Same boys and girls up front holding the two levers. Different pay clerk, different colour flying suit. They will have to handle 4000 or 5000 shaft horsepower and modern avionics. What's not to like?

Still not comfortable with SAR being privatised but there does look to the untrained eye to be some advantages, new helicopters for one and as an ex resident of south wales a SAR at St Athen instead of Chivnor has a lot going for it in reduced flying times and less channel based issues.

Agree that the flying crews will more than likely be ex forces much like they seem to be in the air ambulances. That is reassuring at least.

"What is not to like?"

A valuable 'visual presence' of our military services will be lost.

"A valuable 'visual presence' of our military services will be lost."

No escort destroyers have been ordered. Watch out for the alternative. 'Si vis pacem, para bellum' ;-)

I fear you miss the point, despite your 'modern avionics'!

I'm not sure this article is accurate. My understanding of the agreement is that the aircrews WILL BE provided by the RAF & RN as it allows them to use the SAR missions as valuable training time.

Niall, an interesting bit of information that I hadn't seen before.

Margaret, I think I get the point - if the Government was prepared to fund the new aircraft the current arrangement could continue; always remembering that it was the RAF who created the whole thing.

I wonder what type of 'car' the Whirlybird Geek drives?

The arrangement where both civilian and military pilots flew the aircraft was for the previous competition that was scrapped in early 2011 because of inappropriate bidder behaviour. In this new competition, conceived at a time of considerable deployment obligations on the military, no military element is included. What does exist is a commitment from the customer, contractor and MoD to provide a managed path for mil SAR crews to continue their SAR careers in the same vicinity but a different colour flying suit.

A good solution has been obtained at a good price. However, at implementation commencement in 2015, it will start to appear farcical as helicopters return from Afghanistan with nothing to do and the Navy are well on the way to tooling up for carrier SAR again.

I have no question over the competence of the chosen contractor and no question over the commitment of the regulator. The route to get us here has been far too tortuous through limited competence in civil service procurement and bad political decision making. Handing it to a department and its agency whose heart is not really in it (DfT is British Rail by another name) and whose skills are not a good fit for 70% of the task are the weakest aspects of the entire project.

La oss ga flyr.

Interesting points.

Back in the 1960s, if someone at the Department of Transport had had the foresight to keep the tracks of the closed rail lines under basic maintenance for a decade or so, instead of selling them off, we might be in a better position now. Yes I know, they probably wanted the cash.