Long range SAR Top Cover
 

Evening All,


As I retired MPA driver in the Irish Air Corps (CN235) I find it hard to see the service the IAC provides to the to the Irish Coast Guard and other MRCCs affected by MOD mismanagement . The inability of MOD to come up with retention policies has seen a constant trickle of experience leave the force. The service is now reduced to 0800-1800 hrs due to staff shortages in both ATC and aircrew.

My question to the wider maritime community is what arrangements are in place for UK SAR Top Cover post Nimrod? Is a commercial Top Cover provider seen now as a better/worse solution? There is a push now to civilianise all maritime fishery, SAR and Top Cover patrol ops in ireland

Myself and many former colleagues are all very disappointed :mad::mad: on this side of the water to see our forces mismanaged to the point where they could not respond to the SAR Top cover request on the night of the tragic events in Blacksod bay


thanks for your opinions.

Watch this space and see what P-8 provides perhaps.

C-130 provide an ability to drop SAR equipment to survivors at range but this tends to be reactionary rather than an accompanying top cover.

Wotan - have a look at the Irish CG SAR S92 thread on Rotorheads.

Thanks I've been following the thread on rotorheads- just wanted to get an idea of the setup these days for UK SAR

Both C-130 and E-3 have provided top cover for various incidents.

Can the P8 drop survival equipment, rafts etc ? was the Nimrod able to do this ?

Nimrod could, the P-8 has a bomb bay, so it can drop stuff - how big that stuff is, and how expensive to redesign and replace the existing gear dropped by Nimrod and C-130 is a matter for debate.

everything from Blackrock would suggest that something catastrophic and entirely fatal happened to R116, and that topcover could been overhead 10 seconds after the aircraft went into the water and the result would have been the same. that does not however mean that the IAC does not have a very serious problem in needing some 6 hours to find enough air and groundcrew to launch a single aircraft.

The MoD blurb on the website says the P-8 will provide a SAR capability...........

read into that what you will. I assume Top Cover and Co-ordination rather than physical dropping of survival packs etc............

Arc

I don't know what arrangements are in place between HMCG and MoD now for top cover - it was straightforward when SAR was mainly military as the ARCCK could just call out the Nimrod or standby Herc.

and don't forget the Nimrod 'cover' was only provided by MoD to help the UK Govt ICAO requirements (coverage out to 10W) because we already had a jet on standby for another task. I guess that 'service' will be up for negotiation once again assuming the 'other task' standby aircraft is also going to be available..

The UK SRR goes out a lot further than 10W - I've been to 17W in a Sea King at max range but the outer boundary is 30W.

I think 10W is the limit of the Irish SRR.

been a while since I had to think about it - looks like on here Base Locations - bristowgroup.com is is out to 15W - suspect that is just a convenient cut-off for the diagram though... Googling for the definitive answer doesn't seem to return the ICAO master document that I can see. Suspect someone with the latest copy of the IAMSAR guide can fill us in.

aha - The UK area of responsibility
for SAR covers approximately
half of the North Sea and the
English Channel and extends
out to 30°W. Note that the
Republic of Ireland has its own
Search and Rescue Region
(SRR).
There is a small variation in
the Maritime and Aeronautical
SSRs in the far North. The
large Westerly extent is
intended to provide SAR cover
for passenger aircraft en route
to or from the United States of
America.

from here - https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/med...y-projects.pdf page 23

Looks like a good read for those involved in SAR. Some good maps of the planned Offshore Energy installations

Certainly the RAF Hercules in my day could drop what we called the 'Lindholme'
kit comprising linked liferaft and containers. I have also dropped the a/c ELFAK first aid kit to a distressed sailor !

C130 still has an ASRA capability and the A400M is currently trialling it.

Does "top cover" really bring anything to the table these days? If someone's in the water off uk coast it will soon be a recovery rather than a rescue operation unless a helicopter lifts them out

depends on what you mean by 'top-cover'? You'd have to ask the Sea King boys if they valued our presence on 'edge of range' trips. I know we got thanks on more that a few occasions when we could assist with updating vessel positions and even establishing comms in fluent franglais or spanglish ;) Also ask the all-female round the world yacht crew who had useful supplies dropped to them from an MR2 handily on detachment nearby. In most cases, I'd say top-cover is maybe not 'essential' but certainly 'useful'

What's the reason for the "small variation in the far North"?

Sandy Parts - as an ex Brawdy 'boy' in the pre Shannon S61 and IAC Dauphin, even pre Crab days, I can categorically vouch for the warm cosy feeling of a Nimrod top cover - on occasion out to 280 nm from Eire. It gets mighty lonely out there with a twelve mtr swell and waves as big as houses! I also once received a radar let down to cloud break, from a friendly Nimrod, following the rescue in cloud, of a light aircraft pilot who'd crashed near the summit of Heaval on the Isle of Barra - but that's a Wessex tale! Heartfelt thanks to all you guys :ok:

Cheers Al-bert - we always went a bit quiet on board when working out your PLE on those long-range ops. Almost felt guilty about keeping warm and cosy with a chicken curry or three while you guys were doing the brave stuff down below :ok: