Although all the larger firms are now mutli-nationals I am personally glad that Bristows have won this. Their history of service with SAR work in general and with HM Coastguard is extensive.

All the best to them during this 'interim' contract.

That appears to be a leak from the northern point of the compass.

Which directions were the other leaks from?

Is this corroboration or recycled rumour?

Flounder..daft is perhaps too strong a word. No one said 6 real contractors either. Assuming CHC and Bris have the 2 Gap contracts, then it is more than possible that one of those 2 plus a new player could win one of the big contracts - I do agree though that 4 commercial contractors is unlikely. That means 3 commercial contractors will be involved in the transition.
My wider conjecture was based on seeing the 2 MoD SAR providers as two other players akin to contractors as far as transition management issues at working level are concerned. Hence my parenthesese against them in my earlier post. The party line from MoD is of course that they can be seen as one outfit, which is true from a legal, top level policy and contractural perspective. However, this is not so much the case when the single service views of the RN and RAF to managing their transition out issues are concerned, not least because of personnel and infrastructure issues at each base, never mind if other non SAR transition activity is happening concurrently... Think Lossiemouth and F35 for example.

I would also be surprised if we hear anything public and official next week about the SARH down select result. No doubt rumours will abound though... It is Prune after all!;)

CHC out of Shetland?
 

I see a report in the Shetland news website that CHC are to loose the contract for SAR next year, and Bristows will be back until the new contract for 10 bases is awarded from 2017, would this be for all of Britain or just Shetland?
Shame its too late to bring back Oscar-Charlie too!

Yes, and it's a shame we don't have any spitfires for the Afghanistan conflict.:ugh:

If you think a "call sign" is all you need to conduct SAR then please stay off this website, unless you have something remotely sensible to post. :}
SAR in Shetland has been conducted by some very fine people over the years, it just so happened to predominately be with an airframe registered as G-BDOC.

I think you will find "OC" has been at SUM since 2007, in the guise of an S92 ! G-CGOC. Perhaps the "new" SUM machine will also be "OC" in another form.

One thing for sure it is " unlikely" to be a 45 year old S61. :ok:

P.

I hope you learnt from that Lightning Lad - never ask ppt a question before coffee time - he's always grumpy til then.

Or is it before teatime? I forget.

jimf671
 

Would you be the same "jim" as confirmed to the Shetland News that no one would see any changes to the service at the "sharp end"? If so - how do you know?

Jurno alert chaps.

No connection and no resemblance and no journo.

I think Jim Ferguson has been discussed on pprune before. My understanding is that he is based in Aberdeen and the TV folk there regularly use him and describe him as an aviation journalist. Sometimes they seem to go to him for a comment when they are too lazy to look up Bond or Bristow or RAF Kinloss in the Aberdeen phone book. I checked on journalisted.com and there are various J Fergusons on there but none of them are aviation guys form Aberdeen.


Why am I here? Cos I hang onto big gas turbine thingamajigs in stupid conditions and have to tell other people how to do it. (Plus some history of def contract stuff, specifier of inland helo work, and per ardua ad astra.)

Whoops
 

Then jimf671, I apologise.

I am aware of the other "Jim F" and hence my question to find out which napp he dreamt his lastest facts up in....

Oh, and i'm loving "no resemblence"!

Scots

DfT STATEMENT

Search and rescue helicopters - News - Department for Transport


As posted here previously, Bristow and CHC.

Bristow Win SAR-G North
 

Bristow wins SAR-G northern area from CHC so boys in Sumburgh and Stornaway on there way back so well done every 1 in winning contract so come on with SAR-H :D:D

It is going to be very difficult to remove these from the running for Long SAR. Could one imagine the mess it would be in if another 2 were added to the mix :ugh:

So much for admonishing CHC for the SARH debacle.....goes to show, it's not what you know it's what you do behind the scenes that counts. :mad:

Let’s step back a bit and do a hypothetical exercise to separate competence from slagging. If you could pick which civil operator(s) should fly two dozen largish helicopters in the SAR role around UK for 10 years, who would you pick? To take out some of the variables and concentrate just on the different companys’ capabilities, pretend that the helicopters are bought separately and given to them, and that their operating prices are about the same too. And place your list in order of preference.

Bristows
CHC
Bond
Lockheed
Sikorsky
AW
Eurocopter
Boeing

Talking about making a list, shouldn't the DfT be sending out some invitations today?

Anyone heard?

Invitations went out last Friday (10th) nothing heard, all quiet. They are keeping tight lipped so far.....
I am going to guess:
Bristows/ CHC/Bond/Lockheed. :hmm:

Keep guessing TC! :E

Tallsar's homework
 

From the DfT trade day list. OK, so several bean counters, trainers and so on in this list but don't betray anything by adding anything new, simply delete as applicable. :ok:

agustawestland
Babcock International Group
Bond Offshore Helicopters Ltd
Bristow Helicopters Ltd
British International Helicopter Services Ltd (BIHSL),
British Southern Air
Burges-Salmon
CHC
DevelopingAssets (UK) Ltd
Dial Eipex
DLA Piper UK LLP
Elbit Systems UK Ltd
Eurocopter UK Ltd.
Evergreenhelicopters
Ernst & Young
FB Heliservices Ltd
Ferranti Technologies Ltd & Elbit Systems
Lockheed Martin UK integrated Systems
Milestone viation Group
Mott MacDonald
Parsons Brinckerhoff
Persides Consultancy Services Ltd
Primeguild Ltd
Quintec Associates Limited
Serco Defence Science and Technology
Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation
Thales
WPK Management Consulting BV

Bond have just ordered a shed load of S-92's and AW189's coincidentally?

Good starting point Jim! Many usual suspects in that list as expected... Whether some have moved ahead with an application is of course open to debate, as is whether others that may not have attended the Industry Day and yet could still have submitted. Attendance at the Industry Day is not an essential precursor for an application.
No doubt we will all hear in due course via a Parliamentary Statement like the GAP announcement last week. :(

Any thoughts on who will be assessing the technical compliance of the bids this time?

Last time the SARF provided most of the SMEs and they spent a lot of time having to show that superficial claims of compliance and capability were exactly that.

Who will call the bidders' bluffs in the DfT?

MCA Aviation, Bristol?

The reason the Mil were used last time is because the MCA had no expertise in aviation - has anything changed?

The Mil have no experience in commercial aviation - has anything changed?

No-one is going to defend the MoD's poor commercial nouse.

But, if you want to ensure that what a bidder claims as compliance with the contract specification is, in fact, compliance rather than smoke and mirrors or outright lies - then you need SMEs who know SAR operations and SAR aircraft capability inside out.

Sadly, caveat emptor was the watchword with the last SARH competition since believing everything the salesman said was a sure path to lack of operational capability.

How do you know that? It never produced a service to be judged

What do the RAF know about modern Search & Rescue technology or modern helicopters? Their own fleet is old and dated and their personnel have NO experience of what these aircraft and its equipment can do.

However, if you want a 40 year old aircraft with a single hoist and a radar that points backwards all at a HUGE cost then......

Why is it that certain people in the RAF think they know it all, are the elite of the profession and that its their god given right to judge everyone else????

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

NM-That old back wards facing radar got me to several trawlers in thick fog nearer to the shetlands than Lossiemouth, because the all singing, modern tecnology S-92'S couldn't get to any of the boats due to fog!!!:=:=

Aye. And it may be relevant to mention that the view from the damp peat and rocky outcrop, with your shoulder against a fuselage, up into the staring eyes of a pilot with one-wheel-on and limited points of reference, turns out not to be any different whether they are RAF, Bristow, CHC, male, female, or have a background in RN, Irish Air Corp, civilian contractors or USAF.

No - stop. Don't, DON'T let's have to put up with yet another round of radar willy-waving. Please.

The ideal scenario would be to have a group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who have appropriate experience of 1) SAR ops, 2) civilian ops, 3) modern aircraft and 4) modern rescue equipment systems. In order to advise in an unbiased fashion they would also have to 5) be independent of any of the bidders in the commercial project that requires their services.

Unfortunately, the very great majority of SMEs who meet requirements 1) to 4) will probably be employed by one of the companies involved in bidding for the project, hence these SMEs would not meet requirement 5) and would therefore be unacceptable to the DfT.

Military SMEs acted as SAR-H advisors primarily because they were independent of any commercial company, and their lack of familiarity with some modern systems was the price that had to be paid for this independence - though this would not prevent a good brain from being able to analyse performance claims vs graphs, or SOPs. Unfortunately there aren't many people available in the UK who meet all the criteria 1) to 5)!

Louis

RAF SARF
 

Anyone except the team that chose the last SARH aircraft. The AW139 can't take two stretchers, can't take MIRG, hasn't got the range required in the contract, at the time didn't have an autohover system...

Quote Britinusa "NM-That old back wards facing radar got me to several trawlers in thick fog nearer to the shetlands than Lossiemouth, because the all singing, modern tecnology S-92'S couldn't get to any of the boats due to fog!!!"

I'm sorry but that is a load of twaddle:=:=

And would one like to expand on that please

Wiretensioner

WT, don't bite! There's already a SAR radar discussion thread from a few months ago that had a few useful comments in and among the sniping; please (I say again) PLEASE don't let this one degenerate into the same to-and-fro arguments.

Please?

Louis

I think WT is referring to R1's refuting the MCA cab couldn't do the job, especially as WT has operated the SK with said radar and not the merits of it.

Si

The stuff the SARF SMEs had to trawl through had a little to do with the radar but plenty more to do with claimed performance of both the aircraft and equipment not meeting claimed specification by the bidders.

I had no intention of reopening the radar debate though some here seem very sensitive about it.

I am also very aware that the civsar capability as presently demonstrated by CHC up North is (apart from lack of NVG) very impressive and the layout of the back of the aircraft (and the cockpit I suppose) puts the Sea king to shame - as it should since our aircraft is 60 plus years old.

However it is not the RAF's fault that the AW139 is not fit for purpose as a SAR aircraft.

R1 &WT-The summer of 2008, there was a week of thick fog over the North sea in the Shetland area. Lossie and Shetland also had fog. Fisherman with heart attack, so a rush to hospital job, ARCC informed us the S 92 couldn't do the job due to thick fog. Which did surprise us. So we did the job, so it isn't twaddle!! There was a second job that week, which we were ask to do, for the same reason.

Britinusa
Not doubting your recollection of the circumstances but are you sure it was 2008? Assuming summer, or what passes for it up north, is around May to September, a quick trawl of my personal memory banks - increasingly suspect it has to be said with the passage of time - doesn’t come up with any matches. The name(s) of the vessel(s) or date(s) might spark a response and help inform the debate.

britinusa to be fair the amount of times we (stornoway) have been told by other crews that we have turned down jobs with out even being asked could not be counted on all my fingers and toes.

Not happened recently but a few years ago calls to people on the unit from friends in the Mil happened ever few months to ask why we turned down a job we knew nothing about.

So the truth is not always what you are told mate. ;)

Cheers

Lioncopter