Aircrew are only on the ship for deployments or exercises. If we're not embarked on the ship, we're in Shearwater doing proficiency flying like practicing sonar dips and stuff like that. A flying tour is 4-5 years and it's at one sqn, after your first flying tour you're posted to either the training unit (406 Sqn), the other coast or even out of the MH community all together. It all depends on your preference, I could request to go TacHel after I've done my first tour on Sea Kings, I won't necessarily get it but I could ask for it.
For duties, we're strictly aircrew, we don't do ships watch or anything like that. For flying, if your helo is serviceable, you alternate doing 2 missions one day and 1 mission the next day, over the course of a 6 month deployment (assuming good serviceability) you get around 450 hrs of flying. There's 2 aircrews and an assortment of techs in a Det, each aircrew is 2 pilots, 1 TACCO, and 1 AESOp.
All aircrew and aircraft belong to the air force, we're sent as detachments to the ships for deployments or exercises.
Cheers
