...What this guy has done,possibly without realising it by questioning servicability, is show a complete lack of respect and appreciation for the engineers who have worked through meals ,breaks, xmas's, bank holidays, world cups etc and sleeping time - just to provide the likes of him with 2 servicable cabs.
...
That article has really pi$$ed me off. prick.
You obviously never came across PC then?? He was my Flt Cmdr on SARTU back in '83 (IIRC) and is (was) one of the most respected and well-liked pilots in the SAR community, a true gent. There would seem to be little point in him lying about the state of the cabs seeing as anyone can get hold of the information that the BBC are quoting. What the BBC fail to mention (and no doubt PC mentioned it but has been ignored) is that we shuffle the cabs around from unit to unit if the situation deems it necessary. Typical media boll0x of cherry-picking the info that makes their article look better and ignoring anything that detracts from their exclusive! His quote about the whole of 202 being u/s at the same time is true, it happened about a month ago,
BUT I can put hand on heart and say that it happens very, very, very rarely; in fact, now I think about it, in all my time up here that was the only time I remember it happening on the squadron. And it was only for an hour or so... and should we have needed to (i.e. for immediate life saving) we could have recovered at least one of our cabs (at ISL) by Limming it and been in the air rather sharpish - done it before and no doubt will do it again; my shift was awarded a "Well Done" (one of these AOC type award thingies) for going from 2 u/s cabs to 2 in the air within 45 minutes for a reported possible Herc crash back in '99 - the framed certificate hangs behind the line-desk should you wish to come and see it (go on, you know you want to
). What the article doesn't mention is that this year we are on a bit of a high when it comes to shouts (we call 'em 'jobs'); I believe our job count, for this time of the year, is actually up on previous recent years so we are still meeting our mission despite the state of the aircraft. And by the way we are actually
operational every second of
every day - maybe we don't drop bombs on people or go out to dusty climes too often (unless you call MPA a dusty clime
) but we do the job for real
every day.
I've been on 202 up at ISL for many years and it's true that this year has seen an increase in unserviceability across the Fleet as a whole. What seems to be letting us down is not so much the actual airframe (tho it is getting old, and could do with a re-wire) but the components themselves - from ECUs to gearboxes to black boxes, etc, etc. A lot more of our depth maint is done in a civvy environment nowadays, whether this has a bearing on our serviceability rate or not I really wouldn't like to say. Spares are difficult to come by as well: with the increased workload of the Navy Sea King fleet in far away places it's understandable but very frustrating
.
Not withstanding the comments by the BBC I'm extremely proud of what we achieve as a whole; I love my job and the challenges it presents (I'm grafter not a flyer by the way). Hence the reason I've PVR'd to continue working with them next year when the Engineering goes civvy. (Hmm, there's a thought thinking about another thread on here... I've PVR'd so I'm not showing commitment to the Service but I've PVR'd to continue in my current job thereby supporting the Service; how committed am I then??
Or maybe I should be committed... to Ward 6 in Doc Grays!
)
Eventually the aim is for the whole of the rescue services in the UK to fall under one umbrella -
SARH - SAR Harmonisation - thereby making it easier for command and control of
all SAR assets unlike the current situation which is somewhat fractured, but that is quite some time away.
