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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 1731.PDF
SEARCH AND RESCUE The review effectively envisioned an SAR fleet of 25 Sea King HAR.3s, providing for the availability of 12 aircraft in the UK at any one time. These would be based in pairs at one of six RAF bases: Boulmer, Chivenor, Leconfield, Lossiemouth, Valley and Wattisham. Wattisham became opera tional on 18 July. The re-structuring of the RAFs SAR m capability has attracted the attention of the ; House of Commons Transport Committee, which is highly critical of certain aspects of the changes. One crucial area of concern for the committee is the ability of the SAR units to j meet the coverage criteria set out by the [ Helicopter Coverage Group (HCG). The | HCG comprises the Department of Transport (DTp), HM Coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and other I interested parties. EXTREME CONCERN The key HCG criteria as stated in the I Government paper are that: "SAR heli- I copters should be deployed so that points 40nm [75km] from the coast can be - reached within lh by day, and those at ' lOOnm from the coast can be reached with in two hours by night or in bad weather." Because of SAR unit relocations and a j reduction in the number of bases from nine to six, three areas (in the North Sea, the ! Dover Strait and St George's Channel) will I no longer be covered during the day in I accordance with the HCG criteria . The Transport Committee warns: "We I are extremely concerned that the new plan i fails to meet the Helicopter Coverage I Group's daytime coverage criteria." Concerning the three areas that, follow- £ ing the re-structure, fall outside the HCG criteria, the committee states that, I although "...they are, relatively speaking, I not large, they are intensively used by ship ping, particularly ferries. Moreover, there have been SAR incidents in all three areas in the past two years, particularly the Dover Strait." The decision to locate SAR helicopters I at RAF Chivenor, rather than RAF Brawdy I which has traditionally been used to cover I St George's Channel off the west coast of England, has caused particular consterna- I tion. The MoD in its paper admits: "There I will, inevitably, be some increase in heli- I copter response times to incidents in areas I currently covered from RAF Brawdy." One of the deciding factors in opting to I shift SAR from Brawdy to Chivenor was that the latter provided a base for RAF fast- jet training, while Brawdy had been with- j drawn from this role in August 1992. More I recently, however, the MoD decided to I end flying training at Chivenor as well, yet I despite this, the move to Chivenor remains I in on track. Claims by the DTp in defence of the m move, that maintaining the Sea Kings at Brawdy would cost £220,000 a year more than transferring them to Chivenor, have been met with scepticism on the part of the Transport Committee which notes in its report that: "The Committee is not con vinced that this saving is a good enough reason for the Sea King flight to move to Chivenor." Because of its concerns over "daytime coverage criteria in these areas", the com mittee recommends "...that the Dep artment of Transport urge the Ministry of Defence to retain search and rescue flights at RAF Manston and RAF Brawdy. "In any event, the flight at RAF Brawdy should certainly not be moved before the less-capable Wessex aircraft at RAF Valley in North Wales are replaced by Sea Kings in 1996." There is a suspicion in some quarters that the prime motivation behind the Government's review of RAF SAR services was financial in that it presented an easy area for cuts. While the RAF has, with some resis tance, accepted the re-structuring as presently planned, any further move towards privatisation of SAR services would be strongly opposed. The results of Secretary of State for Defence Malcolm Rifkind's Front Line First defence cost-studies review will be closely scrutinised for any such indication both by the service and by interested politicians. Even if no further changes to the RAF's SAR units are unveiled, there are those who will look upon this only as a stay of execu tion for the Bananas. D Hanging around under the Wessex is becoming a thing of the past 20-26 July, 1994 29
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