I suspect you may be exaggerating a tad, They fly over my house regularly at night its not that bad. Don't forget they are going to help some one in need.

Correct. And this contract means a significant step up in resources at Inverness, and some at Prestwick. The part-time elements at FtWm and Carlisle take workload pressure off both Inverness and Prestwick that should allow for more effective secondary activities.

Yes. :ok: (Like the sleepless pilot I met in Tescos yesterday afternoon.)

By 2027, three regions of the UK will be relieved of their chore of worshipping the teflon helicopter company's great motherf#cking S-92 wind god.

At the same time, some SAR stakeholders may miss Helibus' passenger capacity when it comes to large area searches.

Lowfat.

They maybe going to help someone in need, but a friend of mine works for the police, and while transiting across London at night en-route a job they fly as high as ATC allow to reduce noise? So there is NO excuse for transiting on a gin clear night (or day, for instance on weekends when the family is sitting out in the peaceful garden on a sunny day)!!! for these crews to p@ss off people on the ground?

B.

I really don't think they are doing it deliberately Brutal.

If they have just been launched on a SAR shout they will have far more things to think about than whose house they are flying over.

The vital thing is to get to the job ASAP so wasting time climbing to height isn't a priority.

Transiting across London with the very high population density is hardly comparable to flying over rural areas and if an S92 was operating regularly there, then people might have something to complain about.

I have landed at night in several London parks taking critically ill people to hospitals in a SAR Sea King over the years - and generated plenty of noise complaints doing so - sometimes you just have to suck it up or do you complain every time an ambulance goes past your house with blues and twos going?

Jeeezz...I am not talking about climbing climbing to flight levels...climbing a little higher will make literally no difference. This isn't about flying over one persons house, it's about having some consideration to the general population. I am well away that they will have things to think about. However, if 4 people can't muster that extra ounce of brain power to think about neighbourly flying, then how do us poor single pilots manage when on Air ambulance shout? You're wrong as well about an S92 flying over London giving people something to complain about. Believe me, they complain about the 145's enough as it is.
Landing/departing at sites, arriving on scene and being low level , doing a recce etc, is part of the job an I don't care if people complain, this is not what I am talking about. Transiting low level to a job, as if you are still in the military is unnecessary and causes the general public to turn against helicopter noise, and that is not good for anyone.

B.

Contact the base or Bristow sar HQ or departure airport with your concerns. They will have to listen to you and who know rebrief the ops procedure.

It must just be to annoy you then, they fly over my place at about 3,000' AGL :ok:

Anyway, who cares what height the transit at at 02:00 if they are out to save a life? I am sure you were back asleep within minutes, unlike the crew and their casualty.

Is this what you meant to write You have said climbing a bit won't make any difference???? So what is the problem?

Sorry Crab, poor grammar...It would make virtually no difference in time to get to the scene. As demonstrated by the crews in MFC Fly's post above. Maybe they were a civvie crew :ok: If they can manage it, maybe they can spread the word?

B.

they are all civvy crew and they work to the same Ops manual - they won't have been military SAR for 7 years so if there is a message to get through, I'm pretty sure it has by now.

Simply not true - ever heard of wind - it gets stronger as you climb (usually). On a SAR shout, seconds can make the difference between life and death - we all know that. If my transit to the scene is into-wind then I am going as low as I can to minimize the impact...clearly with a tailwind I will cruise climb to get the advantage. Wind from the left?..then stay low as it veers to become a headwind in the Northern Hemisphere. Wind from the right - then climb as it becomes a tailwind.

My God, what do they teach nowadays???

On a rescue I could not give a single shred of a t0ss about who I annoy on the ground - it is about saving lives...period.

Really, thanks for the lesson....BI.??

Even with the prevailing southerly wind they still fly northbound at low level...and southbound at low level...in fact, everywhere at low level...

Crab you know what I was implying. I was on about the ex-mil (NOW CIVVIES) having some sort of fear of heights..

B.

Brutal, I do know what you were implying, I just don't think it is in any way true.

I don't think they are being lazy or deliberately flying lower than required, they are following the rules to get the job done effectively - if they make some noise doing it then it is a function of having a very noisy helicopter - I could hear them coming from miles away when I was living in Newquay.

135s and 145s are whisper quiet in comparison.

Iroquois mythology

- Da-jo-ji, the mighty panther spirit of the west wind.
- Ga-oh, spirit of the wind.
- Ne-o-gah, the gentle fawn spirit of the south wind.
- O-yan-do-ne, the moose spirit of the east wind.
- Ya-o-gah, the destructive bear spirit of the north wind who is stopped by Ga-oh.
- S-92A, great big motherf8cker wind spirit

Hopefully, they're not still threatening to put people on a charge as a means of demonstrating their authority! I don't believe that was ever in the civilian Ops manual?

Bristow to purchase 6 x AW139
 

In a strange almost back-to-the-future, when thee was AW139 bakc in the day, Bristow going to buy six AW139 to join the 9 AW189 for the UK SAR2G ot be delivered between 2023 and 2024

https://www.leonardo.com/en/press-re...scue-programme

cheers

I don't think the 189 has been as great as expected and has almost as bad downwash as the S-92

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the AW189. Although late to the party, it’s been a good aircraft since it’s arrival!

The reintroduction of the AW139 is perhaps realised by the fact that those bases that will receive it perhaps don’t need the legs of the AW189.

LZ

I've been told it is much about downwash..

If it's not then why the change?

SK and Whirlwind are out of service I'm afraid, so all 6, 8, 12 tonne helicopters in the 2020s are going to have sh1tloads of downwash and we're all safer in the air because of it. Realistically, not just S-92 have downwash issues and there have been downwash incidents with 135s. There has been some recent research going on about downwash and the effects on loads below the aircraft and a pattern has been emerging related to the aircraft weight, rotor disc area, and air density. More work on this is expected to produce something worthwhile that can be added to a RFM near you in the future.

189 has performed well and done jobs far out to sea that some might have expected would be solely S-92 territory. I haven't seen any specifics about the economics but it's not hard to imagine a significant cost margin between the types. With the 189's speed, range and payload there may just be no need to pay for a S-92.

Scotland will be an all-189 territory and there is not much to complain about with that. The S-92 has been described as a very stable winching platform in challenging mountain conditions and for large searches one might imagine it deploying more MRT. Realistically though, there's not really much difference overall.

What does surprise me is the number of 139. It has been described by paramedics as not having enough room for them to do proper work on a patient. Some of us may have heard that complaint about Merlins from people used to Chinooks but once you get down to the size of the 139 and there is a long flight back to dry land I think I can see how it could be difficult to keep a seriously injured patient alive and stable. Having said that, there is BHL data available from operation of 139 at Lydd and St Athans 2015-2018 and of course CHC at Portland and Lee-on-Solent for 10 years up until 2017.

The current contract, although very good, has to some extent been a quick-fix, one size fits all, sort of a spec. That came about after the collapse of the PFI. I can see from the way the spec was laid out from the very start that UKSAR2G is far more aligned with the real data that has been collected since 2015. Even on the PFI, this quality of data wasn't really available since, as the NAO pointed out many years before, the MoD and DfT were not measuring the same things and did not co-ordinate their statistics.

Costs, a 139 is cheaper in every respect to a 189 and s92a. purchase, lease and fuel costs. the only constant is the crew.

In addition the 139 has matured into a very reliable aircraft.

My information came from someone who operates the aircraft on a daily basis, in role - I'll let them know they are wrong.....

Unlike the previous SAR contract which was very prescriptive for UKSAR2G the bidders were asked to come up with solutions which met all the requirements. As cost is a big factor in any contract bidding process the Bristow solution uses a mix of airframes with less S92 (replaced with AW189's) and some of the AW189's replaced with AW139's while still achieving all the requirements.
So all down to costs savings, nothing to do with rotor downwash.

How an aircraft operates in role is influenced strongly by ‘who’ is operating it.

One operator can have a very serviceable and capable aircraft due to a solid spares and servicing package and another operator of the same type can find their aircraft/fleet spends more time on the ground due to lack of same.

The way different operators maintain the same aircraft has markedly different results. Just because you happen to ‘know someone’ who flys the aircraft has no real bearing on the types abilities.

So someone in UKSAR flying the aircraft on a daily basis and knows it's abilities intimately has no valid opinion then?

Downwash is a consideration of operating the 189, as it should be with every aircraft but it had absolutely no influence on the change of types in the South. As another poster has stated, the selection of types for 2G had been based on contract requirements, data harvested over the last 9 years and the obvious commercial/financial component.

Why operate a 189 at additional cost when the 139 can achieve the end result just aswell?

LZ

My bad crab. Thought you were referring to the AW139 not the 189. 🤦🏻‍♂️

I wonder what is being bid for the Irish contract bearing in mind the number of spare SAR-fit S-92A there will be?

well as the government /army tried to bid 139s for the Dublin base its a good bet to suggest 139

Interesting Development in Sumburgh SAR
 

https://www.orcadian.co.uk/proposals...times-queried/

It is being reported in the Orcadian that the MCA is planning to change the readiness state of the Sumburgh aircraft to 60 minutes all day. This is a change from 15 minutes 08:00-22:00 and thereafter, 45 minutes over night.

Perhaps it’s time for Bond, Babcock, OSHUK or whatever they are called this week to expand and put a machine in Sumburgh to cater for the helicopter traffic and offshore MEDEVAC flights.

Seems like a very odd move.

P3

Yes, does seem very odd.

Cant' see any benefit to that!

The only reason i could suggest would be if it meant they could crew the operation with fewer people.

But i don't see that it would make a difference - you will still require a duty crew regardless of what readiness they are on. ( Unless the CAA would allow them to do longer shifts if they are on increased readiness? - Can't see it though)

I wonder if this is simply an example of 'We've agreed it up to such and such date, with no particular intention to change it thereafter, but we've not formalised it yet'?

In the draught SSUN for the UKSAR2G contract, the "Measure of Effectiveness (Threshold)" for readiness is the same as the current state, being as follows.
"Lot 1, Lot 2 (Helicopter): 15 Minutes 08:00-22:00, 45 minutes 22:01 -07:59."
"Lot 3 (UAV): 45 Minutes 08:00-22:00, 60 minutes 22:01 -07:59."
Meanwhile, the spec the bidders were encouraged to aim for, in the next column, was as follows.
"Measure of Effectiveness (Objective)"
"Higher Readiness State than Threshold level for both Readiness State times"

What would be nice is if this was simply a mix up with the Lot 3 figure for the UAV fleet. However, since "Discussions relating to readiness states beyond this date are ongoing." is attributed to 'an MCA spokeswoman', I remain concerned.

Remind me. How long does it take to drown?

I believe the 60 minutes is to save on duty hours as the crews will be on standby at home. They can therefore operate with fewer crews and reduce costs accordingly.

P3

That's all well and good but finding crews to live on the Island might be difficult.

Perhaps they have done an analysis of the type and number of callouts Sumburgh get and identified that they are mostly long-range or medevac style ops rather than the short range quick jobs you get at flights in busy tourist areas.

That is what the MCA's online modelling software provided during the bid process. :cool:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....607d35c815.png

Then they awarded a contract based on all of that, getting it for a price that is an estimated (JF) 1.3%pa below inflation compared the last one, and then ... ... something else ... what? :confused:

The words "too prescriptive" or "overly prescriptive" were used many times is the UKSAR2G process. So many good ideas emerged. Did somebody forget to take minutes?

For the current UKSAR2015/26 contract, I have a complete set of documents made publicly available shortly after award. Having, since then, "taken back control" (nearly fkn choked typing that!) not only do I not know exactly what the £1.6bn UKSAR2G contract entails but there is evidence that neither the DfT nor BHL know what it entails either since they appear to still be, well, not negotiating, but stumbling about in a fog of their own creation. Thus the 60 minute thing, and more.

Simple contract: complicated outcome?