I think this thread will end up as the web based 'Bonfire of the banalities'....

Some may need to google that....

OK, llamaman, here are the thoughts that I shared with someone by email earlier.

"Bristow's choice of bases, including a training centre for Agusta Westland AW189 at Inverness, is good for Inverness and very good for Highland mountain rescue. A training centre for Sikorsky S-92 will be located at Stornoway, so all SAR training will be in the Highlands and Islands. However, I and others, with our sea boots on rather than our hill boots, see trouble ahead for North Sea response when the next nearest east coast base to Inverness is Humberside Airport."

Most SAR crews will be ex mil. Still at some point, with SAR being more and more civilian operated, the military will not be training as many SAR pilots anymore, so how will people get to be SAR pilots in the future?

In the existing programs, who is getting hired? Is it pretty much like the North Sea job market, or much harder to get into?

Not true, many current Bristow SAR crews including those that TUPEd to CHC are Bristow trained. We are quite capable of training our own crews, although with the sudden expansion coming up this will obviously need to be supplemented by mil crews, but that is a one-off event.

When EASA gets there act together and aircraft are allowed to fly GPS approaches to LPV at least the civilian SAR aircraft will have the appropiate GPS fit to be able to carry them out.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread, but am amazed at the surprise some of you display at its descent into the gutter. Any area of discussion involving all of the fraternities, and our respective abilities/future employment was bound to go this way in one form or another! :ugh:

Suffice to say, I think there could be less 'tarring with the same brush' - @r£3holes exist in our field, some walk into an AFCO, and some fork out for their own training... end of dit! :ok:

On a sensible note, has anyone heard any information about the road shows?

Cheers, SKDriver

This thread can be very informative SKD but when the questions get too difficult, the defenders of the Coastguard faith just clam up.

This is not a difficult question to answer but there is a deafening silence.

We were told that the CAA conduct external audits of Coastguard SAR but where's the credibility in that if the people doing the checking aren't experienced SAR personnel who can evaluate the capabilities of both pilots and aircrewmen?

I'd like to think that the CAA's team is capable of evaluating all aspects of SAR but no-one will answer the question. From this we have to assume that the answer is that they aren't and this may well remain the case when military SAR is no more. A service to the public will be being run for profit by a private company without a credible external audit to assess its flying capability.

Accountability
 

I believe that the AOC holder is normal responsible to the Authority to ensure that the unit meets the required UK Legal requirements. The CAA audit this.

Internal company procedures are audited from within and the CAA check that those procedures that are within their remit are being met. Company procedures and standards are dealt with by well qualified members of the team. Any issues that do not come up to scratch are addressed and rectified.

I believe that at least one CAA flight ops members does attend a SAR base for continuation training as well as audits and that he has had a previous SAR (civ) background. Enough said.

Which non-miltary outside agency audited the RN and RAF SAR.

The crabs have SAR Staneval and the RN have RNFS(RW) - not non-mil outside agencies but then the MoD haven't been charged with making a profit out of SAR so there is little conflict of interests. Try being beasted by Flying Standards and there is no box-ticking allowed.

When it comes to a decision between saving money (or maintaining profit) and giving extra training hours to meet a required standard - if there's no external audit to ensure the standard is being met, what incentive is there for a contractor not to tick boxes knowing that no-one is there to catch them out.

Will a CAA examiner take every crew member out on a SAR role check sortie every year? No it'll be left to internal checkers who will ensure that the company meets its KPIs no matter how low the operating standard actually is.

Rumour is that the co-jo slots will be filled by minimum spec, potentially overseas newbies with no SAR experience who will fly for peanuts. If that is true then someone really does need a reality check about how dangerous that will be. That would be like taking all the current co-jos in the mil SAR outfits and replacing them with student pilots who possibly just had their SAR famil. The highest workload in a SAR mission is often the co-jos - nav, radar, comms, monitoring the pilot etc and someone wants to put guys with NO experience in there - what could go wrong there?

Also - who get to fly the gnarly left side on deck or cliff winch when the wind doesn't allow right side on? The low time co=pilot with no SAR skills????/

As someone who has had extra training BECAUSE my standards slipped I can hand on heart say that the training standard and thus safety comes first. I know from the outside our Target Zero initiate looks like PR and hot air, but I assure you once in company you quickly see it is more than that. Proof is in the pudding though, put your cv in and get a job and you will see.

Si

Get a reality check, will you. It's not RyanAir that's taking over; it is an established company that was doing SAR professionally probably before you were born. They have, and they will, despite all the tearing of sackcloth and knashing of teeth by several of these posters, be able to carry out this task on the basis of skill and experience.

Plus, they will have some decent kit to do it with.

NRDK. Well said that man. One squaremetre: The AOC does all the work for the CAA. It's this that is audited not the individual. You can be excused though for not being up to speed with civvy audits.

Which brings me onto Lalasteady - I love that handle by the way...genuinely funny.
However you comments really do leave much to be desired, methinks.
Let me address your 'scorn' in order:
Staneval ARE SAR. Much of what is taught and practiced by the SARF has been either modified or designed by Staneval, so when Staneval (the ONE pilot and ONE crewman:oh:) visit, they are checking not only the individual but that their work is being practiced in reality......a conflict of itnerest I would say.
Again (like onesquaremetre) you seem not quite able to grasp who or what the CAA is all about. The CAA aren't ensuring the company they are auditing are/are not making a profit. They are technical (engineering inspectors) and operational (pilots/crewmen) inspectors. They have only one desire - to make sure the AOC is being sustained ...safely.
It doesn't mean they have to fly with anyone in fact. The company TRE's do this. Now company TRE's can be ramp checked at any time and without notice. It is beholden upon the TRE's/IRI's/CP's of this world to maintain standards and with something as serious as FLYING, do you honestly think there are checkers out there who turn a blind eye to safety in order to tick company profit boxes?? Seriously, do you? Can you imagine the irrevocable damage that would ensue if a compay like Bristow were found to be derelict in their duty due to internal cover ups? It would finish them off as a future contender for any work.
So let's get real where it comes to how and why the CAA function.
PS: They already have civvy SAR pilots in their midst and guess what........all of them are ex mil:oh:

Your final comments aren't worthy of a response.

lalalalalalalalalalal

Lo experience Co-jo's??
 

Could happen, Bristow used to stick new CPL holders with approx. 250 hours on SAR units a long time ago. The bar has raised somewhat but perhaps not high enough to prevent that again.:O The only thing stopping that will be the level of applications and the 'best judgement' of the HR/recruiting team. Since this is high profile and needs to work, they will choose wisely:ok:.

HRH WW was from scratch with experienced staff, after 2 weeks he was flying in command:} so it is likely to happen in the Civ world too, albeit it will be about closer to 10 years before a low time make command:rolleyes:

The MOD has internal audits for these standards, but at mega billions of tax payers £'s. It should have been under tighter scrutiny by the NAO, perhaps the expensive beast that has been MIL SAR would have been axed years ago:{

Anyway......it has now. It needs good crews, it will get them barring a few numpties that will get in, much like they did into the RAF/RN/Civ world of flying. Probably ok on Non-SAR ops but not really what we want. Hopefully keep HR out of the decision, use good word of mouth and bob's your Uncle! People do get moved on you know:ok: That's why we have audits (closed session chats as well:E)

SAR comes under the direct remit of the DfT and ipso facto the CAA - as do all State (aviation) activities other than the military.

EASA do not (yet) have a dog in this fight.

As with others, I cannot believe the amount of unadulterated nonsense that is being spouted on this thread. If this is indicative of the level of knowledge (of civil aviation practices) possessed by the average SAR pilot, they have quite a lot of catching up to do.

Jim

Surely the command structures amongst current SAR brands, RAF/RN/CivSAR-CAA are not three different kinds of apple but perhaps a pumpkin, a turnip and a cabbage, so comparing them is no straight-forward matter.

TC - what you are doing is agreeing with me - the CAA inspectors who are supposed to ensure the AOC is being complied with, don't actually fly with the SAR crews - they only fly with the TREs! So as long as you have competent TREs, the operational crews can be crap and the CAA won't know!

NRDK - this is a rumour network and the co-jo info allegedly comes from the contractor:{ Since the DfT placed the spec for go-jos so low, how can Bristows be criticised if that;s what they provide?

Thomas Coupling and NRDK.

Thank you for your explanations. It does seem though that through the system you describe, the CAA are trusting that the AOC holder will never fall victim to any commercial pressure to keep the service fully manned.

Thomas Coupling

Previous posters have suggested that the CAA conduct flying audits to ensure full operational capability is being maintained. Your first point here suggests that this is done by both pilots and crewmen in the CAA's employ. Yet other posts, including the second one shown above, suggest that this is devolved to company TREs.

:confused: So is it the CAA or TREs that conduct the capability checks? And how can TREs check the performance of the aircrewmen?

Lal Steady.

You have to understand that Bristow is the leader in the civil helicopter world as far as it's crew training is involved. When the new offshore co-pilots come through the system they have to be mothered for the first couple of months but after that it's a coast. The quality of co-pilots is so good that being an offshore captain is probably one of the easiest jobs in the business. I know, because I am a bone idle sod. There is absolutely no doubt that the training for SAR co-pilots will be of the same standard.

Way back with the S61s there wasn't a lot of equipment on the aircraft so there was not so intensive to carry out the job ie, on a Wessex there was only one jockey., so low hour co-pilots could be fed into the system without jeapadising the operation, as did the military.

Years and years ago a Chinese helicopter company joined forces with Bristow to start offshore and other flying in China. This was to reassure western passengers that they were in safe hands over the South China Sea. This continued for years even after they had sufficient crew trained to North Sea standards; the Chinese captains gaining CAA licences and flying from Aberdeen. They still required Bristow to stay on because of the standard of training which they thought might slip in it became an all Chinese operation.

For various reasons I will not go in to but nothing to do with aviation Bristow pulled out of China, quite suddenly. I, and three others, were approached by COHC has asked to stay on on OUR T&Cs because they valued the quality of our (Bristow) training so highly.

This we did and to keep me on they moved heaven and earth to keep my Chinese licence going until I was nearly sixty nine. They are now by themselves with the standard offshore work plus the SAR contract in Shanghai and I am proud of what I have contributed to that organisation.

Don't knock Bristow, I may have worked for them but I have seen others in the world and they are the best.

Careful, I know of one CAA inspector who used to be a company TRE on a SAR unit and did many of my OPC's, he will take exception at not holding the standard high. He sure as hell held it high for me and others and I don't doubt he has kept it there, quite rightly soo.

Si

Not so sure about Bristow being leader above everybody else when it comes to training. Maybe in the past but there are others out there far more up to speed and modern in their training, mentoring and attitude towards new and developing copilots.

This thread reminds me of when I first joined Bristow in 1980 as an S61 copilot straight from (Bristow's residential 9 month) flight school with CPL and no IR. Most of the captains were ex mil. Wow, the job was really complicated and these gods did it with such aplomb and style! How could I ever aspire to getting a command.

.... a year or two passed...

And I realised that the job was really pretty easy really, a bit of skill and experience, and a knowledge of the rules and client issues, and Bob's your uncle. So these self-elevated ex mil captains were making a huge meal of a relatively straightforward job and wallowing in their superiority.

Now my sole experience of SAR is doing drums (badly) a few times and once winching a live crewman down onto a ship on a nice day (well I think he was still alive) so I am no expert, and I found it "challenging", but I suspect doing SAR is like oil and gas - yes, really difficult if you don't have a bit of skill and experience in the role, but with some training its really not that hard, especially with the modern kit with rock steady auto-hover, fancy navaids, homers and FLIRs etc to at least be a cojo.

When I joined Bristow, nearly all the trainers were ex mil. Now virtually none of them are. Funny how we still manage to do training without the gracious benefit of ex mil trainers! It aint that hard unless you make a huge meal out of it!

ps there were of course exceptions and we had some great ex mil guys as well, but at the time they seemed to be in the minority!

Nicely put, HC, absolutely correct.

HC said

oh dear HC, hope no-one ever needs your help around the 'back of the Ben' on a dark n stormy night! :ugh::ugh::ugh:

btw when is flying to a rig really difficult (yes, I have - frequently)

Al-b I'm sure no-one will, because as I said I am not a SAR pilot. Do you have difficulty with reading?

HC - sadly, though I value your knowledgeable posts elsewhere, your view of SAR is typical of many who haven't actually done any of it.

The majority of SAR jobs are straightforward but a significant minority do require a skillset above and beyond basic hovering.

The auto hover is no use to you when the boat you are trying to get the winchman on is bouncing around in 40 plus kts and 5 metre seas (especially in the dark) - nor when you are holding max power to combat downdraughting and turbulence against a cliff face whilst the winchman extricates a badly injured climber from the mountains.

Inland/urban SAR can be equally challenging as those who have been to the major flooding incidents in the last few years can tell you and if you think the co-pilot's job in any of these conditions is easy then you really ought to have a go.

In many situations, the technology and automatics allow you to take yourself beyond your level of talent.

Those, like Al-bert, who have been there and done it, know that critical situations are not the place for inexperience because it can go wrong so quickly.

Yes, we have new boys and girls in the LHS but a. they are very well trained and tested (both as handling ad non-handling pilots) and b. that inexperience is highly diluted across the SAR Force.

If what lala rumours is true, the whole of the UK SAR force (or a very great proportion of it) would suddenly have LCR co pilots with next to no experience of helicopter flying in general and SAR in particular right across the board. Now tell me that is a safe strategy.

How do you get the experience?

In my time on the Seaking, (swing the lamp) co-pilots were passed out of SKTU as fit to fly the a/c as captain during training sorties. This meant that once they had passed squadron acceptance then they flew all their allocated training hours from the RHS and signed for the a/c as captain. The on shift "operational" captain flew in the LHS and let the "operational" co-pilot get on with planning and flying the sortie with minimal interference. This allowed the co-pilot to develop not only handling skills in the RHS but also captaincy skills under supervision.

As the co-pilot gained experience it was in the remit of the "operational" captain to allow the co-pilot to fly, but not captain, simple SAR sorties from the RHS, this was particularly useful if a scramble was activated during a co-pilots training sortie. This allowed a gradual introduction to being "in charge" during a SAR sortie

Will this be the case for Civ SAR or will the co-pilot remain in the LHS at all times?

HF

Crab, as I said I've done just enough SAR training to know that SAR requires its own set of skills and without adequate training, its a very difficult job. With adequate training, its a job like any other (well, maybe a more interesting one at times if you can stand the hours vegetating in the crew room!). When Bristow had the northern SAR bases its funny how we managed to train numerous copilots, many of whom are now very experienced SAR commanders.

The only major crash I can recall was when an ex mil up-himself commander managed to reverse an S61 into the sea. He was the type who thought that his copilot should be seen and not heard, an attitude inherited from the mil that I'm glad to say we have totally stamped out a long time ago.

All I am saying is that its just a job that, like any other aviation role, needs adequate training, but there is no myth, mysticism nor magic about it, you don't have to be a god to do it. In fact, am I not right in thinking that at least for the RAF, during initial training the hotshots go to fast jets, the also-rans go on to helis? So not exactly the cream of the crop!

HF Bristow have sensible command progression schemes - why would you imagine that we would keep a copilot in LHS copilot role for years, then suddenly expect him to become captain over night? Rather daft question if I may say so!

HC not exactly HC - I know at least one pilot who never made Capt on Sea King but who then went on to Tornado, and I also know another who never made CR on SH but went on to be a BAH Captain.

no, it also needs guts and dedication to really do it properly. I'm sure that many folk at Aberdeen have that quality but far too many of the ones that I met there were interested in one thing only - their pay packet. :=

You are surely forgetting telepathy, psychokinesis and the ability to turn water into wine (for the bar after the mission of course).

Or to put it another way, you typify my concerns!

Hmmm, I have pretty well kept away from this thread as the quality of much of the debate is lacking. But now, I can't help myself.

HC and Fareastdriver, I agree with you both completely. Plenty of Bristow HP Co-pilots went straight from ab initio training to SAR roles on the S-61 and are now experienced Commanders.

HC The ex mil up himself commander you refer to ended up working for me....until he had to go because of co pilot and customer complaints, I think he scared the passengers and I know he scared the co pilots....all that military superior training eh?

The notion that you have to be military trained, possess superman like skills and be a superior Sky God to be a good SAR pilot is just laughable. Those that attempt to join Bristow with that attitude are destined to spend some time at the local Job Centre.

I don't think anyone has suggested that, certainly not I, since I was an advocate of civilianisation of UK SAR back in the mid '80's and almost joined Bristow in '86 (with job offers from Bond and BCal too!).
Just that it takes a bit more interest in 'the job' than 'how big a house and how new a car I've got' which was usually the topic of conversation in Aberdeen when I was there. There seems to be a bit of 'chip on shoulder syndrome' from a few civvie posters. HC? :hmm:

I think it's fair to say there are pro's and cons on both sides. Of late it has been noted that the most recent mil turned civ SAR and offshore commanders display exemplary CRM and an even better attitude toward copilots wishing to contribute and progress than many a HP graduate. Whilst true that ex mil commanders of old sometimes had a horrendous attitude I can say from experience that the same still exists within the large helicopter companies in the offshore and SAR games but is now perpetuated by non ex mil people who seem to make the point that they suffered in the past therefore everybody else should have to. Indeed the most arrogant and condescending in my experience all came from a pure civilian background so it works both ways. Knowledge is power and all that.

As for qualifications and experience the only worry to me is where those of distant previous S61 SAR experience, sometimes only as P2, get parachuted into positions as their offshore experience, while beneficial, and previous SAR time are believed to suffice for currency and type experience. The game has changed a lot and the goalposts have moved a long way since Bristow last conducted SAR in the UK or Ireland. It is certainly a far more intricate and complex task with modern technology and capabilities than the relatively simple days of the 'sticky bun'.

Devils Advocate.....:E

Bristow have picked up 6 P1 Sar commanders from CHC Ireland. The 6 worked for developing assets on the CHC Ireland transition team. All are ex RN & RAF Sar commanders with civil SAR and IR rating to boot. Bristow will be supplying them with S92 rating and give them the required hours via O&G flying before they go on the UK SAR contract.

CHC Ireland will also have at least 36 S92 qualified pilots by tie end of the year. Some with an eye on possible employment with Bristow.

That might be fair comment for those crews involved in oil and gas crew change, but to presume that those same people, when given a more interesting task such as SAR, would exhibit the same behaviour is I think wrong.

HC

No you are not right I think that is a typical "civilian, chip on shoulder remark!":ugh:

During my training they were looking for flying ability foremost - my course started with 16 - all of whom had been through the UAS system so were assessed as able to fly - but 8 of those got chopped as not making the grade once the ability to operate, rather than just fly, an a/c became of greater importance. So nobody was an also ran as you quaintly put it. The assessment for allocation to future roles was then made on 2 accounts - ability to fly and ability to operate as a captain as soon as one reached a Squadron. Those who had good captaincy skills went to single seat FJ and helicopters as at that time all RAF helicopters were single pilot. Good captaincy skills were essential as even as a first tourist one could be working alone and away from supervision be asked to do all sorts of tasks by the Army!! I arrived on my 1st Squadron as a Captain with approx 290hrs.

RAF selection and training was tough and you only got through on ability so your childish "also ran" comment perhaps reflects on you rather than contributing to the debate.

HF

It was a question, not a remark, and you give a different answer from the one I got from Al-bert (who implied that my suggestion was correct with a few exceptions) so perhaps it is you who has the chip?

Whether or not I have a chip really doesn't matter since I already have a job with Bristow, Bristow already has won the SAR contract, defined it training programmes etc etc. The question of chips is rather more significant for those who may be seeking employment with the UK's soon-to-be only SAR provider.

I am not in the "SAR division" so probably of no consequence to me personally, but I still have a slight dread of a large influx of SAR gods with superiority complexes who will exhaust themselves saying "we should do it like This - as we did in the military" and pouting and sulking when they don't get their way, rather than just getting on with the job as defined in Bristow's SAR ops manual. Hopefully I am quite wrong, but it is the tone of some contributers on this thread that makes me think otherwise!

:mad: can you not read HC, subtlety not your strong point? :=

BRS latest update on UK SAR. Might answer some of the rumour mill stuff:ok:


http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...F8VHlwZT0z&t=1