OT Search and Rescue

[harry]

Latest thing to be sold off, search and rescue. Sign the e-petition here about this matter.

[whisky-dave]

yes I heard this on the radio this morning, something like 1.6 Billion a year, but I was half asleep or is that half awake.

Strange that considering I was told by someone on here yesyerday that it was run by a charity/charities

[Tim Watts]

On Tuesday 26 March 2013 16:21 harry wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Done

[Nightjar]

HM Coastguard runs the ones around here and AIUI, they will oversee the new service in much the same way. Personally, in times when the Services' budget is being cut, I would rather see what money there is going to equip the troops on the front lines. It is not as if we need to get a lot of downed pilots out of The Channel these days.

Colin Bignell

[harry]

Tch. The service is for ANYONE in trouble on land or sea. They fly in all weathers,sea rescue, mountain rescue civilians military etc.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

As I understood it, they were paid to provide the service.

[Nightjar]

Exactly, so what particular reason is there for the SAR to be a military operation? As I said, the Coastguard do it around here and the Police helicopter also does searches.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

The problem is that, if they were to continue to do it, they would need to replace their ageing fleet of helicopters and SAR helicopters are fairly specialised bits of kit.

Colin Bignell

[polygonum]

The traditional justification for SAR being military was to provide training. If made non-military, how then will the remaining military SAR get trained? Dummy missions only?

(The military will still require SAR facilities elsewhere than round here.)

[Dave Liquorice]

Harry is behind the times again. It's a bit late now it's a done and dusted deal. Should have made a fuss back in 2011 when this was first mooted and the procurment process started.

[Tim+]

Because the military will fly in conditions that would make any civilian pilot's hair curl.

Tim

[Martin Brown]

It still makes sense to be able to do military search and rescue though. Domestic SAR work provides very realistic training.

So to avoid that short term hardware cost and retaining trained SAR teams we outsource it and get royally ripped off in the longer term losing most of our military SAR capability too. How very clever :(

[Tim Streater]

You can justify "royally ripped off" can you, with facts and figures? Or is it more bluster.

[Nightjar]

Where do you think the Police and Coastguard hire their pilots?

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

The questions being, do really they need as much training as running SAR around Britain provides and do they need as many SAR helicopters as that requires? If yes, then that could be a justification for buying new helicopters and continuing the service. Otherwise, it makes sense to find other ways to train.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

The money for the equipment has to come from somewhere and, in the current climate, that somewhere will be things that front line troops need. The Coastguard and Police seem quite capable of running SAR in my area.

Colin Bignell

[Tim+]

Do they fly under the same H&S regs? I strongly suspect military pilots have more leeway.

Tim

[Nightjar]

The rules are set by the CAA and a Police Operator's Licence probably gives more leeway than military pilots have in civil airspace, although most rules can be overridden by the need to save life.

Colin Bignell

[Bill]

In message , harry writes

Does this mean that Prince William could get Tuped over to Bristow's?

[Adrian]

In message , Bill writes

Mutterings on the news this afternoon suggested that the service personnel would have to apply for jobs rather than be moved.

Adrian