A couple of very good points there Crab.

COST
Costs in the previous contract process were like an uncontollable creeping fungus as the bean counters tried to guess what was going to happen across a 25 year contract period. I know that there was concern at the Treasury and I know that down through the DfT to the MCA and Coastguard, every civil service manager has received the message that this new contract process is a cost cutting exercise. :uhoh: That legacy has made it that little bit more difficult for those chasing a competent technical specification. :ugh:

Scapegoat? Certainly, one has to ask why moves that took place in early 2007 and mid-2008, and had been raised in a number of fora, took until December 2010 to emerge as a serious problem. :confused:

SPARE AIRCRAFT
Up until late 2012, spare aircraft in the bidders' proposed SAR fleets were something that typically amounted to one aircraft per type for training and one or maybe two aircraft per type for maintenance. That is why I felt comfortable posting here about those numbers at the time. Availability stats were available for aircraft of the same, or closely related, types in recent UK SAR service and the news was good. Reliability was good and servicing times were short. :ok:

Suddenly, sufficient aircraft of each type were required to equip all ten bases. If one type were grounded by the regulator, the service would continue. This happened in late 2012. :hmm: The spare aircraft will no doubt be routinely treated as though it were the local base spare but in truth it is a spare for the neighbouring base that uses the other aircraft type. Therefore, as you say, 'there seems to be no formal requirement for a second standby'.

Interestingly, we moved from a contract process where costs were spirally high above the original estimated range to one where, in spite of a new requirement for maybe 50% more aircraft than previously envisaged, costs came in 19.9% cheaper than the estimated range.

Both 139's and 189's on regular training sorties.

S92 training ops currently being run from Humberside and Inverness.

Thank you Shetlander. Very pretty.

Now tell us about the Performance and about the AFCS SAR modes.

Bristow has given up on Manston and will go to Lydd, according to its MP.
BBC News - Manston loses search and rescue service
Thanet council made little effort to get Manston reopened and then moans about loosing the SAR base...!
mmitch.

Shetlander good pics

If you need a copy of the RFM I will send you one.

What the esteemed regulator thinks of what is in the RFM might be the interesting bit.

Well Jim...... I'm certain that the "esteemed regulator" as you call them, will be sure to call you up and ask your "esteemed" opinion on the AW189 autopilot as you are clearly an expert in this area ............ or are you just s##t stirring yet again?

Yeah, OK. Sod the issues that are about to hold back deployment of the aircraft with the contracted capability. What the people who created the 300,000 views probably want is for us to go back to either a CivSAR vs MilSAR or a Fleet Air Arm vs RAF bun fight.

How long have you been flying the AW189 Jim?

Jim, you are indicating that the "esteemed" regulator is not happy with the AW189 autopilot so why don't you just enlighten us as to what exactly it is that they are unhappy about.

With your knowledge of the 189 autopilot you clearly know something so why not share rather than just hint/imply.

Or is just the case that you you know nothing about it.

P3B and Same Again

You two seem to be in the know (and very proud of the fact) so while you're on your high horses, could you let us know what rules and regs Bristow will be working under for NVG flight? A lot of people are dying to know and with a little over a month before the first bases take over, I imagine you know them off by heart. Specifically, please tell us:

Cloudbase limitations (training and ops)
Visibility limitations (training and ops)
Minimum operating heights
Minimum separation criteria (or equivalent)
The obstacle plane values on which you'll base your heights
Safety rules if known obstructions are not seen by a certain distance
Where your obstruction data will come from and how often will it be updated
Any other regulations of note that may prevent you landing or approaching a winching area.

Thank you.

Jim please note. Those are questions for someone else, not you.

That is on a need to know basis my little orange friend and apparently you don't need to know.

What a pathetic non-answer. In other words, with a month to go, either you don't know or they don't exist. Welcome, people of Britain, to your new SAR service. Spin over substance, time and again.

There may of course be legal reasons why not such as ITAR restrictions. I am sure that even in Bristow there are people not allowed to have ITAR related information, and no I don't work for them but are familiar with the rules around such protected technologies

The query is not about the technology itself but the way it will be used. Knowing the weather minima that crews will be permitted to work down to is hardly likely to be a state secret. Neither is the distance they have to remain from obstructions or the basis for their height calculations.

So come on, as P3B and Same Again have suddenly gone all shy, someone answer those very basic NVG ops questions please. Or alternatively admit that you are way way way behind the curve when it comes to NVG and it's highly questionable whether you'll be able to conduct night overland SAR Ops come April.

Satsuma,


It will be interesting to see if you get a proper response to your perfectly reasonable questions.

I also wonder what special dispensation they will have for operating IMC over the sea below Safety Alt - perhaps it will be glossed over with some guff about take off and landing rather than a documented exception to IFR.

Crab, it may well be covered in ORS4 no 1081.

And not only 1081 but also 1070 recently.

Good answers :ok:

Well I see no-one's denying it.

Well ...

Not quite. A few probing questions were recently put to Bristow and those questions and their answers are expected to appear online in an e-magazine shortly.

Spin over substance.

Maybe they have prioritised the work-up over replying to you...

Heard that before somewhere.


The situation we are in is one where Bristow will have to carry the can for every shortcoming of their customer's contract writing and the regulator's lack of experience of some of the operating conditions as well as any mistakes they make themselves. The military's excellent PR and outstanding crew performances in spite of some rubbish kit and poor support give Bristow an even steeper hill to climb.

With a few week to go, they need to be out there telling everyone about all the good stuff they are doing. This is the world they are operating in. They must have known all this when they signed the contract.

They must have had a pretty shrewd idea what the training burden would be when they signed the contract as well but their training system is creaking badly.

So let's see if I've got this right Jim. If Bristows were to come and visit you and tell you that everything is good in the world you would believe it and stop all your dripping and moaning in here?................really?

Frankly I'm sure they have better things to do than right now than pander to yours, crabs and the orange ones need in here. Get a grip.

I should point out for the benefit of the "orange one" and others who have a long line of technical questions that I don't work for Bristows and have no involvement with the SAR contract. I do however know quite a few of the Bristows pilots.

What I object to is armchair experts; some with a "little knowledge" who state for the benefit of all that it's going to be s##t without knowing a great deal about it.

And Jim; what you are saying is that the MOD PR machine was able to paper over the cracks of some truly shocking serviceability issues and Bristows should be using a PR system to the same effect..........really?

It's not PR that matters to the individual who finds themselves in difficulty and in need of rescue.

Correct P3 and if you look carefully you will note that the concerns of most of us 'negative' posters are that those in need of rescue won't get helped because the training process isn't yet delivering crews able to do that everywhere - especially overland at night.

Please don't fret Crab. Those currently training with Bristow have actually flown helicopters before, have rescued people in distress before and will do so again in nice, shiny, new helicopters without too much trouble.

Info please
 

So we can fill in some of the missing gaps of information can somebody please tell me when Bristows were awarded the UK SAR contract. Not a rough date but the exact date please.

Perhaps Crab, Tango, Jim or Vsf can help out here as they are as we know the experts and fonts of all knowledge.

Correct.

The greatest thing about SAR Seakings are the four pink floppy components in the green onesies. :ok:

New colour of onesy, some gold bars, couple of thousand more shaft horsepower and the job's a goodun. :cool:

Then there's the .. em ... eh ... paperwork of course. :ugh:

26th March 2013

The bidders had their phonecalls several days before that and some other elements lagged a bit. It was a couple of months before the redacted contract docs were in the public domain.

If you search for UK SAR Helicopter Service on businesslink you should find the contract docs and some stuff is still on the DfT bit of gov.uk.

From what I saw, the MOD never reported false serviceability/availability stats. Unlike another SAR service provider of recent years.

And on plenty of occasions (even in recent years when the 2nd Standby requirement had been dropped), the RAF SAR units have managed to get both their aircraft airborne simultaneously on SAROps.

Being from the semi-detached part of the UK an a frequent traveller on the ferries, what happens when something like this happens again ?
Sealink-Holyhead

What happens?

You need fewer heroes because everyone has better kit.

SOME of those training with Bristow have little or no SAR experience and some have very little NVG overland SAR experience, some have no NVG experience, SAR or otherwise.

Fortunately there are some with all the relevant skill sets and experience but it is not the case that all have by any means. The paucity of training hours as part of the contract means that much of the continuity training (read bringing up to the standard of those they replace) is expected to be done 'on the job' ie during SAROps. Anyone with any experience of SAR trg will tell you that is not quality training and in no way replaces proper structured training.

The new training system is so thorough that it is quite possible to complete it without actually winching at all!

Jim ... You must be really well connected with the contact if you know all this. Do you work for the Government? Did you write the contract? What exactly is your involvement in the contract?

Are you suggesting that winching should be part of SAR training?? I will pass that pearl of wisdom onto the training department.