•All SAR helicopters are available at 15 minutes readiness by day and 45 mins at night

•As military there are 4 crew. Pilot, co pilot, winchman and winch operator

•Has 4 searchlights and 3 floodlights plus FLIR (forward looking infra red)

•FLIR is a gyro system with infra red camera (heat seeking) which can magnify 32 times normal (operated by winchman)

•Has a watertight hull with sea anchor and white light above rotor

•Winch operator handles most of the comms

•Other equipment includes weather/search radar, FLIR/TV camera, dual radio altimeters, surface proximity warning light, hand held NVG, auto hover, flight path controller and auto pilot

•Winch operator can also control the “hover”

•The auto pilot can be programmed to fly any type of search pattern leaving all the crew to concentrate on visual search

•Can drop smoke floats and a 14 man liferaft