Coastguard 139 in Devon
 

Hi,

just wondering how the Coastguard 139 picked two surfers up in Woolacombe Bay earlier today - was there enough room?:)

I bet they didn't go back and pick their boards up as well!

Perhaps Chivenor and the south coast 139s have an agreement whereby the 139s help out with day SAR in Chivenor's patch and the Chivenor Sea King does the night wet jobs on the south coast!:ok:

In the words of Jethro 'What 'appened was' - Chiv were down to a 3 man crew yesterday due to the manning shortages we are currently experiencing; there was no winchman on shift so the flight maintained a medevac only capability. No one likes it but it is just the way it is and the blame lies at many doors.

The headline news might have been that we were all going down to 4 crews per flight but the reality is that we have been operating under that, in terms of rearcrew, for a good while now - 4 winchmen and radops per flight would be a godsend.

Thanks to Portland for plugging the gap:ok:

Temptation
 

Boy oh Boy! I have resisted for so long but now I have to jump in with the amount of dribble Crabb is spilling.

Ok, from another thread - AW forced Bristow out of SAR-H [or words to that effect] because of a mandatory 12 base solution - TOSH!

The 101 downwash is horrendous it would have rained trees down on top of people in a gorge at 120'. So, why would you be at 120'! And dont give me that rubbish about you having to be as low as possible! With your eyesight at your age anything over 70ft is a blur anyway! Or can't you hold theohover in a winch weight check these days at 300ft - so you should be more than capable of holding a hover between 50 and 300ft? You just might have to work a bit harder for a livining!

As Limpopo said, you adapt. If you have to. And lets face it, you are never going to have to...... well, you are going to have to adapt but it will be to a big American or Big french aircraft but not to the 101. So, what a pointless load of dribble - oh, back to my first point!

Oh, here comes his next dribble about Wastelands and who cares about Bristish jobs ......

A 3 man crew! Brilliant! Wy didnt we think of that when we were bidding SAR-h!

I wont respond again! Back to just reading. This thread has become a laughing stock!

Rant over.

From what I understand Crab has the correct version. At THAT instant the available helo which could get there first was the Portland CG Helo.

Nothing unusual in that. This is why we have a little group of geeks who study the wind, the job, chicken entrails, etc and decide which is the quickest/best one to use.

What is of concern is the discrepancy between what was reported as being available in the morning and what was available "when the bluff was called" later in the day.

I suspect that the pressure that they are under causes a confusion between availability and response. All it takes is for one man to have a dodgy kebab and the system collapses.

Availability is what might fly. Response is what does fly.

(Not Crabs fault -Any abuse should be directed at that c-nut G Brown.)

The New SAR Helo is....
 

The New SAR Helo is....

Back to the original thread subject...

FACT..

After a carefully phrased enquiry the answer is along the lines of ..."We cannot tell you yet but we are asking the parties involved to allow us to divulge the details."

RUMOUR and GOSSIP (which is what this is all about)..

If anyone is taking bets I will want to lay some money on the S92 - a machine which has now been "de-bugged" in the role or the updated version of what I knew in my army days at the Puma (225 ?)

Rumour Control (which is, of course, never accurate) states that the Tippex has been liberally spread over any letters or numbers such as "3W1A9" in the bid documents.



"Watch and Shoot."

SARREMF - oh dear, been posting after a glass or two of wine have we - I think the prize for dribbling rant is certainly in your hands now:)

So why did AW decide to pull out of SARH then? The reason given at the time for the withdrawal was that there was no money to be made on the contract in its present state. Is it just coincidence that the decision was made to retain 12 bases shortly before AW/Bristow who were pushing a reduction in bases to suit the speed/legs of the 101 decided to pull out?Hmmmmm


You of all people should know better than to comment on rescues you weren't involved in - we (and I was LHS for that one not captain) we in the only place we could be to effect the rescue. You know as well as I do that the precision required to keep a winchman within a foot of his casualty (steep, rocky ground with trees all around) is not what you can realistically deliver on a 300' winch run out.

If this thread is now a laughing stock then you should gaze introspectively to consider who might have made it so:)

Don't dial drunk......don't pprune pi**ed:ok:

Crab votes for a 225
 

"If someone built a high-speed Wessex with up to date avionics and a radar then you would probably have the perfect UK SAR cab And if we don't get a mixed fleet in 2012, I will be very surprised indeed."

Are the military saying that they would like the 225 as it ticks all of the boxes according to the Military's rep on this thread.
Stand by to be suprised.

Arctic Warrior,

So an 11,000kg 225 is the modern equivalent of the 6,123kg Wessex :hmm:

:rolleyes:



Don't mention the downwash, Pike

Eh101 Merlin
 

Hello to all experience pilots in this thread.
I've been reading this thread and realized that are different opinions about EH101.
I'm a PIC of Merlin in SAR operations and let me tell that is a great helicopter.
Great radar and flir and the most important is the autopilot modes including the auto hover and the long range capacity.
Imagine rescue 10 fisherman in a dark night from the water with 15'-20' waves, that resolves the problem of the downwash!!
We do 350 NM whith 30 min in hover and come back again without refuelling.
We operate the EH101 since 2005 and none of the rescue divers had problems whith the downwash maybe in the begining, and we always put the rescue diver outside at 60' for safety reasons, like if we have to cut the cable.:{

The only problem is the maintenance support, short of spares. But thats a factory problem, not the helicopter.
I think a great choice for yours SAR will be the S92 i see some pictures and is very similar with MERLIN and are some civilian companies using them.
And the hoist is behind the PIC seat, this is very good.
We have the hoist to much on the back, behind the cargo door.
Imagine doing the hover on a vessel looking back and up of your right shoulder, nice:\.


I can tell more information about EH101 if needed.
PM are welcome.

Best Regards
FlySafe :ok:
Carlos82

Arctic

The 225 is nothing like the Wessex, the Wessex was built like a brick built S**T house, the 225 does not even meet modern crash worthyness standards, it relies on Grandfather rites.

Head down, look out for the flack!:cool::

Carlos - thanks for the information - there is no doubt that the extra speed and range of the EH101 make it a good long-range overwater SAR machine but in UK only a small percentage of our rescues fall into that category.
Much of our work is coastline/cliff work and inland rescues (mountains etc) and this is where the downwash of the 101 would be a problem.

You mention the positioning of the hoist - I know this has been an issue but we make do on the Sea King and the winch is 16 feet behind the pilot - I would prefer a hoist much closer (back to the Wessex again:ok:)

We already have the day/night/all weather capability on the Sea King (FLIR, Radar, auto transition and hover) what we need is a helicopter that does all of that but with speed and without the penalty of horrendous downwash.

Your story of poor spares and support seems to be a common one when mentioning the 101 but I'm sure SARREMF has some excuses about that;)

Crab,

I think wanting a fast helicopter with low downwash is like having your cake and eating it.

It must be out there somewhere. This golden opportunity to get it right looks like it's going to be missed sadly.

Best choice
 

Good Evening to all the pilots

crab i understand your needs for the future SAR.
I think Super Puma could be a good choice?
There are many operators using them, so a lot of spares.
I see some pictures of BOND Pumas helicopters and there were very nice.
With FLIR and Nitesun, great improvements.
I had flight PUMA in the past as a co-pilot and it was a great school.


And in PUMA you don't have the software,electronic and computers bugs problems like on the EH101:\.


FlySafe

At the end of the day, the operator will provide the service with a helicopter which meets the minimum spec and gives the maximum profit. With the present strength of th Euro and the reducing strength of the dollar, does the S92 look the better bet?
Carlos an interesting comment about the Super Puma being used by lots of operators so there must be lots of spares around, where the heck are they then? I suspect that Eurocopter are no better or worse than anyone else, I have heard about all the poor backup stories from AW and SK.
It will all come down to money, you get what you pay for,if you are lucky. If there is not a decent profit margin in it for the contractor, you will get a crap service.

Head down, look out for the flack!

There is a real problem with SAR helicopters;

Two conflicting requirements have been identified ; to have high speed (which implies a small diameter rotor) and low downwash (which implies a large diameter flexible rotor).

Except that this dichotomy assumes the use of helicopters flying to the coast or out to sea from an in-land base.

The solution ? Zeppelins.

Stop thinking about helicopter crews; sat around in their "grow-bags" looking at the Readers Wives section of Fiesta to check out the ground crew's partners while waiting for a job; or hoping to take out the crate for a quick sortie then back for tea and medals.

Think Zeppelin.

In all of the common SAR areas we should place airships on patrol. No problems with crewing because they will be on two week patrols with all the crew they need and no one can drop out of their duty unless they have a parachute. (and a lifejacket).

None of the problems with lift capacity - if you have to winch up yet another 10 seamen just chuck the piano or other ballast over the side.

Forget all these problems about a fast helicopter that can get to the scene but can only lift a few or a slow helicopter that can lift more; have a Zeppelin on site patrolling.

Forget arguing about which helicopter would be best ;
the new UK SAR Harmonised response is a Zeppelin, which will be kept on station and patrolling.

Zeppelin - great idea. But the idea of cocktails in the sky lounge might prove too tempting!

However, they would be a bit sporting in the mountains!

Crab said,
Glad to see you had a winchman yesterday to keep an eye on the TV crew filming the snow up your way!:rolleyes::D
Portland are more than happy to help you out.:ok:
3D

3D - yes we get our priorities right:)

I notice on the RCS tote today that there is no night wet winching capability likely for the 139 before March, is it the software issue that is causing the delays or the lights?