The UK has a variety of aircraft on 24hr standby, such as AD fighters, a tanker, a Chinook, to name but a few.

With your "previous military experience", why do you find it so hard to believe that we have a C-130J on 24 hr standby, albeit as I said with a reaction time in terms of a couple of hours?

In the days of the C-130K fleet we used to have 3 aircraft on 24/7 standby for a variety of roles. As I have repeatedly stated, just one possible, and not the primary, use of the standby C-130J is SAR provision. It is there availbale for use.

Perhaps you'd like to ring the ARCC at Kinloss and tell them to take it off their tote page, and delete their procedures for calling it out?

Biggus,


it is nevertheless a FACT....


Not any more my old china. HQ Air have declared that we do not do long-range airborne SAR full stop. For a variety of reasons that I won't go into but the capability no longer exists.


Options are to ask allies for help (a mitigation factor for removal of the MRA4) if you need an airborne requirement or alternatively, adopt the 'Titanic' approach and ask the nearest ship you can find from AIS to go and investigate.

PA,

That's news to me. When did that change? Recently?

Who provides coverage in the Falklands then?

It would appear it's time for me to admit that my information is out of date, apologies to all.....

.....maybe I should make that phone call to the ARCC!

ASRA C130J
 

I can't believe there are no current C130J folks contributing to this forum. I packed in 2 years ago. Will the black Omega be around if I tell you that one of the last things I was involved on the fringes of was ASRA for the J.


The prime aim was for the Falklands when the K retired. The aircraft also had ship spot AIS fitted. (the HEDIT integrated it)


The Boscombe Down (Q2) trials officer was a rather short ex Army type with years of AD experience (BL). 57R completed all the airdrop trials including smoke floats and liferaft containers. The Canadian exchange officer on the Herc PT was the Project Officer. We had a few issues with respect to DAs / Support Authority for the kit. (It had fallen through the cracks when the S&AD PT disintegrated).


All of the wooden racks that JATE had designed (that were never ever supported by anyone) were not used on the J. Thank god for the simple P strap.


I would be most surprised if it never got Released to Service. If it did not then someone should get their @rse kicked for wasting money on trials without a roadmap to service.


Here is another thought- If an aircraft ditched mid Atlantic could the SPAG not offer assistance. They are held at VHR with all the kit in the sheds in front of the OM @ Brize.


Why is this such a secret this day and age.

Sending you 10p, Biggus

Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is what happens when an airplane crashes mid-atlantic; no one survives.

JATE had a new version of ASRA on which trials were conducted in 1988 from a Herc CMk 1K. It used 3 MS10 tied together rather than the single dinghy and two supply containers. The trials went well although on the two occasions live rafts were used two out of the three inflated inverted (I never moaned about righting a dinghy during drills after that).
Whilst the system worked it never got CA release as the powers that be got all excited about the flares and smoke floats being stowed next to the fuel tanks in the fuselage. Ultimately CA Release wasn't given due the fact that the CMk1K didn't have one.:ugh:

I suspect HQ Air think we need long range SAR, but have been encouraged at a political/VSO level not to voice this, because to do so and not be able to provide it would raise the thorny question of a public inquiry and criminal charges over Nimrod. Probably involving those who are "encouraging" HQ Air......

Betty,
Within the constraints of an open forum, actually, Biggus is correct.
And I can personally vouch for the quality of the training!
As to the platform, it might not be optimised for the role but in slightly modified form it serves for the USCG....

Thanks. That's useful. I never said anything about the quality of the training or the air vehicle. My comments were based on the availability of the asset. Read what Party Animal wrote.

Maybe it doesn't happen very often these days and we don't have that many aircraft anyway, but SAR was not only for civil airlines but military aircraft.

I am sure it was a great comfort to the Lightning Joe over the Norwegian Sea and later the F4s to know that they could expect a SAR from UK or Norway within 2 hours.

Now a Tiffy pilot could be quite lonely before a P3 gets there from Iceland (?), Norway, or Lakenheath(?).

It's a long way from Andøya/ENAN for the RNoAF P-3C and P-3Ns. Approx 1000+ nm They are on alert, not sure how long lead time.

Personally, I never gave flying fig about there being an MPA on my fast jet trails. I was more concerned to have a working beacon, dinghy and being somewhere near the shipping lanes. There was always enough gas for the rest of the fomation to get a good fix on me and then divert into Halifax or Keflavik and so the 'Search' was always unlikely.

Unless it's a seaplane, having an MPA overhead eating dairy cream sponge whilst I freeze my knackers off doesn't cut the 'rescue' portion. Furthermore, my hands would not be able to cope with ASRA after about 30 minutes and so an MPA turning up a few hours later would probably either find me bobbing about in a little dinghy waiting for a ship or bobbing face down making a good impression of an iceberg.

Now for 'search' in this airliner tragedy, then I get it and believe that the flexibility/speed/reach of an airborne asset over a ship is far more superior. But for 'rescue' - no chance, even as little as 30 minutes after the accident in the North Atlantic. For that you need a ship or a seaplane (as long as the sea is flat enough).

LJ

All fair points but tell that to the folks we dropped ASRA gear to over the years...

TB7

Could you tell us what shape the ASRA people were in when you dropped it? I suspect they were either in/on sinking/upturned boats/ships or sitting on some flotsam (or is it jetsam?)?

I can't recall there ever being an ASRA drop to FJ aircrew during a trail?

LJ

Two RAAF AP-3C's heading right now to the Malaysian B777 crash area for SAR ops. MPA assets are essential except if your Switzerland !

The likelihood of losing an aircraft @ 30W, with survivors in the water is extremely low, the impact of such an event would be extremely high. I hope that people who say 'we don't need or can't afford a long range SAR asset', will make themselves available to explain to grieving relatives, at Heathrow, that nothing can be done to locate their loved ones.

As seen in the tragic Malaysian Airline incident, ships aren't always the answer, to not have a long range SAR asset to cover our area of responsibility is nothing short of criminal.

Ah Leon. If only you'd mentioned that years ago, we wouldn't have bothered.

Now you mention it, all I "gave a fig" about on SAR trails, was the exotic locations it took us to. Thanks for Bermuda, Montevideo, and Lajes was always fun.

What I did give a fig about was bantering y'all when you were moaning about needing a pee and enjoying your one sandwich box, when I was on my third chicken curry.

Oh, and a fig was given when the Harrier mate, trying to look cool in front of us, taxing with his canopy open, allowed his maps to get sucked out, and into the veritable Pegasus, allowing us all an extra 5 days at said location....

Thanks.

LJ, we also practised dropping to FJ crews already in single seat life rafts. The aim being to provide bigger more comfortable accommodation with extras food and water. Having done several trails where there were no surface contacts within 200nm of track (I suspect the actual figure was much bigger but we only conducted a track search).

Given the choice of days in a MS10 or a single seat life raft in the S Atlantic I know which I would have chosen.