Geoffersincornwall

....any more 'Doom-sayers'' for the skylark?

Reality hurts, now get real, we can't afford to save everyone.

To save 100% of all potential survivors would mean no money for something else - like cancer care, Trident, a bunch of good teachers, a new school to replace the one that's falling down. We elect people to make those choices and you have the blessed right to winge about it but to put it simply we have, it would appear, decided to save 98% of potential survivors. To save everyone might put up the cost of a Rolls Royce service by a factor of 50% but for me 98% will be good enough.

I can imagine that to know you can do it better and be denied the resources is tough but think of those lads and lasses making do whilst they fight Ebola on our behalf. They too know they could stop it in it's tracks if they had the resources but they are doing what the Brits have been doing since Agincourt, Waterloo, and Dunkirk, we make do and make it work as best we are able. Usually it works out. How about getting behind those now with responsibility for our new SAR service and give them your support. You don't have to stop your critique but do so constructively with a little less of the 'It will never work' and a bit more of the 'well done lads."

G.

shetlander

With the exception of one, im pretty sure Bristows and CHC have all successfully completed this sort of tasking.

Vie sans frontieres

But Geoffers, there's supposed to be no reduction in service and today's crews DO practise night wets. Do you want to inform the DfT or should I?

Thanks though for displaying the candour that's been absent from so many other apologists for the new service.

Shetlander

By day or by night? And by the seat of their pants or through well-honed skills and procedures? Please tell me, what is your SOP for a night ejectee?

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That is certainly not correct - many RAF crews do more than just one quick 'rest tour' on SAR, many have over 10 years (some many more) experience. If you were to write their job spec it would read 'SAR Crew' - that is why the TUPE rules should have applied.

When you replace one service with another, under TUPE, you are required to offer the existing employees to transfer - that is completely different to allowing the new employer to select which employees they want.

so what metric are you going to use to decide who lives and who dies? Surely the only answer is to try as best as is humanly possible to rescue everyone - that requires the best training possible to provide the best qualified and trained crews possible.

Does milSAR rescue everyone? No, but we try as hard as possible and train as hard as possible to make that our aspiration.

dingo9

Don't think this is quite true - you pay effectively a wear and tear tarrif and a charge in lieu of council tax. Before I left ( last year ) I paid £120 per month for a 4 bed detached house in Hampshire outside the wire. I'd love to find a similar property on the civ market. The council tax equivalent was £150 per month.

Norma Snockers

Dingo9 Must have been a run down grade 4 house for that price, most are grade 1 or 2 for which you will pay £320-£450/month for a 3 bed. (check out RAF Community - Food & Accommodation Charges then click on accomodation charges for 2014/2015) and for a grade 1, 4 bed expect to pay £600/month (and they are all unfurnished costs)

Yes this is still cheap compared to the UK average but then the normal civilian doesn't have to move every 2-3 years.

jimf671

Good point. Although in the civilian market there is a troublesome little problem called building regulations which does not seem to have bothered the MoD until very recently. Then there is the fact that in the civilian market the drains usually work: not something you see around airfields, generally.

Rather like a SAR Helicopter Service, it's not always easy to work out what an equivalent service really is.

jeepys

From an interest perspective what does a SAR Flt Lt earn these days?

dingo9

It was grade 4, but in good shape. Don't think there are many grade 1 houses about, at least Odiham way anyway.
Flt Lt. pay depends on level and on what flying pay increment you're on. Top level Flt Lt (level 9) plus enhanced flying pay is about 60K, maybe 62k now. So on average probably looking anywhere between 50-62.

Geoffersincornwall

With respect the previous SAR service tried its hardest to rescue everyone but inevitably failed to reach the 100% mark. Maybe 100% is achievable if you doubled the number of units around our shores - but I doubt it. Some things are just not possible no matter what money is spent.

If you want a metric to go with I reckon that between 95 and 99% of missions achieved would be a fair return on investment.

With my tongue slightly in cheek I could say the the man overboard should be better trained/equipped or shouldn't have been fooling around on deck after a skinful of booze. The ejectee should be well enough equipped/trained to survive until a pickup is possible after all the Air Force don't confine their activities to the waters covered by any/our SAR service. The missing sports diver should consider the risks of a dangerous pastime and a professional diver will have proper support anyway. The fishermen are involved in what is acknowledged to be a very dangerous occupation and I know from personal experience that they are champions at pushing the envelope when they feel the need to fish and they are not the best at maintaining their boats. Any fisherman on a pier in bad weather deserves what he gets - he should know the risks. As for the kid swept out to sea at sunset - what the hell were his parents doing. Stupid is as stupid does, our world is full of consequences and we cannot possibly cover off all of them.

As I said before we can do the best we can with what we have got. When we had a lot of winch wire 'bird-caging' we couldn't train for weeks. **** happens.

G.

jeepys

Thanks Dingo.

So a consideration to all. If TUPE should apply then I assume those SAR crew should get paid the same salary to what they were used to in the mob. If a Flt Lt is on say 55k then under Tupe he stays on that as opposed to his civvy colleagues making a Captain grade in the region of 90k.

dingo9

Have a look at
http://www.mod-abc.co.uk
It calculates civilian equivalent of MOD pay scales with benefits.
Interestingly I answered the questions based on top level Flt Lt on enhanced flying pay , living in a married quarter with no kids at boarding school... As it happens it calculated its equivalent to a salary outside of 86k.

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Conversely Jeepys, SAR rearcrew, many of whom were on £45-55K would still get that instead of the £35-40K they will be paid

The difference is that there is competition against N Sea wages for the pilots - although that might change following the crash in oil prices.

Louis Newmark - sorry, in answer to your question - over calm seas at higher heights the best service for the survivor and winchman will be provided by hover trim controlled by the winch-op rather than hover attitude and patter when it is flown by the pilot - even the new shiny helicopters don't give the pilot a view of what is happening underneath the aircraft.

Geoffers - according to your logic we should only rescue sensible, clever and well prepared people - that would cut out about 70% of UK SAR jobs. There you go , you have just saved the Chancellor several billion ££££s!

Vie sans frontieres

Geoffersincornwall

Tongue supposedly in cheek or not, the fact that ypur mind works in such a way is deeply concerning. You may find there are other web-based forums where your latent views are the norm. This one is however about rescuing people who have had a bad day and need help - one day that may be you or someone close to you.

Shetlander

Well you've had enough time to drive to Sumburgh and check to see if there's an SOP. Let's face it, there almost certainly isn't and even if there is, it rarely if ever gets practised anyway. You're out of your depth fella.

shetlander

You guys really do think your God. Well your not. Face it you're all just throwing your toys from your God given prams because your loosing your precious service. Yes at times you may be the best, at others you are far from it.

In recent times having to turn down taskings due to not having an aircraft available for days on end. Lack of crew. Lack of "flying hours" etc etc etc.

You think that no one else comes near to performing SAR taskings, however MCA SAR, has managed so far. Military SAR is not the be all and end all.

I might be out of my depth with regards to a military tasking. However I have managed quite fine in all my other years of SAR taskings, whether it be on the end of the wire or not. I will continue to sit back and watch you guys spit your dummies but in the meantime I will keep doing the day job and I look forward to the first time I have to rescue a pilot having crashed his jet!

[email protected]

Excellent use of complacency as a SAR training tool Shetlander - perhaps you look forward to a 2-Tornado mid-air so you can use your 'been alright so far' skills to deal with 4 guys (not all safe in dinghies) in the water in varying stages of peril

P3 Bellows

There goes another dummy :-o .........{

Vie sans frontieres

A round of applause for Shetlander for such a high quality and very revealing rant.

Wrong. Everybody f*cks up. The name of the game is to try and minimise the risk of those f*ck ups.

Oh sorry. Everybody f*cks up except you.

He won't.

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and there goes another pointless post by P3......

Same again

Geoffers and Shetlander. The 'Naysayer Trio' with Vie on Lead Vocals backed up by Crab (repetitive soprano) and Jim (tenor) will always have a negative refrain so why not do what the rest of Bristow SAR has done and leave them to it. That way we don't have to keep looking to see if something constructive or informative has been added to the thread and can get on with training. Then if we need a good laugh we can have listen now and again.