Irish Coast Guard search and rescue (SAR) helicopter service €800m contract tender
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Irish Coast Guard search and rescue (SAR) helicopter service €800m contract tender
Government seeks new operator for €800m search and rescue helicopter service
A new €800m competitive tender for the Coast Guard search and rescue (SAR) helicopter service has been published by the Government.The contract will see an operator for the search and rescue service appointed by the Department of Transport for a period of 10 years, with the option to extend for a further three.
The current 10-year contract dating from 2012 at a value of €600m is operated by Canadian firm CHC (Canadian Holding Company) via its Irish subsidiary, CHC Ireland. The new contract is worth an additional €20m per year.
Ireland’s five Coast Guard helicopters fly in the region of 700 missions per year, at a cost of roughly €90,000 per flight.
tender site:
https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Suppli...urchase/204264
Just spit-balling a bit here, but why doesn't DoT buy 5 new helicopters (€100m), hire 20 crews to fly them = 80 people (€16m/year), hire 20 people to maintain them (€4m/year), hire 20 people to fill the perfect persons and back office staff roles (€3m), flash new hangars and offices at 5 bases (€25m) = €355m for most of the basics. With a total budget of €800m over 10 years that leaves you with about €44m per year to buy the fuel and the spares and the coffee and sandwiches. If you can't run your own show with that big bucket of money to throw at it something is wrong.
Then they wouldn't have anyone else to blame if something like R116 happened again..
3?
3?
Really?
It would be interesting to see the stats that support that as a solution. I suppose if you are a tight git in one of the richest countries in the world you can just forget about Northern Ireland and the Irish Sea because Prestwick and Caernarfon just haven't got enough to do.
3?
Really?
It would be interesting to see the stats that support that as a solution. I suppose if you are a tight git in one of the richest countries in the world you can just forget about Northern Ireland and the Irish Sea because Prestwick and Caernarfon just haven't got enough to do.
It will be interesting to see where the proposed sites are to be able to cover the same areas with 2 less helicopters. It's not as if they can play the same card that MCA used in UK about having new faster helicopters and needing fewer bases.
An extra 20 Million a year for fewer assets? Someone is taking the p*ss.
An extra 20 Million a year for fewer assets? Someone is taking the p*ss.
Thanks Helihub - the number of bases is determined by the number of helicopters surely? ie 3 maximum.
As for locations, there are only so many sites in Ireland you can run a SAR helicopter from if you want to retain the option of an instrument recovery.
As for locations, there are only so many sites in Ireland you can run a SAR helicopter from if you want to retain the option of an instrument recovery.
Yes, three bases due to three helicopters. But the choice of the location of those three bases is up to the bidder, and (as you say), there is only a small number of suitably equipped locations to choose from. The more detailed requirements include these four (from a list of 119!)
- any one helicopter can reach any point onshore in Ireland or within 12 nm of the Irish coast in 45 minutes from becoming airborne
- any two helicopters can reach any point onshore in Ireland or within 12 nm of the Irish coast in 60 minutes from becoming airborne
- a helicopter can embark an emergency service team based in Dublin and depart with them onboard at any time of day within 60 minutes of being tasked ‘day’ or 90 minutes ‘night’.
- all bases to have an approved instrument approach available 24 hours a day for the contracted aircraft types based there, with appropriate mitigations where the approach minima is no higher than CAT 1 ILS minima
Originally Posted by [email protected]
It will be interesting to see where the proposed sites are to be able to cover the same areas with 2 less helicopters. It's not as if they can play the same card that MCA used in UK about having new faster helicopters and needing fewer bases.
So it is possible to make significant errors with this stuff even when considerable effort is being made to get it right in a balanced way. If, on the other hand, your priority is pleasing every Air Corps veteran in the country then you are obviously going to mess this up.
Originally Posted by [email protected]
An extra 20 Million a year for fewer assets? Someone is taking the p*ss.
Last edited by jimf671; 23rd Dec 2021 at 15:53.
Maybe it's the cost of NVIS implementation, including processing Irish citizenship for the instructors.
I suspect the stats were made to fit the desired outcome for the UKSAR bid rather than used intelligently to select the optimum locations.
Ireland’s five Coast Guard helicopters fly in the region of 700 missions per year, at a cost of roughly €90,000 per flight.
I’d have thought even the established operators could make a profit at that rate. Maybe after sliming down the QA department….. and culling a few “Senior Vice Presidents”?
UKSARH figure for the first four years was just over £78000, so exactly the same. There are differences of course, such as in the UK you got NVIS operation, winching of SAR partners' stretcher, more spare aircraft, soon followed by AW189 running costs. And I recall that 9 years ago in the final stages of the UK contract process, CHC were binned because they were more than 20% more expensive than the cheapest bidder.