212man

I think this thread will end up as the web based 'Bonfire of the banalities'....

Some may need to google that....

jimf671

OK, llamaman, here are the thoughts that I shared with someone by email earlier.

"Bristow's choice of bases, including a training centre for Agusta Westland AW189 at Inverness, is good for Inverness and very good for Highland mountain rescue. A training centre for Sikorsky S-92 will be located at Stornoway, so all SAR training will be in the Highlands and Islands. However, I and others, with our sea boots on rather than our hill boots, see trouble ahead for North Sea response when the next nearest east coast base to Inverness is Humberside Airport."

DoobyDoo

Most SAR crews will be ex mil. Still at some point, with SAR being more and more civilian operated, the military will not be training as many SAR pilots anymore, so how will people get to be SAR pilots in the future?

In the existing programs, who is getting hired? Is it pretty much like the North Sea job market, or much harder to get into?

HeliComparator

Not true, many current Bristow SAR crews including those that TUPEd to CHC are Bristow trained. We are quite capable of training our own crews, although with the sudden expansion coming up this will obviously need to be supplemented by mil crews, but that is a one-off event.

Fareastdriver

When EASA gets there act together and aircraft are allowed to fly GPS approaches to LPV at least the civilian SAR aircraft will have the appropiate GPS fit to be able to carry them out.

SeaKingDriver

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread, but am amazed at the surprise some of you display at its descent into the gutter. Any area of discussion involving all of the fraternities, and our respective abilities/future employment was bound to go this way in one form or another!

Suffice to say, I think there could be less 'tarring with the same brush' - @r£3holes exist in our field, some walk into an AFCO, and some fork out for their own training... end of dit!

On a sensible note, has anyone heard any information about the road shows?

Cheers, SKDriver

onesquaremetre

This thread can be very informative SKD but when the questions get too difficult, the defenders of the Coastguard faith just clam up.

This is not a difficult question to answer but there is a deafening silence.

We were told that the CAA conduct external audits of Coastguard SAR but where's the credibility in that if the people doing the checking aren't experienced SAR personnel who can evaluate the capabilities of both pilots and aircrewmen?

I'd like to think that the CAA's team is capable of evaluating all aspects of SAR but no-one will answer the question. From this we have to assume that the answer is that they aren't and this may well remain the case when military SAR is no more. A service to the public will be being run for profit by a private company without a credible external audit to assess its flying capability.

NRDK

I believe that the AOC holder is normal responsible to the Authority to ensure that the unit meets the required UK Legal requirements. The CAA audit this.

Internal company procedures are audited from within and the CAA check that those procedures that are within their remit are being met. Company procedures and standards are dealt with by well qualified members of the team. Any issues that do not come up to scratch are addressed and rectified.

I believe that at least one CAA flight ops members does attend a SAR base for continuation training as well as audits and that he has had a previous SAR (civ) background. Enough said.

Fareastdriver

Which non-miltary outside agency audited the RN and RAF SAR.

Lala Steady

The crabs have SAR Staneval and the RN have RNFS(RW) - not non-mil outside agencies but then the MoD haven't been charged with making a profit out of SAR so there is little conflict of interests. Try being beasted by Flying Standards and there is no box-ticking allowed.

When it comes to a decision between saving money (or maintaining profit) and giving extra training hours to meet a required standard - if there's no external audit to ensure the standard is being met, what incentive is there for a contractor not to tick boxes knowing that no-one is there to catch them out.

Will a CAA examiner take every crew member out on a SAR role check sortie every year? No it'll be left to internal checkers who will ensure that the company meets its KPIs no matter how low the operating standard actually is.

Rumour is that the co-jo slots will be filled by minimum spec, potentially overseas newbies with no SAR experience who will fly for peanuts. If that is true then someone really does need a reality check about how dangerous that will be. That would be like taking all the current co-jos in the mil SAR outfits and replacing them with student pilots who possibly just had their SAR famil. The highest workload in a SAR mission is often the co-jos - nav, radar, comms, monitoring the pilot etc and someone wants to put guys with NO experience in there - what could go wrong there?

Also - who get to fly the gnarly left side on deck or cliff winch when the wind doesn't allow right side on? The low time co=pilot with no SAR skills????/

bigglesbutler

As someone who has had extra training BECAUSE my standards slipped I can hand on heart say that the training standard and thus safety comes first. I know from the outside our Target Zero initiate looks like PR and hot air, but I assure you once in company you quickly see it is more than that. Proof is in the pudding though, put your cv in and get a job and you will see.

Si

Fareastdriver

Get a reality check, will you. It's not RyanAir that's taking over; it is an established company that was doing SAR professionally probably before you were born. They have, and they will, despite all the tearing of sackcloth and knashing of teeth by several of these posters, be able to carry out this task on the basis of skill and experience.

Plus, they will have some decent kit to do it with.

Thomas coupling

NRDK. Well said that man. One squaremetre: The AOC does all the work for the CAA. It's this that is audited not the individual. You can be excused though for not being up to speed with civvy audits.

Which brings me onto Lalasteady - I love that handle by the way...genuinely funny.
However you comments really do leave much to be desired, methinks.
Let me address your 'scorn' in order:
Staneval ARE SAR. Much of what is taught and practiced by the SARF has been either modified or designed by Staneval, so when Staneval (the ONE pilot and ONE crewman) visit, they are checking not only the individual but that their work is being practiced in reality......a conflict of itnerest I would say.
Again (like onesquaremetre) you seem not quite able to grasp who or what the CAA is all about. The CAA aren't ensuring the company they are auditing are/are not making a profit. They are technical (engineering inspectors) and operational (pilots/crewmen) inspectors. They have only one desire - to make sure the AOC is being sustained ...safely.
It doesn't mean they have to fly with anyone in fact. The company TRE's do this. Now company TRE's can be ramp checked at any time and without notice. It is beholden upon the TRE's/IRI's/CP's of this world to maintain standards and with something as serious as FLYING, do you honestly think there are checkers out there who turn a blind eye to safety in order to tick company profit boxes?? Seriously, do you? Can you imagine the irrevocable damage that would ensue if a compay like Bristow were found to be derelict in their duty due to internal cover ups? It would finish them off as a future contender for any work.
So let's get real where it comes to how and why the CAA function.
PS: They already have civvy SAR pilots in their midst and guess what........all of them are ex mil

Your final comments aren't worthy of a response.

lalalalalalalalalalal

NRDK

Could happen, Bristow used to stick new CPL holders with approx. 250 hours on SAR units a long time ago. The bar has raised somewhat but perhaps not high enough to prevent that again. The only thing stopping that will be the level of applications and the 'best judgement' of the HR/recruiting team. Since this is high profile and needs to work, they will choose wisely.

HRH WW was from scratch with experienced staff, after 2 weeks he was flying in command so it is likely to happen in the Civ world too, albeit it will be about closer to 10 years before a low time make command

The MOD has internal audits for these standards, but at mega billions of tax payers £'s. It should have been under tighter scrutiny by the NAO, perhaps the expensive beast that has been MIL SAR would have been axed years ago

Anyway......it has now. It needs good crews, it will get them barring a few numpties that will get in, much like they did into the RAF/RN/Civ world of flying. Probably ok on Non-SAR ops but not really what we want. Hopefully keep HR out of the decision, use good word of mouth and bob's your Uncle! People do get moved on you know That's why we have audits (closed session chats as well)

JimL

SAR comes under the direct remit of the DfT and ipso facto the CAA - as do all State (aviation) activities other than the military.

EASA do not (yet) have a dog in this fight.

As with others, I cannot believe the amount of unadulterated nonsense that is being spouted on this thread. If this is indicative of the level of knowledge (of civil aviation practices) possessed by the average SAR pilot, they have quite a lot of catching up to do.

Jim

jimf671

Surely the command structures amongst current SAR brands, RAF/RN/CivSAR-CAA are not three different kinds of apple but perhaps a pumpkin, a turnip and a cabbage, so comparing them is no straight-forward matter.

Lala Steady

TC - what you are doing is agreeing with me - the CAA inspectors who are supposed to ensure the AOC is being complied with, don't actually fly with the SAR crews - they only fly with the TREs! So as long as you have competent TREs, the operational crews can be crap and the CAA won't know!

NRDK - this is a rumour network and the co-jo info allegedly comes from the contractor Since the DfT placed the spec for go-jos so low, how can Bristows be criticised if that;s what they provide?

onesquaremetre

Thomas Coupling and NRDK.

Thank you for your explanations. It does seem though that through the system you describe, the CAA are trusting that the AOC holder will never fall victim to any commercial pressure to keep the service fully manned.

Thomas Coupling

Previous posters have suggested that the CAA conduct flying audits to ensure full operational capability is being maintained. Your first point here suggests that this is done by both pilots and crewmen in the CAA's employ. Yet other posts, including the second one shown above, suggest that this is devolved to company TREs.

So is it the CAA or TREs that conduct the capability checks? And how can TREs check the performance of the aircrewmen?

Fareastdriver

Lal Steady.

You have to understand that Bristow is the leader in the civil helicopter world as far as it's crew training is involved. When the new offshore co-pilots come through the system they have to be mothered for the first couple of months but after that it's a coast. The quality of co-pilots is so good that being an offshore captain is probably one of the easiest jobs in the business. I know, because I am a bone idle sod. There is absolutely no doubt that the training for SAR co-pilots will be of the same standard.

Way back with the S61s there wasn't a lot of equipment on the aircraft so there was not so intensive to carry out the job ie, on a Wessex there was only one jockey., so low hour co-pilots could be fed into the system without jeapadising the operation, as did the military.

Years and years ago a Chinese helicopter company joined forces with Bristow to start offshore and other flying in China. This was to reassure western passengers that they were in safe hands over the South China Sea. This continued for years even after they had sufficient crew trained to North Sea standards; the Chinese captains gaining CAA licences and flying from Aberdeen. They still required Bristow to stay on because of the standard of training which they thought might slip in it became an all Chinese operation.

For various reasons I will not go in to but nothing to do with aviation Bristow pulled out of China, quite suddenly. I, and three others, were approached by COHC has asked to stay on on OUR T&Cs because they valued the quality of our (Bristow) training so highly.

This we did and to keep me on they moved heaven and earth to keep my Chinese licence going until I was nearly sixty nine. They are now by themselves with the standard offshore work plus the SAR contract in Shanghai and I am proud of what I have contributed to that organisation.

Don't knock Bristow, I may have worked for them but I have seen others in the world and they are the best.

bigglesbutler

Careful, I know of one CAA inspector who used to be a company TRE on a SAR unit and did many of my OPC's, he will take exception at not holding the standard high. He sure as hell held it high for me and others and I don't doubt he has kept it there, quite rightly soo.

Si