Possibly because it is not relevant since amongst other things it is not designed for 26 year old newbies and not designed for the crew structure, posting policy and career structure that RAF SARF operates. :ugh:




[After midnight so I am back on the payroll. Better shut up. :oh:]

Bristow out there doing across the Highlands and Islands today.

GG still out over the minch training now.
GD (R948) was at Raigmore and Bristow Inverness this afternoon. Minch earlier.
GF (R951) been on a job over the North Sea and probably still at ARI. Previously Skye in the afternoon and out in the north-west, possibly the Fannichs (?), in the morning.
GI out on trainings sorties in the Monadhliath.

Last day of the Quarter and no evidence that much has held them back during the last three months. It will be interesting to see the numbers.

Bristow out over Snowdonia and the Channel today.
GJ is just in from a night tour of the tops. :cool:

Tomorrow is more than just another day. :ok:

totally and utterly irrelevant to why and how NVD training was carried out - the experienced/more capable people had to do less training than the newbies but it was still a whole lot more than will be available in the brave new world.

hmmm - did we train too much? maybe a bit, but railing against that and trying to maintain competence on a wide skillset with 1.5 hours a day spread amongst your crews is just not the way to do it.

llamaman - perhaps you are of the RN belief that SAR is just a secondary duty and training for things like PLB homings and night wets is just irrelevant for modern SAR crews - if you had seen how much training exchange crews needed to bring them up to our standards you would know the difference and not be so dismissive.

I know there are capable ex-SH pilots in the mix but covert mil ops in the desert (mountains and crap weather included) are not really much like night mountain winching in cloud and rain and snow as I am sure many will find out.

I didn't notice that RAFSAR had a downfall - we (sorry they) are being civilianised due to perceived cost savings and a lack of understanding and support from MoD - just like Navy SAR.

Jerry - I hope for the sakes of all my friends who are with you in Bristow that the training is top drawer and well structured in these early stages - it needs to be. We will have to wait and see how the steady state works out.

I am well aware that I am considered a dinosaur who keeps banging on about how SAR should be done but, since I haven't been 'assimilated' into the 'new world', I am at least allowed to voice my opinion (not something the company or the MCA approve of).

And, for the umpteenth time, I really don't care that I didn't get a job with Bristow - I'm sure I interviewed badly, don't fit their demographic and have a history of saying things they don't like so it wasn't exactly a surprise.

It is interesting that the lead individual of the team decided to take a line pilot position instead of continuing in management though.............

'.....decided.....' Or was pushed that way? I guess depends who you talk to.

More milestones today. Best wishes to all involved.

SW

Oh it had a downfall all right. AVM N***n's JHC.

Being left out of the big plan left it the unwanted orphan of the British military helicopter world. Without the protection of the big corporate blanket of JHC and separated from all the upgrade and replacement plans there was no competition for a privatised version of a first entirely planned unfied service.

A few slightly different decisions in the late 1990s and we could have been watching the military rolling out a new service at Stornoway and Lee-on-Solent.

That could have been a much more interesting version of managed transition! :E

a great shame really - he struck me as a top bloke blessed with intelligent vision tempered with integrity who did seem to care passionately about UKSAR.

Happy to have him hovering over me.


Day or night.

OH DEAR CRAB

you are actually considered a newbie by the REAL dinosaurs of SAR - the ones who set the standards for you to aspire to; the ones who always maintained second standby, the ones who introduced NVG via PNG, ANVIS and Nightbird and who did mountain jobs at night without any goggles at all!

I don't know how we managed without you :ok:

http://youtu.be/4-PIckHrZ0o

Valley SAR finishes....
RAF Sea King Lands For The Last Time


mmitch.

Oh Dear Al-Bert - although most of my SAR experience has been in the 21st century, unlike yours I would suggest, I started instructing SAR in 1989 and taught people night mountains without NVG then. Previous to that I was night flying in mountains in Cyprus, and doing jobs there with much higher DAs than good old blighty with goldfish bowl vis and dust landings - all without the aid of NVG. G04 and D12 anyone?

Thanks for the patronising attitude - I had thought you were beneath that sort of thing. Perhaps if you had been around on 22 Sqn when we were pioneering the use of a modern, capable FLIR system and developing SOPs, re-teaching the art of high hovering and persuading the old-guard that mixed white light and NVD was the way forward - you might have been able to teach me something.

Emergency Handbag reselected to standby:ok:

Sorry for interrupting with a question about SAR.

Although Caernarfon is reported as going live today (1st July) does anyone know if the "Kent" base as Bristows refer to it, which I seem to think is Lydd, also went live today?

Lydd(Kent) has a minimum one month delay; When did Sqdn Ldr Hurcomb change over from Nav to Pilot??

I'll see your Cyprus Mountains Crab - and raise you with the Alps! You are of course quite right in so far as I left early, at the very end of last century, I felt 22 years of SAR (after SH) was enough and too many young thrusters (you too perhaps?) preferred to spend time on promotions or licenses, rather than doing SAR. A pity your experiance wasn't valued by Bristow - you could have taught them a thing or two I'm sure. ps I don't have a handbag, could you lend me one of yours? :hmm: and btw we always used white light and NVG, you didn't invent it old chap.

Norfolk Inchance - Thanks for the Lydd info.

(I assume the Sqn Ldr Hurcomb question wasn't for me as I've never heard of the chap - and vice-versa probably)

Norfolk - about 3 years ago.

Albert - no-one has ever described me as a thruster:ok:

P6 - I believe the Lydd delay is the reason Wattisham isn't closing on time.

Sad but true.

Says it all really - and you're far from the most stove-piped individual in the SAR Force. One or two individuals with vision did try to broaden the SAR Force's portfolio, but their efforts achieved little thanks to the dead hand of the blinkered majority. And here we are now watching MilSAR in its death throes...

Thank you, mmitch, for posting that report.
I was the commentator for the the RAF Cosford Air Show last month - interestingly, the RAF’s only air show this year, and that’s a downturn if ever there was one. Sorry, thread drift.

Anyway, I felt immensely privileged to be able to cover the last ever public appearance at a show of a Big Yellow Budgie from Valley.

The guys - Flt Lts Martin Jarvis & Rob Jones, and Sgts Martin Seward and Pete Wood - did their stuff with their usual aplomb and attention to detail. As they neared the end of their display (sorry, rôle demo), I found myself getting more and more emotional.

As they departed, to much applause and appreciation from the audience, I reflected on the 22 Sqn motto 'Preux et Audacieux'. As all you erudite PPRuNers will know, it translates roughly as 'Valiant and Brave'. I wondered
It was a rather teary moment.

airsound
(who is slightly prone to the old ’beery tears coursing their way down the seamed old cheek’ syndrome)

Military SAR was civilianised because it didn't have a deployable capability.


Shame to read different generations of military SAR slagging each other off. SAR evolved, that is all that happened. Night ops, particularly over the sea and in poor weather, went from being something done with a certain amount of trepidation to a regular and unremarkable event.


Show each other a bit more respect ladies.

Clever Richard - as one who spent roughly half his service doing night ops over the sea with a and then finding it to be having converted to the Sea King I'm not sure to whom you are referring as a lady!

However, if Crab and I wish to trade insults and even pull hair it's none of your damn business! :E

Pob lwc to Civsar I say :ok: