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-   -   SAR Cover Increasing? Safety over money for a change! (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/394630-sar-cover-increasing-safety-over-money-change.html)

On_Loan 4th Nov 2009 00:59

SAR Cover Increasing? Safety over money for a change!
 
Hot on the heels of the Haddon-Cave report it appears that the decision to reduce the number of SAR bases to 24 has been cancelled, and in fact they will increase to 28 again. A long term plan or a panic response? Either way good news... :ok:

Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Defence Policy and Business | UK's Search and Rescue network to be maintained

Cyberhacker 4th Nov 2009 05:20

I note the headline talks of 28 bases when the content talks of 28 crews

Wensleydale 4th Nov 2009 07:13

When would HRH qualify as a SAR pilot? (There's a job for one of the extra crews then).

Shackman 4th Nov 2009 09:42

What chance of the press getting it right when even our own MoD press office and Minister for the Armed Forces, Bill Rammell (where did he come from?) can't.

And what price the SAR-H contract?

vecvechookattack 4th Nov 2009 17:38

I'm hoping like mad that CHC win the SAR H bid......Now that Air Rescue have withdrawn they should be in with a good chance

Hilife 4th Nov 2009 19:25

I believe tomorrow is B&FO day, so whoever is selected as Preferred Bidder, we should know pretty soon.

No Vote Joe 6th Nov 2009 08:01

Nice piece of spin as it doesn't give all the implications!

As far as I'm aware from a SAR-Bouy mate, they are dropping the daily second crew, so if they need a another aircraft (ie Boscastle), they'll need to ring around they guys off shift to see if they can cobble together something. Obviously, they won't be able to guaruntee one within an hour, if one at all!!! :uhoh:

TorqueOfTheDevil 8th Nov 2009 19:29


they are dropping the daily second crew, so if they need a another aircraft (ie Boscastle), they'll need to ring around they guys off shift to see if they can cobble together something
NVJ,

Your chum is right, for the time being, but this loss of 2nds is due to the reduction in numbers of crews and therefore will only last until crew numbers have increased again.

Your point about having to ring around to get a scratch crew is valid, but this is demonstrably a feasible way of generating a spare crew when needed: the Grayrigg train crash is just one example of people gladly rushing in to work at the drop of a hat, when they weren't on duty, to man a spare aircraft, and speaks volumes for the dedication and flexibility of the mil SAR crews. If you can find a scratch crew at 8.30pm on a Friday evening, you can get one any time!

Donkey497 8th Nov 2009 21:27


SAR Cover Increasing? Safety over money for a change!
Not so sure......

Buried on the 8.pm. news on Radio Scotland last night was the news that the SAR cover out of Leuchars/managed by Kinloss will be restricted to daylight hours until the end of November, at the earliest. According to the report, this is in order to ensure that adequate cover is provided during daylight hours.
Apparently, this has also been the case since mid October.

Seems crazy to me, as the time that I'd want most SAR assets available is during the dark when it's harder to search and/or rescue. Also seems to smack of this Government's news management to let something like this come out at this time.

hootandroar 9th Nov 2009 01:01

From memory don't a large majority of the call outs come after Mrs smith notices that Mr Smith hasn't come down off the hill or back from fishing, normally at the end of the day?

Even when the extra crews do come on line will there be any serviceable cabs to fly in? In the mean time it still means having crews driving up and down the country and getting mucked about by parenting agreements that won't give an MT driver or car to try and help reduce the fatigue. :ugh:

Cabe LeCutter 9th Nov 2009 03:43

Oh did someone mention SAR from Leuchars. Been a long time since I did shift there on good old Walter. Another one of the great SAR flights closed. But there again that is progress for you:cool::cool:

Heads down, look out for the flack

[email protected] 9th Nov 2009 05:45

Not a very well written piece since it keeps mixing up the number of crews and the number of bases.

To clarify - the RAF have 6 SAR flights, the RN 2 and the MCA 4. This announcement only affects the RAF flights.

The RAF SARF cannot maintain 24/7 cover and man the Falklands with 24 crews which we all knew but some Air Ranks didn't believe and so, after trying to take us down to 24 from the 28 we had, we are being taken back up to 28 so the resources match the task (tricky concept that).

Because we were actually undermanned on rearcrew in the first place, reducing crews further has seen the need to bus winchmen and radops around the country to plug gaps in the shift plots of flights who lave lost crews to the Falklands.


The resulting fatigue levels have been assessed as a Flight safety hazard by the SARf Cdr so until the manning is back up to full strength, whichever flight loses a crew to the Falklands will go down to 12 hour shifts with the intention that no two adjacent flights eg Boulmer and Leconfield, are on 12 hours at the same time. A new crew goes every 3 weeks to the Falklands and the detachment is 6 weeks.

At the moment Lossiemouth and Wattisham are on 12 hour days because their crews are in the FI.

This 12 hour manning is temporary and nothing to do with the SARH planned reduction in SAR service post 2012 which will see Portland, Chivenor and Boulmer reduced to 12 hour cover PERMANENTLY in order to save the contractors money.

The concept of SARH was to provide no less capable a service which sits at odds with cutting 3 flights down to 12 hours I am sure someone somewhere is 'managing the risk' - well right up to the point where lives are lost because the cover wasn't there when it was needed.

One other point of fact - at Chivenor, a third of our rescues are at night and I suspect the same is true for most SAR flights. Who will pick up the slack or is it postcode lottery time for SAR now?

The standard answer is that faster helicopters allow medium risk areas to be reached within the hour which, on the face of it, seems obvious but that is only true if you count flying time. If you accept that RS45 means exactly that then your superfast new helicopter has only 15 mins flying time to make the medium risk area from the time of the CALLOUT, not the time of the takeoff.

This is where the 1 hour fudge is applied - the intent of the 1 hour to medium risk areas is time from callout but some have used time of takeoff instead to justify fewer bases and less cost. Unfortunately, if they want to go down that road you could cut the number of bases even further since with a 150 kt helo you only need 150nm between flights.

Fewer helicopters means less flexibility and almost no surge/concurrent ops capability - this is where the great PFI that is SARH is leading us and it stinks.

onevan 9th Nov 2009 08:28

Crab

As the 'contractors' have to supply a service that fufils the ITT, surely it must be the IPT changing the goal posts based on what the govt is willing to pay for. :{


If 24 hr cover is wanted at all bases I am sure that service can be provided. :ok:

[email protected] 9th Nov 2009 19:29

onevan - the bidders put pressure on the IPT to move the goal posts because they could not make any profit by meeting the actual ITT - the Bristows/Westlands group pulled out because they couldn't make a profit out of what was being asked for. Now the goalposts have been moved I would think they are V pi88ed off as trhey could possibly have stayed in the competition.

So instead of going back to the drawing board and having to issue a new ITT with a new budget, the original terms have been watered down to save money - the Falklands is not now included in the main bid and 3 flights are to go to 12 hour manning, not to give any increase in (or even match) current capability but simply to save cash.

Now we have 2 bidders left and a decision to be made by only a select few of the IPT (some of whom seem to have a distinct bias) - we will inevitably get the cheapest bidder:{

Someone brave should call a halt to this process before we condemn the British public to a profit-driven service that will not match what currently exists.

vecvechookattack 9th Nov 2009 19:34

Why will it not meet what we currently have?

No Vote Joe 9th Nov 2009 20:44


Originally Posted by TorqueOfTheDevil (Post 5304892)
NVJ,

Your chum is right, for the time being, but this loss of 2nds is due to the reduction in numbers of crews and therefore will only last until crew numbers have increased again.

Are you sure? It's not what he told me, with the reason being rather sensitive!!

TorqueOfTheDevil 9th Nov 2009 21:32


Why will it not meet what we currently have?
Because there will only be one aircraft at each base, and because 3 of those bases will only be manned for 12 hours a day. It also appears very likely that SAR-H will cost rather more than the existing set-up - though exact comparison is impossible as the SAR-H process has pointedly refused to evaluate the cost of what we currently have.


Are you sure?
No, but my earlier post was to the best of my knowledge - apologies if it turns out that I'm wrong.

[email protected] 10th Nov 2009 07:24

The loss of 2nds is permanent because we can't run 2nds and comply with the EU WTD.

The 12-hour cover for flights whilst they have a crew in the FI is temporary and will cease once manning levels are back (or up) to normal.

Vec - present requirement is to make all medium risk areas within 1 hour. Given RS 45 at night it would take 1hr 15 to get from Culdrose to Chivenor and 1 hr 37 to get from Valley to Chivenor at 150 kts. Given that a lot of our jobs are in S Wales (Brecons etc) that increases the time to get on scene from Culdrose and decreases it from Valley and comes nowhere near the 1 hour stated requirement.

All the bluff about fewer but faster helos giving equal coverage is guff because it only considers flying time not callout time.

Same capability my a&se:{

green granite 10th Nov 2009 08:20


The loss of 2nds is permanent because we can't run 2nds and comply with the EU WTD.
:confused: To comply with the EU WTD one needs 4 crews for 24/7 coverage, therefore one needs 8 crews to have permanent 2nd helio coverage. Or did you mean we cant afford it?

vecvechookattack 10th Nov 2009 17:10


To comply with the EU WTD one needs 4 crews for 24/7 coverage, therefore one needs 8 crews to have permanent 2nd helio coverage. Or did you mean we cant afford it
Your Maths isn't very good Shipmate..... If you need 4 crews to man 1 aircraft then you need 5 cxrews to man 2 aircraft.

If an RAF crew is a crew of 4 (2 Pilots, Crewman and winch Op) then by your reckoning you would need 32 people to man 2 aircraft? If 1 aircraft is the Duty and the other is the Standby that means you would have 4 people on Watch and 28 people Off watch...? That would never pass the Daily Mirror test.

I may be mistake but I think that Gannet SAR flight (The UK's busiest SAR Flight) have 2 Aircraft and 4 crews....sometimes 3 1/2 crews.

Donna K Babbs 10th Nov 2009 22:58


I may be mistake but I think that Gannet SAR flight (The UK's busiest SAR Flight) have 2 Aircraft and 4 crews....sometimes 3 1/2 crews
Sometimes significantly less than that!

The whole plan seems to be based on historical statistics. Generally speaking, Chivenor gets a reasonable number of Med-Transfers during the night, together with a few searches, but not many immediate life saving jobs. However, they do get the rare high profile long range night rescues and major incidents.

The long range rescues will go to Culdrose when the fleet it unified and I think the major incidents will be taken on risk.

vecvechookattack 10th Nov 2009 23:04

I think that you are absolutely right.

I have good friends who work for Portland and Lee SAR and they all agree that it is perfectly possible to run a SAR flight with one aircraft. The Lee aircraft has a 100% servicability rate this year and last year it was down for 90 minutes...throughout the entire year....they achieve all of that with either 1 or maybe 2 engineers. If you go to Portland SAR flight tomorrow there will be 5/6 people there....thats it. If you go to 771 at Culdrose tomorrow there will be close to 100 people there (Unfair comparison I know but it makes the stats look good).

[email protected] 11th Nov 2009 05:07

Vec - their aircraft is brand new, doesn't do as many hours and hasn't been available for night wet winching due to the lack of suitable lighting and uncleared autopilot modes - not exactly the shining example of how it should be done. Your friends will also doubtless tell you what an awful working environment the contractors have provided with everything focussed on profit by reducing costs.

Gannet haven't had a second standby for a long while because they are undermanned (primarily rearcrew I believe) and, as yet, they haven't been required to comply with the EU WTD as the military were seeking exemptions - none given!

5.7 crews is what I believe is the actual figure for 1 aircraft on 24/7 SAR cover as required by our EU masters.

Donna - when Culdrose are on a long ranger at night post SARH, there will be no SAR cover for the whole of the SW - the nearest flights will be Valley or Lee - you might be happy to take that at risk but it ignores the very high probability that lives will be lost. I guess you are saying that searching for people in trouble isn't important then, nor is taking critically ill people to hospital - only immediate lifesaving counts, perleease:ugh:

vecvechookattack 11th Nov 2009 08:20


when Culdrose are on a long ranger at night post SARH, there will be no SAR cover for the whole of the SW - the nearest flights will be Valley or Lee - you might be happy to take that at risk but it ignores the very high probability that lives will be lost. I guess you are saying that searching for people in trouble isn't important then, nor is taking critically ill people to hospital - only immediate lifesaving counts, perleease
You will never be able to provide a service which covers everywhere at all times. The primary driver with this project has to be cost not lives. I would love to be able to afford a car which had 50 air bags in it so that it protects my family should the worse happen...but I can't afford it and so I take it on risk that the car with 4 air bags will have to suffice.

sargs 11th Nov 2009 12:06

Vec, even with your usual jaundiced outlook, that posting has to take the biscuit. The whole purpose of an organisation set up to save life is......wait for it..... to save life. If it was a matter of cost, I can think of an immediate solution to save the entire cost of the project, as I'm sure you could. By the way, if you're prepared to take the risk with 4 airbags, I've had another brainwave - zero airbags should save you even more. Of course if you, like me, value your life and those of your loved ones, perhaps you should just bite the bullet and invest?

[email protected] 11th Nov 2009 13:41

Genius vec - absolute genius:ugh:



I know, lets get rid of all the ambulances - that will save the NHS a fortune and we'll let sick people make their own way to hospital.

vecvechookattack 11th Nov 2009 18:04

You are of course absolutely correct and I apologise for getting it wrong. Lives are much more important. It was a mistake on my part and for that I can only offer my most humble apologies.

sapper 12th Nov 2009 08:21

crab

This 12 hour manning is temporary and nothing to do with the SARH planned reduction in SAR service post 2012 which will see Portland, Chivenor and Boulmer reduced to 12 hour cover PERMANENTLY in order to save the contractors money.
Portland has always been 12 hr cover, not as you suggest above, reducing to 12hr.

spr

vecvechookattack 12th Nov 2009 16:50


Portland has always been 12 hr cover, not as you suggest above, reducing to 12hr
Not so my friend. It used to be SR-SS.

[email protected] 12th Nov 2009 17:39

Sapper - yes it will retain its 12 hour status post 2012 which still leaves the rather bizarre situation where one flight (Lee) has to cover the whole of the Channel from Dover to Plymouth at night if Chiv is down to 12 hour cover.

extpwron 20th Nov 2009 07:48

Did the reduced manning affect the number assets the SARF was able to field in Cumbria last night?
Would it be any different post SARH?
Fingers crossed for the missing Police Officer.

Spanish Waltzer 20th Nov 2009 08:03

According to BBC news website there were 5 RAF sea kings involved. Assuming the reports to be accurate (and I'm sure crab@ will happily inform us once he has saved everyone :ok:) then that is an excellent response from an organisation that is suffering from reduced manpower and I believe is not operating second standby crews at present either.

I believe too that the RAF Valley SAR helo is on reduced operating hours at the moment with a crew away in the Falklands so to get 5 aircraft there from the other bases is good going.

As an aside did the RN SAR helo from Prestwick get involved too? There seems no mention of it but of course the press may have got it slightly wrong and included it as a RAF one ;)

Gainesy 20th Nov 2009 08:37


that is an excellent response from an organisation that is suffering from reduced manpower
It is indeed , the boys (and girls?) have pulled it off again, however I'm afraid the Govt will use this as proof positive that it's reduced manning idea works, to the future detrement of the SAR Force.

I look forward to Crab's views.

arandcee 20th Nov 2009 10:07

Per SARF Commander on BBC News SKs were sent from Valley, Leconfield, Boulmer and Chivenor. Hmm, aren't two of those slated to go to 12 hrs?!

Good work guys and girls.

StuartP 20th Nov 2009 13:01


As an aside did the RN SAR helo from Prestwick get involved too? There seems no mention of it but of course the press may have got it slightly wrong and included it as a RAF one
BBC Scottish news pages are reporting it rescued someone from a car near Kelso so they've been busy too. :ok:

TorqueOfTheDevil 20th Nov 2009 16:09


Hmm, aren't two of those slated to go to 12 hrs?!
Indeed so. Therefore, to get 5 helos to Cumbria at night under SAR-H, you'd have to use Valley, Prestwick, Leconfield, Wattisham and Lossiemouth - leaving no available helicopter between the English Channel and the Outer Hebrides! There's progress for you...

It's a good thing that major flooding events are so rare these days:ugh:

[email protected] 20th Nov 2009 17:33

Yes let's see the SARH blueprint applied to this situation!!!!!

But it's OK, the powers that be keep chanting the same mantra about how newer, faster helicopters mean you can provide the same cover with fewer assets - and it's bollocks - the fastest helicopter in the world can't be in two places at once and when an asset with a huge operational area is tasked, it leaves an even huger area with no cover.

vecvechookattack 12th Dec 2009 16:00

Helicopter rescue teams notch up a record 400 missions - Times Online

Good work chaps (and Lady)

Spanish Waltzer 12th Dec 2009 16:51

A geniune question as I am not trying to detract from the great work done by the crews at Gannet but could someone in the know give a break down of how many of those 400 'missions' were hospital transfers or medical evacuations from the Islands to mainland hospitals?

Thank you.

SW

ps Is the new Navy rank of Aircrewman Corporal the start of SAR-H harmonisation?? :ok::E

vecvechookattack 12th Dec 2009 17:42


how many of those 400 'missions' were hospital transfers or medical evacuations from the Islands to mainland hospitals?
Most of them



Is the new Navy rank of Aircrewman Corporal the start of SAR-H harmonisation??
No, He is a Bootneck.


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