Too relevant. Please keep it off topic in future...

Has anyone found a slide in these presentation where 'in the vicinity of' is actually defined? Some slides make reference to part 3.1.1 so I presume it is somewhere deep in the tender documentation.

Crab

Here is a link to the document:

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/uk-sar-helicopters-services/part-1-instructions-to-bidders.pdf

3.3.1 is the only lace that "ivo" is mentioned as far as I can see. It's probably deliberately vague to allow a bit of creativity between the bidders.

Hope this helps.

Gene

IVO - perhaps by not specifying it will allow bidders to be creative in their justification of locations.

Inverness would be IMHO IVO Lossiemouth,
Glasgow IVO Prestwick
Newquay IVO Culdrose
Wattisham IVO Gt Yarmouth
Lecconfield IVO North Denes

And so on, if you can justify it why not move it? The bases were originally placed for easy access to fast jet bases / training area - sadly no longer required. Although there are equally good reason for the status quo, based on weather, access to low level maritime, ATC environment etc

Pas

Crab
I generally think you have valid points (we have worked together in the past) but you must stop using words like "risible" as I have no idea what they mean and I have no interest in looking them up.
You should not have wasted so much time doing ISS

Not really IVO (110nm away) and certainly not with Boulmer closed. Far too large a gap North of North Denes.

Humberside is more likely than ND for Leconfield (and I know you're only baiting me too but I can't let that gross misinformation pass uncommented on)

Flounder - thanks, I did mean Humberside, that whole flatland area is far too much of a mystery!

Pas

Si aircrew C, no effort required just cut and paste;)

From one of the plethora of documents on the dft website about SARH - there is a costing xls that seems to specify 600 hours training per base per year which equates to 50 hours per month spread between either 5 or 6 crews or just over 1.6 hours per day. But it's OK there won't be any drop in quality because training is for poofs and everyone else just gets on with it and stops moaning:ugh:

Crab, that's about twice as much as they are getting presently with SeaKing serviceability being the way it is. But don't let stats get in the way :ugh:

...which must be about 4 times as much as Navy guys and gals at Culdrose are getting. Studes at 771 currently taking well over a year to get through conversion...whose stats did you want to highlight, TC?

Well TC , I have just flown 3.5 hours of training so don't judge all the SARF by the state of the dispersal at Valley:)

The 50 hours per month are to include sim and HUET as well.

Blimey! That'll leave lots of time for NVG currency then:{

Thats not bad Crab but I did 4.4 Hours on my shift yesterday... but being Civ sar we need all the practice we can get dont we ;)

One point of note if you go to ops only due to what ever... currently that time gets carried forward I imagine it would do the same in the future hopefully.

6 crews? that would be nice!

that's because you have shiny new aircraft that don't go wrong much:ok:

Out of interest has the amount of hours allocated for training gone up since the contract started?

I think (and only think) there was a change but dont know by how much. All I know is every month we end up with a surplus of training hours to burn off and its not through lack of trying. :)

Yeah and there will be another change downwards if we keep telling everyone about our surplus...cheers! One or two months of heavy fleet maintenance and it’s time to play catch up for the rest of the year. The monthly allocation is - in my lowly opinion - about right. What can I say.......we need everything we can get!!:}

How many hours per crew do you fly in an average month?

That's my point every few months something happens and we don't manage to meet the training allowance for a month so it carrys over. So we are always playing catch up which means we never have to worry about going over the allowance. Which is nice. I agree the amount we have now works well and would probably allow us to do currency Training for other skills (such as NVG) with out an increase but It would be a real shame to have it reduced and lose the flexibility that it brings.

10 hours a month per crew seems reasonable, certainly for a crew with a reasonable level of experience. Having read the requirement off the site, its clear some can be carried forward too as now. How much is allocated to an RAF crew Crab? What we don't know is how much Type Rating and SAR role training will be offered prior to deployment on a new SAR base. I suspect it will be a good deal. Despite the naysayers, there is no way any of the credible bidders want to expose themselves as not delivering a high standard of service and capability. Everyone can argue about a few hours a month here and there, but the reality is that military SAR has had it good for too long in terms of flying hours allocation, so its time to get the balance right across the whole UK SAR show.
Despite Crab's pessimism I think there will be many experienced RAF and RN crews that will come over to us, so that will underpin the intial capability in depth. I know that at least one of the Bidders has a good training pipeline for new aircrew too so that will help sustain the longer term, and along with the CAA now looking at a proper Technical Aircrew licensing system, its hard not to believe that there is too much scaremongering going on here.:ugh:

4th right we are allowed 4 hours training per day so, assuming 8 shifts per month, each crew member would get 32 hours of training. Jobs and unserviceability obviously reduce this somewhat but many crew-members do more than 8 shifts.

Lioncopter's training allowance pretty much aligns with ours so it would appear that about 4 hours a day should be the industry standard - the projected 600 hours a year needs to be at least doubled if there is not to be a drop in capability.

Thanks for the reply Crab, but its not the question I was asking, or trying to ask.
What is the formal allocation of monthly training per pilot, not what happens to come your way. Are you really telling us that the RAF merely says do 4 hours per shift? No you must have a monthly training requirement. Please tell us what it is? As for Lion, they way I see what he is saying is that they are getting a bit more at the moment because of servicing schedules meaning they have to defer training to the next or subsequent months, Not sure I read that he /or they were doing 4 hours a day every day of the year. Not what we are experiencing either, 1.5 - 2 hrs per dayis the norm I think.

4thright - our training is organised on a quarterly basis with a specified number of hours for each discipline both day and night but I don't have the figures available off the top of my head.

The fact remains that we need to use about 4 hours a day (with allowances for ops and being u/s) to ensure each crew-member completes their quarterly stats.

Crab et al,
having spent 22 years flying RAF SAR, Wessex and SK, I would contend that four hours per aircrew member IS over generous, unless you are constantly training new boys and girls, which of course is how the military operate.
I could see this figure comfortably reduced if experiance is retained on the SAR flights. The problem arises in training at the outset and retention therafter. ;)

The minimum quarterly training for a CR pilot comes to 23 hours - so for 10 pilots that is 230 hours per quarter or 78 hours per month. That is just for pilots and doesn't include sim training (another 18 hours per pilot per year).

Whilst a fair amount of rear-crew training can be conducted on the back of the pilot's training, unless you run constituted crews (which is too inflexible) there will always be occasions when at least half of the crew don't get any stats during a training sortie - usually because they are already stats complete.

Now a certain amount of training will be covered on SARops but we still find some people struggling to complete their mandatory training even with 4 hours a day.

but Crab,
the RAF is constantly posting people and training up new guys, front and rear crew. Four hours training per shift is plain ridiculous for stable (geographically speaking) experienced crews. How much night drums can a body take, and who says constituted crews are too inflexible? Works in FI (we used to do four months - remember?) :8

4 hours a day!
 

Really Crab, with most of the civil crews having between 2500-5000 hours of SAR experience over and above their other flying. They have more than enough hands on to crack training with an allocation over 4.5 crew of some 50 hours. What the hell are you going to use 4 hrs for? 20-30 hours per month training and ops, ticks their comfort zone for feeling current enough to operate safely without flogging the good tax payers £'s No wonder you are looking forward to the Civ SAR option soon. The cost of running Seakings for that sort of monthly training is prohibitive

They will just do more at night with NVG requirement, less day training, which lets face it I easy anyway. Come to think of it the night flying without goggles will be gone too, double bonus!

With an average of about 8 shifts a month that is a good 2-3 hours per shift, fair due if you are spending 30-45 minutes bimbling to and from training each way like the Chivenor crews do into Wales then you will need more time. Otherwise just go to Baggy Point and crack on with he nearest deck whilst there.:ok:

NRDK - couldn't agree more! NVG not a black art either (well sometimes, esp in FI!). Did an awful lot of night mountains (and SHNI) pre NVG, goggles just make it a whole lot easier. Still have to allow a few hours for bimbling and waving though - and what about Santa deliveries? I once had three santas on board at once, obviously two were not real! :oh:;)

That is exactly the attitude to training - currency vs competency - that will end up biting you in the a*se one day. Professional aircrew don't have that attitude;)

Training V Competency
 

Crab,

Really? the last 20+ years of Civilians doing a THIRD of UK SAR has survived quite well thanks to the professional attitude, experience and training applied. It has not always been incident free but as you know, SAR is not without risk and every 'Service' provider can attest to that.

Hence the reason you are waving goodbye to the other Two Thirds, still you can be my co-pilot any day......WTF have the kids put in my fathers day cuppa tea! I'll roster you with another ex-crab as your Captain, better still ex Navy.:8

Al-Bert
True..bimbling and wave-ex's are essential and long may that be the case, after scraping someone plastered all the deck and doing your best for them and their family it is important to de-stress and wind down....I'm all for ice creams etc.

Things must have changed in the attitude to currency vs competancy since I retired CRAB! I saw a lot of the 'ticks on the board' generation, who just couldn't wait to get on with their ISS, Open Uni or whatever other career enhancing studies preoccupied them. A four hour training sortie that went from day into night and covered everything from day mountains to night drums was hardly quality training. As the RAF shrunk SAR became more of a career stepping stone for many who would never have entered the backwater that SAR had been when it was all commanded by a Wing Co in a green shed at Finningley! Flights reduced from nine to six, buildings got bigger and shinier, we gained a Group Captain, three Wing Co's and seven Squadron Leaders, while at the same time aircraft serviceability grew worse and fewer people got rescued. People had to really want to go SAR back in the day and they took a pride in their job that I have certainly witnessed the lack of in a number of pilots that I have served alongside. Yes, it was only amongst the pilots, many of whom would have preferred a posting to SH or FJ's and saw SAR as a temporary inconvenience.
The whole lot should have been civilianised round about 1988! :cool:

I hope not. An overcast night in mid-winter, 20 miles and three glens from the nearest street-light, cloud-base 900m, 57N and <1 mlux is when you are needed most. Long-live the old-fashioned way.

http://www.kintailmrt.org.uk/image/o.../winching1.jpg

that's not the old fashioned way! It's a Seaking with latest technology lights. All we had when I were a lad were carbide lamps and we thowt us sen lucky! :}

you never know - you might just learn something;)

Crab
 

I'm sure I will, always learning something new. Day I stop learning is day I'll stop flying. :ok:

That's why you have to keep doing lots of training:ok:

Too much repetitive training can have limited value after a while. If not focused on those who really benefit, punching holes in the sky is a waste of money, puts unneccessary demands on engineering and logistics, and frankly is abusing the Queen's generosity given from what you said earlier that the RAF formal allocation is now 7.8 hours per month per pilot.
After a point, most people improve their knowledge and abilities by the challenge and experience of SARops of any sort. :eek: One of the upsides of moving to 10 bases is that the increased op tempo at all will now provide more SARops per base (particularly those that have lived on the quieter side of life) and assist that "learn by experience" process. :)

That's where the training teams, standards and upper management come in so that 'burning holes in the sky' is not the default setting.

SAREXs, cat checks, QHI checks and opevals can all give challenging scenarios to expand crews' experience and comfort zones so they are not 'learning on the job' but getting the benefit of other people's knowledge.

The hope is that it encourages crews to challenge themselves and each other on their own training rather than taking the 'easy option' of role trip 1 alpha. It seems to work from what I see on my Sqn but you will always get some lazy ones that need a kick up the jacksie!

Those that think they don't need the training are often the same ones who need it most but are happy operating inside their own comfort zone where they can look good.

Maybe it was better when there was less 'upper management' and more rigorous selection in the first place? :E

Maybe things have just got a bit more professional since you were doing it:E