobs because people are more likely to call it out (the erroneous but fashionable version if you are a bean-counter) or that in fact, the SAR flts are in the right place to meet the needs of the British public, whether at work (fishermen etc) or at leisure (walking,climbing,sailing,fishing,swimming etc etc).

The job rate does go down at night, you don't have to be Hercules Poirot to see that, but to naively believe that you wont get more than 1 night job at a time is delusional.

How on earth the Minister can state that the new service will meet and exceed current levels of provision is utterly laughable with these proposed cuts in availability/manning.

Calli - it is what will happen to any two RAF flts at a time when those flights lose a crew to the Falklands. This is due to the MoD downsizing us from 5 crews to 4 but keeping our level of committment the same and not one of us is happy with it.

Airborne Artist - no is the short answer, you would have one aircraft from Culdrose and the next available one would be from Valley or Lee - and that still only makes 3 total even if you assume there are no other searches, rescues, medtransfers, bendydivers etc etc happening anywhere else in the UK.

Chivenor in summer was always a bear garden, even in the Whirlwind days, IIRC when they tried to close the flight in the 70s the response from the local community was overwhelmingly against and meant the flight stayed.
God alone knows what these people are thinking, if indeed they are, but do we really expect any less?
PS How long from Culdrose to Croyde?
BG

Chivenor and Boulmer will cut their 24hr rescue to 12 hrs and daytime only

Any comment from the Boulmer point of view?

Any comment from Flight Lieutenant Wales's point of view? Maybe he had prior knowledge of the "plan"!:)

Jack

It deos seem rather bizarre that the MoD are putting MilSAR into self-destruct mode just as we are expecting to take on our future king as a SAR pilot:ugh:

Crab:
They may have overlooked the fact that Bond is not part of the SAR Framework and are not cleared for overland SAROps!

Bond can do anything......

The James Bond International Fan Club

DKB

I think there may have been a hint of sarcasm in Crabs comment about Bond.

I have to admit, it's very frustrating to have been briefed MANY times that there will be no reduction in capability, now to be informed that Chiv and Boulmer will go to 12 hr ops. I feel sorry for the British public who are ultimately the people who will suffer from this debacle. Thankfully I am no longer one of them.

Where and how has this announcement been made?

Does the MOD pick up the tab for civvy rescues? If not one would assume the Home Office eventually gets the bill and maybe have decided that they don't want helo cover any more?

I assume that the MOD would be Ok covering their own but once day flying is finished it's up to the Air Rozzers/Helimeds etc to pick up the Great British Tax Payer?

Defence Minister Quentin Davies in a letter to MP Andrew George - See link below to BBC news story

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Devon | 'Day only' rescue helicopter plan

Green Flash - the MoD do not charge anyone for SAR rescues - it is only medtransfers that can't be done by air ambulance or land ambulance that are charged to the NHS.

98% of UKSAR jobs are rescues of civilians and the govt discharges its responsibility of provision of SAR to comply with the Chicago convention by utilising the military. The 4 civilian flts are separately funded by the Home Office but do the same job.

Whichever way you cut it, SAR is paid for by the British taxpayer (as it should be) and the Govt should ensure they get value for money which doesn't look like the case under SARH.

Quick sums show a £5Bn contract for SAR provision for 25 years which is £200million per annum. Divide by 12 flights gives you a cost of £16.5 million per flt per year under SARH which seems like an awful lot of money to me.

Even if you take out the capital costs of providing new aircraft and put an approximate price tag of £50 million per airframe (to include all spares provisions) and provide 2 aircraft per flight that is only £1.2 Bn.

If you spent just the £1.2Bn and left everything else as it is (basing, crew compositions, infrastructure etc) I don't think it would cost £3.8 Bn in fuel, wages, heating and lighting for the next 25 years.

Just give us new aircraft and let us get on with our job!