Self loading bear

Rio Grande is approx. 370 nm
Safer for fuel reserve.
I guess they will let you land in matters of life and death.
Altough there is another democratic chosen boss in Argentina, they still roar when they are in economic down turn. This might slacken a bit now the oil exploration around the Falklands is not a complete succes.
However there might be a slight chance you have to leave the cab behind and take the airliner back. 😁😁

RGA - BUE - SCL - MPN. Make sure you take a few quit travel money with you or have your card loaded. Probably easier to fly to your head office to talk to your boss.

Cheers SLB

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Heard a rumour that Bristow are going for complete S-92 fleet because AW189 further delayed.....

Not sure if that will also affect the Falklands SAR contract which is supposed to be using AW189.

Also heard disturbing rumblings about how some ex-mil pilots may have used some poetic licence on their CVs regarding glass cockpit time and SAR experience and that a potenial senior pilot had struggled to get qualified..........

Just rumours of course......nothing like that could be true.......could it???

Adam Nams

I've heard that two have already been delivered.

jimf671

G-SAAR and G-FSAR are sitting in a hangar at Newquay (St Mawgan to you Crab), complete and making ready for a trip south. They are ITALIAN-MADE AW189 SAR version.

G-MCGY and G-MCGZ are at another hangar at Newquay doing the work-up to take over from Culdrose shortly.

G-MCGG is believed to have gone to Prestwick with Craig and all that Stornoway practice hasn't been wasted after all.

G-MCGL is brand new and believed to be at Dyce being wrapped in Christmas paper with Prestwick's name on it. More to come?


As posted by me elsewhere.
"Can you imagine how bad it is going to look for AW (Agusta Westland) if a second SAR contract is late because of problems with their aircraft? If they can make sure that the AW189 starts on time in the Falklands then it's all about Bristow. If the AW189 doesn't start on time in the Falklands then it's all about Agusta Westland. So how important is it to them that the Falklands aircraft are right?"


The fundamental resilience that the two types provide to this service has been important from the start. This was amplified in late 2012 when the DfT dictated the number of aircraft. On top of that there is the Government's need to make Westland a proper aircraft manufacturer. (Oops. Did I say that out loud?)

Major fail on the last point since the only AW189 SAR ready to go into service are Italian-made.

If S-92A becomes permanent for the entire service then the service will be degraded in performance and degraded in resilience. It will be obvious that the Government has given the contract to the wrong contractor. You have to ask if the senior management of Bristow SAR had the rotor experience and the bare-knuckle commercial horse-sense to make the AW189 programme work on the available timescale. If they didn't then it really isn't all about AW. If they didn't, how does that compare with what was told to the DfT during the bid?


(And don't take anything Bristow tell you about the Falklands too seriously!)

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Having the aircraft ready to ship and having them operational isn't quite the same thing but we will have to wait and see - I had heard there was a further delay in the icing clearance due to the addition of an external handhold........I believe 1564 Flt are readying the contingency plans to extend if required - some fudging required with the Design Authority apparently.

jimf671

We have seen from the Bristow UK SAR experience why one needs contingency plans. In the Falklands, without the scale of local aviation infrastructure we are accustomed to in the UK, I expect there may be more than one level of contingency.

Older and Wiser

Crab, no icing issue with FI Aircraft. But they are LIPS not FIPS which BHL require and the FI aircraft have no requirement for an additional hand hold. Training is continuing with crews at NQY with no major risk to ISD.

Contingencies were required from both the Contractor and JFC by DES MoD. The contractor contingency is in place, you may have heard about the thought process JFC are going through for their contingency.

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Understood, does that mean that the UK ones do have a problem because they do require the handhold and FIPS?

edwardspannerhands

Diverging (geographically) slightly, I see both Caernarfon and Humberside have had a couple of distance taskings in the past 24hrs (N.I. & I.O.M). I'm guessing Humberside got the latter because the Caernarfon crew were out of duty time.

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So Humberside go to IOM.......where does that leave the rest of the East Coast for SAR cover????

Out of duty time????on SAR?????WTF?? Must be the brave new world.

That would surely count as being off-state and attract contract penalties wouldn't it??

What is their max duty time??

edwardspannerhands

Crab, I am not au fait with Bristow's ConOps, hence I said I was guessing at the "out of duty" time. It was a long old haul for Caernarfon. Likewise I have no insight into contractural matters so cannot answer your question on penalties etc.. (Maybe JIMF has the answer as he seems to have an inside line on these things)


Your point on East Coast SAR cover is however, most valid.

Never Fretter

Does this also not demonstrate the greater flexibility of modern, high speed RIPS equipped aircraft?

So just how fatigued were you allowed to fly CRAB?

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No it demonstrates that the UK SAR service is spread too thinly.

Never Fretter - as you know, fatigue is a very subjective thing to assess and varies from person to person and from day to day with those same people - however, when urgent lifesaving was required, it came down to the crew (not just the captain) to decide if they were fit to perform the rescue.

During the Gloucester floods, one crew flew 12 hours continuously - yes they were tired at the end but they didn't pull stumps and go home just because they were at the technical end of crew duty time.

Many mil SAR crews will have flown multiple jobs in a duty period - especially in the Summer or periods of very bad weather - the point of SAR was that you didn't operate like an airline, it was a military organisation which allowed self-regulation within broad crew duty limits and the ability of the crew or senior management to extend those limits if the situation required.

Have I flown when fatigued? Yes. Were the risks mitigated as much as possible by the crew? Yes. Did we have any accidents or incidents operating that way? None that could be directly attributed to fatigue.

Now the brave new world might see SAR differently and insist that it is conducted within stricter civilian rules and regs - if that is the way it must be then so be it but if it compromises the quality of SAR service and UK cover then not much will have been achieved by the contractorisation will it?

Edward - both NI and IOM were normal jobs for the flight at Valley so why would it be a long drag for Caernafon?

TorqueOfTheDevil

Just how fast could the Inverness or Lydd aircraft fly if en route to an incident in Humberside's patch?

handysnaks

..and the only way you are going to be able to quantify that last sentence is by the number of lives not saved, searches not conducted or transfers not carried out, that you can prove would have been carried out, under the MilSar system.

Oh, and I suppose you can chuck in some cost calculation for good measure!

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The only arbiter of relative success at the moment is the ARCCK but even that will disappear once it moves to MCA control.

ARCCK of course will not be allowed to comment but rumours abound about quality of service.

When the MCA are marking their own homework there will be little flow of information other than statistical breakdown of callouts.

jimf671

Inverness? Modern world response from Prestwick, Lydd or Caernarfon. (West coast aircraft with deicing up over the top and let-down over the sea.)


I hear you Crab. But the RAF were marking their own card previously and before 1979 there was no Fleet Air Arm connection whatsoever and before 2010 there was no MCA connection. No matter how well-informed you might regard yourself and former colleagues, only subtle back-room links were available to many involved parties. In spite of my own links, in relation to one important incident in the military SAR helicopter world I received reports through an aviator from another country.

MCA Aviation have started their new publicly available reporting system and I applaud that move.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...september-2015
https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...icopter-sarh01
Even without that new source we know that the contractor is doing a sh1t load of jobs with some bases exceed the previous military numbers. Sorry mate, but the question that might have to be asked is what were the military doing that prevented tasks. The age and capability of the aircraft has to be questioned. That stretches back some years and stretches forward to next year in respect of 1564.

With respect to MCA Aviation at ARCC Fareham, I hope those here who have continued involvement will keep asking searching questions and keep up positive engagement so that we will see a 21st century approach to an important public service with the Open Government principle fully engaged.

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Lies, damn lies and statistics Jim but if that floats your boat then fine - it doesn't tell you much apart from what jobs were completed.

You seem to believe the RIPS is the be all and end all but it only sheds ice from the rotor, any ice on the airframe will continue to accrete and that has often been the most dangerous as it adds massively to the AUM and you simply run out of power. A simple up and over in winter won't be that simple and if the job is overland, you still have to get down using ATC or a coastal letdown. And remember 139 and 189 don't have that.

There was a very free flow of information between the milsar flights and the ARCCK and comments and feedback were encouraged by both sides to improve the service - whether or not the same Form R system is implemented by the new service I don't know.

Because there was no incentive to keep information from outside agencies because none of it was commercially sensitive (being off-state for example) there was no need for fudging stats or obfuscation with the RCS.

Despite your optimism, I keep hearing negative reports about many aspects of the new service which I do balance against the fact that they are still rescuing people.

jeepys

Crab,

please share the negative reports so the better informed can either agree or put the record straight.

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Nice idea but some of those people have careers and jobs to protect - so no.