shetlander

UK SAR gossip is obviously going through a quiet patch.

With regards to CHC aircraft, it was on a training flight.

satsuma

The calm before the storm?

3D CAM

Training??? No.... the Coastguard don't train!!!!
3D

satsuma

"It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges that haven't been made." Christopher Hitchens.


I don't think anyone has ever suggested the Coastguard don't train. All that has been queried is the quantity and quality of the training and the adequacy of the training syllabus for training pilots and crewmen without a SAR background from scratch. This may change in the years to come but for the moment, the way their ab initio ambulance paramedics have been non-trained seems to prove the point.

jimf671

The training question seems to have visited all quarters since the beginning of this new venture. SAR partners are worried about getting enough training time with civilian aircraft even though over the decades of CivSAR provision they have never actually asked for as much training time as the contractor is ready to provide. Some military flyers go off on one about the contracted flying training time without proper consideration of the different crew responsibilities in different providers, the lack of a war-fighting requirements in CivSAR aircrew training, the standard of the facilities available, the contractor's position as a helicopter training provider, and the extended career pattern of CivSAR aircrew.


If you want something to criticise then get a letter off to your MP asking why the DfT and their predecessors took 40 years to come up with a competent SAR helicopter contract technical specification. Importantly, without such a contract specification, there was never any need for the CAA to regulate for the specialist environment in which only military SAR aircraft were operating. Nearly every mistaken assertion and real problem associated with this change derive from that same origin: past inadequacy of government contract specifications. When they eventually get it together, everybody is behind the curve.


Exciting times ahead.


La oss gå flyr.

mmitch

As an innocent bystander ( but a taxpayer) who will inspect that the standard of the SAR units complies with the contract? Not (I hope) another Quango.
mmitch.

jimf671

Frazer-Nash Consultancy - Frazer-Nash to assist in securing future UK Search And Rescue Helicopter Service

Fareastdriver

Should the contractor not come up to standard they wil get blasted by four barrels from a gun turret.

mmitch

Thank you jimf671. Fareastdriver
mmitch.

Thomas coupling

Currently the MoD SAR units cover:
Search
Rescue
Mayday call outs
Medtransfers
Med rescues.

Will Bristow continue to do:
ON - SHORE med rescue / med transfer / maydays?

Or does their budget only cover offshore activities?

jimf671

In spite of Fareastdriver's proposal for taxpayers to get greater value out of BBMF's assets , that Frazer-Nash news page refers to "support the acceptance trials required to ensure that the service transitions smoothly from the current SAR Helicopter capability into the new arrangements" which corroborates what has been heard through other channels. Elsewhere on the Frazer-Nash site, another specific reference is made to this contract and "supporting government procurement through specialist expertise in helicopter performance, airworthiness and operations."

jimf671

Here is the link to the MAIN contract documents on Business Link.
https://online.contractsfinder.busin...947360&fs=true

There is a 4Mb zip file called 'Final Contract (NRP10045UKSARCONTRACTREDACTED.zip'. Within that zip file there should be a PDF file called NRP10045UKSARHSch2.1SpecificationNOREDACTIONS.pdf that specifies capability for a range of land and maritime tasks.



In the GAP specifications, SAR Tasking is defined in the following way.
"Tasks will include but not be limited to:
Area search for Casualties.
Search for Casualties using Beacon search.
Deployment of rescue personnel/animals.
Deployment of rescue equipment.
Support to fire fighting at sea.
Recovery of Casualties.
Recovery of rescue personnel.
Recovery of rescue equipment.
Recovery of divers in distress.
Providing immediate emergency care.
Co-ordination of local SAR assets.
Inter-hospital transfer.
Aid to civil authorities.
Counter pollution."

shetlander

They will cover maritime, aeronautical and inland emergencies.

[email protected]

It will be interesting to see how the med-transfers happen with such big gaps between the SAR flights - especially on the East coast.

Taking the Humberside cab on an ECMO to London means no SAR cover between Inverness and wherever the Manston flight relocates to. Once committed to the transfer it would be very tricky to retask.

Similarly if the Newquay aircraft does a similar transfer to London, there is nothing covering the SW approaches between St Athan and Lee on Solent.

Will the ARCC or Southampton MRCC (or whoever ends up controlling the aircraft) release an aircraft for such a transfer or will the sanctity of the UK SAR cover take precedence?

Suddenly a 10-flight solution doesn't look that clever.

jimf671

I can appreciate the point you make Crab. However, if the system can survive years of SK shaky rivets and single winches then perhaps things will continue to work fine.


As posted elsewhere in relation to the same point.

"The Bristow surge map shows how every part of the UK mainland is covered by between 4 and 7 helicopters (not including the spare at each base), except ... eh ... em ... the Ben Nevis area which is only covered by 3.

(Not expecting Sumburgh at Kintail any time soon.)

Let's not forget that the contractor is not tasking these aircraft. Also, that when availability all goes badly wrong, as happened during the Colwyn Bay incident in 2012, when Valley were off-line and Prestwick then broke a winch, a third base turned out to finish the job and it all ended well."


I suspect many will question the ARCC move to NMOC before the effectiveness of the 10-base solution. Surely it is at that 'big picture' level that such jobs turn from coal-dust to diamonds or vice versa.

[email protected]

Except in that particular incident there were 3 bases, relatively close together, able to provide mutual support. When Lec came across to do the job the ARCC still had Wattisham and Boulmer to hold the East coast - not under the 10-base solution.

We come back to the fact that no matter how fast your aircraft, it can only be in one place at one time and, with the way the flights are spread, will leave massive gaps which a 'surge' capacity will take a long time to fill.

jeepys

Who's fault is it we have a ten base plan, not the contractor.
I appreciate there may be areas when the 'local' cab is in use leaving a large gap but unfortunately this is deemed an acceptable risk. This is not what the families of a victim wants to hear I appreciate but I also understand the economics behind the plan after all it would not prove financially viable to have a rescue helicopter every 30 miles for instance.

Remember the SAR(H) program allowed for 12 bases but that was 'supposedly' scuppered by Crabs ex colleague. It's a shame as this would have been better. Unlike an RAF officer (ex) to ruin the party!

jimf671

The 2001 Provision And Coverage Report, by a working group of the UK SAR Operator's Group, started with the following statement.

"The National Audit Office referred, in their February 1998 Report on HM Coastguard: Civil Maritime Search and Rescue (para 2.42), to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) strategic review of defence requirements, which was to include an examination of the provision of military search and rescue (SAR) services. It stated that the HMCG bases at Lee on Solent and Portland relied to some extent upon backup from military helicopters based at RNAS Culdrose and RAF Wattisham. The Report suggested that following that review “…it would be appropriate to assess the implications for HM Coastguard’s helicopter coverage, so that any rationalisation could be implemented when the contracts for the Solent and Portland helicopter bases come up for renewal …” "

So it was 17 years ago that somebody noticed at least some of the basic problems with previous contracts and it will probably be 2017 before the full solution is operational. Some of the reporting issues highlighted back then still haven't been fixed.

In 2006 an update was done for the MCA by Anatec UK Ltd.

Those reports are no longer on the net. I have copies of the 2001 report and the 2006 update if anyone is interested.


In 2011, the Assurance Review of Search and Rescue Helicopter Basing was done for the DfT by Atkins Defence. it is still on GOV.UK:

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...copter-service [See 'UK Search and Rescue Helicopters Infrastructure']
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...review-sar.pdf
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...-selection.pdf



"Aircraft with still air speed of 120kts or less would fail to satisfy the surge key user requirement in a 10 base solution."

jimf671

This, of course is where we have come from in the distant past. When this all started, if they needed a SAR helicopter across the other side of the country, somebody put it on a truck and drove it there.


(Plenty of stories of Whirlwind and predecessors not making it as far as 30 miles.)

[email protected]

Jeepys - I think it is generally accepted that the ex-crab who allegedly scuppered the first deal was something of a convenient scapegoat because the new Govt didn't want to be saddled with a £30Bn PFI it couldn't afford and the selected contractor was having trouble getting the required finance.

No, we don't need a SAR helicopter every 30 miles but there has to be a happy medium somewhere.

In coming to a 10-base solution, I think it was assumed that a 12-base solution had worked perfectly for many years which was far from the truth, even when we had a second standby aircraft at each military flight - unfortunately the data to prove a rescue didn't take place doesn't exist and won't in the future so we won't actually know if jobs aren't getting done because of the big gaps in the coverage unless there is a big, high-profile disaster where help is a long time coming because the super-fast new aircraft was already miles away in the wrong direction.

Now I am not saying that what we had before was a perfect solution because it wasn't BUT, if you are spending £Billions of public money on a SAR service for the next 10 years (and beyond) you would hope that some of these issues have been considered by the DfT.

There will be some surge capability as each flight will have 2 aircraft and Bristow have insisted that crews live within a 30 mile radius of the flight but how long that capability will take to ramp up has yet to be discussed as there seems to be no formal requirement for a second standby (which we used to have until a few years ago but lost due to poor serviceability).