Sevarg

Llama, I think you'll find crab has it right.
Crab, the time it would take, yes and the money, to get a NVG compatable 92 for the FI contract would not have been possible. It all takes time. Also unless things have changed in FI civ aircraft can't fly at night so no NVG training. Nice idea though.

llamaman

Seems a waste to drag one of their key NVG trainers down there to provide a bum on a seat. Oh, my mistake, that will be the option that incurs less of a financial penalty. It's simple really - commercial pressures trump operational effectiveness. Like the opposite of the military (in simple terms).

[email protected]

Sevarg - what I find rather laughable, and somewhat sad, is that a 'SAR' contract is fulfilled to provide cover for the O and G cover in the FI but only during daylight hours. If a last light rig transport aircraft goes down, who will they call to perform the SAR? Oh yes the military. How is that fulfilling a contract? Talk about minimum capability.

absolutely and the whole reason the privatisation is a bad thing.

jimf671

Remind me Crab, for how long?


And the people you know who will be doing it after that: are they any good? Are they Crab-trained? Or maybe they trained Crab?

satsuma

Shocking if that's true. Absolutely shocking, considering the non-NVG debacle going on in the UK.

Sevarg

Crab, Sats and Llama,
It's the the British Military, also still running the SAR in FI that doesn't permit flying after dark. Something to do with the type of transponder the Mil require. NOT BHL or the oil company. So no amount of NVG gear is going to get the training done down there.
One could say that the RAF are deliberately not helping to get things up and running, if an NGV compatible aircraft was available, which it is not as they are all on contract to the CG. Now what would you all say if you found a GC 92 on an oil SAR contract in the FI's??

Hot_LZ

I'm pretty sure that there have been both CAT and SAR(trg) flight in the FI at night. Are a few people stuck in the past?

Sevarg

Hot lz. Check 2224 where I said unless things have changed. As no one from the Milsar supporters club had said otherwise I guessed the rule was still in force.

[email protected]

Sevarg - I haven't been there since Jan 14 but I think the SSR thing is a red herring - it wouldn't take much liaison to get a conspicuity code for local training in a specific area on specific dates.

If the mil say no to that then it is not an anti-Bristow thing, it will be purely down to threat assessment regarding potential foreign aggressors (you know who I mean)

llamaman

Why should non-NVG capability be more of an issue at Inverness than anywhere else? If a rescue needs to be effected at night, overland in poor weather then surely such a reduction in capability would be of equal concern no matter which was the relevant base?

Vespel92

You're absolutely right. All rescues will be "AFFECTED" with non-NVG capability

llamaman

Vespel,

Post edited, thank you grammar-police!

Llama

mmitch

The SAR AW139 based at Lydd lifted a crewman taken ill off the MV Kent, a preserved tug in the Medway estuary on August 17th. He has since been released from hospital.
mmitch.

[email protected]

Good to ease themselves in gently with a nice, daylight, flat calm medrescue

detgnome

To be fair, I think they eased themselves in with an NVG assisted search on the Friday night.

jimf671

Perhaps because it's not about one crew member not being NVG current for a couple of days.

llamaman

I suspect the pour soul(s) who are denied a rescue, or face a significant delay, don't really care why a particular callsign is unable to attend. The fact remains that bases are routinely declaring non-NVG capability despite the new service being sold to the public as "better" than the one it was replacing. It may well be in time but that doesn't excuse the less than ideal situation in which the UK SAR service finds itself. And before I inevitably get accused of whinging for the sake of it I'm not, just stating the facts. Senior people who hold gravitas within the SAR community (both civilian and military) read this forum. If we all toed the party line and harped on about how great everything was then they would be getting a skewed picture of the reality.

[email protected]

Trouble is, that is exactly what they want - there is no way anyone from Bristow or the MCA (or even the military for that matter) will openly criticise the new service as they have all been given the 'Gypsy's Warning' and, quite sensibly, want to keep their jobs.

jimf671

Let's get real here.

The service that has existed pre-2015 has had up to 4 providers and all of them had major short-comings. There were reduced numbers of aircraft in some flights, poor aircraft availability, poor contract specification, absence or late introduction of critical role equipment, resources diverted to war-fighting, poor and unco-ordinated reporting, no de-icing, poor communications, and late introduction of a unified tasking regime.

Add to that the 60 year public love affair with the pretty yellow helicopter and the recent 'support our troops' ethos on the milSAR side and the contractors being constantly held back and tripped up by 40 years of rubbish contract specifications from the Coastguard on the civSAR side and a less level playing field would be difficult to find (so long as we discount the pitch at Kinlochshiel Shinty Club: but at least there you get to change ends at half time ).

The UK's first entirely planned SAR helicopter service is under way and is out there doing dozens of jobs every month.

There are several things that could have gone a bit better.

- The Coastguard contract technical specs could have been sorted out 30+ years ago.

- The 24 year introduction phase for NVG could have been shorter.

- CAP 999 could have been sorted out 20 years earlier.

- SAR rear-crew licensing could have been part of that.

- Unified and co-ordinated standards of public reporting of SAR activity as identified 14 years ago.

- The AW189 could have been on time.

- Manston could have stayed open.

- The roof could have stayed on the Inverness base.


Toeing the party line is exactly what we have all been doing through decades of milSAR.

.

llamaman

Jim,

Thanks very much for the (thorough) lecture, you've kind of missed my point though. I make no claim that the service that has gone before was perfect and I also do not wish to take anything away from the excellent work that is being undertaken on a daily basis by the new bases as they stand-up. A forum such as Pprune is an avenue that facilitates the likes of myself airing frustration at a situation that is less than ideal. Nothing more. The issues of the new service will, in time, be resolved and UK SAR will continue to evolve (and improve). In the meantime, if we all keep our little mouths shut, nothing will be heard.