Study looks at effectiveness of youth searchers in GSAR

[RiverAux]

Here is a link to a newspaper article about an upcoming study about several factors in ground SAR searches, one of which evidentally is a comparison between youth and adult searchers. 

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10249/1085390-455.stm

the study also found a relationship between search effectiveness and the age of the searchers.

Many search-and-rescue efforts include teenage volunteers from Civil Air Patrol squads and Venture Scout crews. Teens appear to have a harder time concentrating for long periods of time and are more likely than adults to miss visual clues, he said.

Search managers can counteract those physiological limitations by keeping younger searchers in the field for shorter periods of time and meeting their physical needs, the study suggests. "They have got to be adequately fed, watered and rested before they are sent out again [to continue a search]," he said.

The actual research article isn't available yet, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not the newspaper is accurately reporting things.  I'll reserve judgment until I see the actual article and their statistical analysis. 

[RADIOMAN015]

Here is a link to a newspaper article about an upcoming study about several factors in ground SAR searches, one of which evidentally is a comparison between youth and adult searchers. 

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10249/1085390-455.stm

the study also found a relationship between search effectiveness and the age of the searchers.

Many search-and-rescue efforts include teenage volunteers from Civil Air Patrol squads and Venture Scout crews. Teens appear to have a harder time concentrating for long periods of time and are more likely than adults to miss visual clues, he said.

Search managers can counteract those physiological limitations by keeping younger searchers in the field for shorter periods of time and meeting their physical needs, the study suggests. "They have got to be adequately fed, watered and rested before they are sent out again [to continue a search]," he said.

The actual research article isn't available yet, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not the newspaper is accurately reporting things.  I'll reserver judgement until I see the actual article and their statistical analysis.

Well my issue with them being the researchers & study authors is that they are members of an established team - how many of their team members are teenagers?   Do they see CAP & Venture crews as competition to their organization?   

Also why don't they actually have some CAP trained teams of teenagers come to that planned exercise/study on 9/11 and than have another group of untrained teenagers & adults and see how well CAP does in comparison (this is really how that study should progress).

HOWEVER, I've got to admit that in my experience, I'm finding that cadets (and I'm not saying ALL) may not have the ability to remain focused to mission requirements for the period of time required even in support roles such as mission radio communications.   Especially if there's multiple comms happening at one time in the mission comm section (we saw this at the NER competition last year with one cadet).   

In one actual UDF mission a few years back (started mid evening to early next morning -- basically all night long e.g. 2000 to 0500 hrs local), the two cadet team members (both who were recent NESA grads) did terrible, it's almost like they had forgotten everything they were trained to do     The next two UDF missions we didn't use cadets at all, only senior members.     

I think that once this study gets published CAP is going to have to take a very hard look at what is reasonable for mostly cadet ground teams to be able to accomplish in real world situations.  Our customers are also going to be concerned about this.  IF someone's life depends upon our performance we do need to be  very certain of what cadets can do effectively, at what callout times & total time in the field
RM

[Eclipse]

I think that once this study gets published CAP is going to have to take a very hard look at what is reasonable for mostly cadet ground teams to be able to accomplish in real world situations.

I think once the study is published CAP isn't going to care that the study was published...

[RADIOMAN015]

I think that once this study gets published CAP is going to have to take a very hard look at what is reasonable for mostly cadet ground teams to be able to accomplish in real world situations.

I think once the study is published CAP isn't going to care that the study was published...

You know with your years of CAP service you may very well be right BUT if you go back to the actual newspaper article referenced above the real experts from the Joint USCG/AF SAR Planning School are going to attend this experiment study on  9/11, so there is some interest by the "professionals" in this study.

Some state SAR plans already place minimum age limits on who can be a volunteer searcher, this might result in more restrictions that could impact Civil Air Patrol's ground teams.  Personally, I don't think CAP is really looking at ground teams as a growth area anyways, since our name is Civil AIR PATROL, which most associate with aircraft s&R anyways :angel:
RM   

[Eclipse]

Personally, I don't think CAP is really looking at ground teams as a growth area anyways, since our name is Civil AIR PATROL, which most associate with aircraft s&R anyways

Its interesting how you can just make something up from nowhere and state it as fact despite the actual reality that Ground DR has been a growing service of CAP in the last several years.

[RiverAux]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some issues with cadets being kept focused for a day long mission.  Keep in mind that we are basically asking these cadets to put in a full days work in a sometimes tough physical environment.  This is not the norm for most kids 12-18.  Sitting in school for part of a day is a different deal than working what might amount to a 12 hour shift hiking through the woods. 

I expect that these issues would be greater for the younger cadets say 12-15 than the older ones. 

[Майор Хаткевич]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some issues with cadets being kept focused for a day long mission.  Keep in mind that we are basically asking these cadets to put in a full days work in a sometimes tough physical environment.  This is not the norm for most kids 12-18.  Sitting in school for part of a day is a different deal than working what might amount to a 12 hour shift hiking through the woods. 

I expect that these issues would be greater for the younger cadets say 12-15 than the older ones.

Must have been a long time since you took a math/english/philosophy/chemistry class.

Reading Plato for a few hours makes me want to run around the room more than sitting. School gets so boring, that being out in the woods or doing something of perceived value when you want to do it keep attention for most kids.

[Al Sayre]

So if they exclude all GSAR searchers under 18, what would be the outcome of that?  They would have a whole lot less (semi) trained bodies to do the search.  Better to acknowledge the issue and take actions to correct it.  More frequent breaks, more diligent leaders, more coaching on attention to detail.  Sometimes depending on what you are searching for, all you need is warm bodies - safety in numbers.  It's pretty hard to miss an entire crash site if you are walking a line, or a house if you are doing DR welfare checks.  Man tracking or lost person/survivor searches where clues become important is another story all together. 

[Major Lord]

So one one end of the distribution curve, we find that teenagers often, but not always, have a problem staying focused on the tasks at hand. Shocking news.  ( Please God, tell me the taxpayers did not pay for this "study"!) Have they looked at the other end of the curve, and assessed the effectiveness of elderly SAR folks, who may have wandering minds, less physical stamina, and poorer visual acuity? Its too bad that SAR team members tend to be volunteers instead of perfectly trained and conditioned SAR athletes, who are disposed of once they finish their useful life and who spring into being fully formed without receiving training as teenagers. Sort of a SAR master race, or SAR Marines.

Major Lord

[tsrup]

So one one end of the distribution curve, we find that teenagers often, but not always, have a problem staying focused on the tasks at hand. Shocking news.  ( Please God, tell me the taxpayers did not pay for this "study"!) Have they looked at the other end of the curve, and assessed the effectiveness of elderly SAR folks, who may have wandering minds, less physical stamina, and poorer visual acuity? Its too bad that SAR team members tend to be volunteers instead of perfectly trained and conditioned SAR athletes, who are disposed of once they finish their useful life and who spring into being fully formed without receiving training as teenagers. Sort of a SAR master race, or SAR Marines.

Major Lord

dang, beat me to it.  I agree with this statement 100% ^^^

It also would seem that cadets are more motivated to be a part of a ground team than Seniors are.  The day I see an all senior ground team in our wing I will be astonished. 

Heck the day I see a ground team half comprised of Seniors I will eat my boots.

It may be all fine and dandy, people need to be where they need to be.  But when I see a CUL (or even an MP, MO or a MSA for that mater) complain about the quality of a ground team I start to raise my eyebrows. 

If a cadet is poor at what they do it is a failure on their training.  If you are the CUL and your MRO cadets aren't preforming, you need to fix it.  Just like if I'm the GTL and one of my GTM3 starts wandering around picking at branches. 

And for the record I have seen plenty of instances where the opposite was true, and a cadet was more capable than a senior at doing the job (couple of them being comms btw).

The fact of the matter is that this study isn't going to be even afforded a second glance by our leadership because it would mean crippling our capabilities.  Our youth are not the norm, they are the exception.  And they are the exception for a reason.

[Short Field]

^^^ So because SMs are not perfect or get too old or are ill trained, it invalidates the study?  And you start describing how senior members are not as good as the cadets in order to show how the study was bad? 

All I saw the study say was that teenagers need to be kept hydrated and rested during searches if you want to keep them fully concentrated on the search.  Sounds like common sense to me - and I would not be too excited about it until I actually read how the study was conducted.

[tsrup]

All I saw the study say was that teenagers need to be kept hydrated and rested during searches if you want to keep them fully concentrated on the search. 

And so does anyone else involved with the search.

This study is like saying that there are apples in the produce isle that are red (true) which means that they are the only thing that is red (which is false).  There are green apples and there are red cherries. 

Just like while there are teenagers who can only focus on something for 30 seconds, there are some teenagers that are active and attentive, and then there are seniors who you cant get to focus on something for more than 10 seconds. 

The study seems interesting and valid, but it does nothing to tell us anything that a High School History Teacher (or even a DCC for that matter  ) doesn't already know.

[RiverAux]

Folks don't get too worked up about something that none of us have even seen. 

Lets say that the study proves to a scientific certainity that youth searchers don't do as good a job in some areas.  That doesn't mean the end of cadet GSAR.  At worst it might mean that we look at restricting in-the-woods sortie length for ground teams primarily made up of cadets or more likely incorporating more and longer breaks for cadet ground teams to allow them to get re-energized and refocused.   

Seems like that would be the sort of information we'd want to have so that we could do as good as job as possible with the resources we have available.

[Eclipse]

Gravity is a downer.

Fire is hot.

Teenagers are easily distracted.

Anything else?

[davedove]

It also would seem that cadets are more motivated to be a part of a ground team than Seniors are.  The day I see an all senior ground team in our wing I will be astonished. 

Heck the day I see a ground team half comprised of Seniors I will eat my boots.

Get the steak sauce ready.  Our squadron often fields a team that is more than half senior members.  I will admit though, that is a rarity in CAP.

[Майор Хаткевич]

In Northern IL all SM teams are common. Probably due to cadet limited availability

[ol'fido]

We often try to make generalities out of certain things i.e. teenagers are inattentive, fat people are sloppy, pilots only want to fly, etc. Cadets are individuals just like seniors. Some are going to be fully engaged and some won't be able to find the latrine without supervision. Most however will fall solidly in between and it is up to their leaders to keep them focused. The same thing applies to seniors. Leaders keep on 'em!

[Patterson]

I hate when CAP is referenced, in context with another like organization, but the link or contact info for CAP is not given.  Newspapers are terrible reporting mediums these days.  Most are political pawns owned or funded by one of three major news companies.

As for the research, the group that conducted said research does not have a very high success rate to begin with.  At one point PAWG was going to write up an MOU with them, but they were poorly managed, poorly equipped and lacked skilled members.  In fact, the husband and wife team referenced in the article, makes sooo much money (mostly donations, but some from the State of Pennsylvania as well).

[Ron1319]

Interesting thread.  Since rejoining CAP in California, I find it reassuring to know that someone from another wing is excited about cadet enthusiasm for ES.  I can't say that I see the same here in NorCal, although we're working on changing that.   Having been a GTL and a Observer/Scanner as a cadet, I too find it hard to imagine a mission without cadet involvement, but it's pretty much the norm here.  Changes coming.

[commando1]

 This coming from a cadet take it for what its worth...I have seen much more motivation from the cadets than I ever have from the senior member side...very few senior members undertake GT training when they can train for an aircrew position. In my squadron we have 3 seniors who have dual GT and aircrew qualifications. They are the only ones I have ever met who have that. It is not however, uncommon to have a cadet who is FLM and GTM and possibly MRO or MSA. At my last SAREX we had quite an issue between the distance between "how the crow flies" and "how steep that hill was," becuase the pilots had never had any ground training. 

[manfredvonrichthofen]

That would be nice to have aircrew have GT training, at least the observers. That would come in very handy, however I can understand some pilots and observers not wanting to cross train. Some times cross training can mud up your primary training with similar terms and such what not getting crossed. I do GT but would love to have observer training so that I can have a better understanding as to what the aircrew is talking about and what they are seeing. The only problem with that is there aren't very many observers around here that I know of, so I fear being put into a flight crew instead of on the ground because of necessity.

[cap235629]

That would be nice to have aircrew have GT training, at least the observers. That would come in very handy, however I can understand some pilots and observers not wanting to cross train. Some times cross training can mud up your primary training with similar terms and such what not getting crossed. I do GT but would love to have observer training so that I can have a better understanding as to what the aircrew is talking about and what they are seeing. The only problem with that is there aren't very many observers around here that I know of, so I fear being put into a flight crew instead of on the ground because of necessity.

I wouldn't let that stop you because the odds of a non-pilot observer actually flying are slim and you will probably be bumped by a bubblehead and wind up on the ground anyway.....

[NIN]

That would be nice to have aircrew have GT training, at least the observers. That would come in very handy, however I can understand some pilots and observers not wanting to cross train. Some times cross training can mud up your primary training with similar terms and such what not getting crossed. I do GT but would love to have observer training so that I can have a better understanding as to what the aircrew is talking about and what they are seeing. The only problem with that is there aren't very many observers around here that I know of, so I fear being put into a flight crew instead of on the ground because of necessity.

So, let me get this straight: you'd like to have the training to help you out on the ground (which, BTW, is a good call) but if you're a qualified aircrew member, you don't want to actually use the skill if the mission is short bodies?

I was a flight engineer in the Army.  Which meant not only was I an aircrew member, but I was an aircraft mechanic (an FE is sort of a super crewchief).  Did that mean that if the maintenance guys needed a hand with something in the hangar I turned my nose up and said "I don't swing a wrench"?   No.  If we were in the field and I wasn't on the flight schedule, did that mean I couldn't pull guard duty?  No.

If you're trained, you should exercise that training in all your specialties.  Maybe you show up to a training mission base and they need a Ground Branch Director, and you're qualified to fill that position in a training capacity. All your field gear is packed, you were expecting to go out on ground team, but there is a GTM who is training for GTL who can do that.  Do you look the IC in the eye and say "Yeah, no, I'm a field guy..." 

It behooves you and "the mission" (the overall mission, not that specific mission) to use your training in whatever capacity you can .   I preferred to fly, but I was a pretty darn good GTL, so I did that mostly (in a wing with next to no ground team mission need... Talk about boring!).  If someone said "Hey, you wanna fly today?" I didn't turn it down, mostly because our wing was very air-ops centric, ES-wise, and if my team had someone to lead them, then sure, I'll fly.  (didn't hurt that I lived about 600m from Wing HQ, so I could run home and get my flying pajamas pretty quickly..)






.  Having been both a GTL and an Observer, I can't begin to tell you what a pain it is to have a GTL who had no clue what goes on in the plane working with you on the radio.  And the converse is true: pilots & observers who have not spent any time with a GT tend to, in my experience, be a little impatient with the speed of a GT on the ground.)

[EMT-83]

+ ∞

I started out on aircrew, and worked up to Mission Observer. The opportunity came along to take Ground Team training, and I jumped on it. I'm now just shy of GTL, and should have that right after the first of the year.

I can easily say that being an MO makes me better at GT, and GT makes me a better MO. I'd rather fly, but would never say no to being on the ground if that's where I'm needed.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I don't by any means mean to imply that I am above working aircrew or anything of the sort. I just know that I will probably not ever get to work on the ground. There are just no observers around here and I love to work on the ground its when I can think the clearest about the mission at hand.

[Spaceman3750]

I've been considering getting MS/MO qualified, but my thinking right now is, as a GTL(T) I need to work on honing those skills first for a couple of years and then expand out later...

[tsrup]

I've been considering getting MS/MO qualified, but my thinking right now is, as a GTL(T) I need to work on honing those skills first for a couple of years and then expand out later...

Your best bet then, is to just talk to some aircrew.  It's nice to have insight into what it is they do, or what it is they expect. 

At the very least both parties will gain a basic understanding of each other's limitations.

[ZigZag911]

That would be nice to have aircrew have GT training, at least the observers. That would come in very handy, however I can understand some pilots and observers not wanting to cross train.

I've seen this addressed by offering 'cross-specialty familiarization' training. You're not trying to actually qualify in the other field, but simply get a good grasp of what they're doing, why, and what their limitations can be.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I've seen this addressed by offering 'cross-specialty familiarization' training. You're not trying to actually qualify in the other field, but simply get a good grasp of what they're doing, why, and what their limitations can be.

That would be nice I haven't seen that around here yet, but I will bring it up. I think having my GT somewhat versed in what the pilot can see and can't see and what it takes for the aircrew to be able to see us and to understand what were seeing and what we need to see.

[Al Sayre]

In our wing the policy is that you must complete UDF before you complete any aircrew qual's.  The reason is two-fold. 

First is so you can land and do a ramp search & secure an ELT if needed. 

The second came from a realization we had during/after an actual search mission for a missing aircraft back in Jan'09. 

The aircraft (a crop duster) disappeared at the beginning of about 5 days of pretty nasty weather.  Low ceilings, fog and thunderstorms pretty much prevented us from launching search aircraft (we got about 2 sorties out IIRC).  Had about 40-50 pilots, observers and scanners calling in from their home bases telling us they were sitting there ready to go, waiting for the weather to clear.  In the meantime, we managed to field about 3 GT's with Cadets making up the majority of the members.  They did what they could, including ramp checks at around 20 small unattended airfields and duster strips. 

Meantime at mission base we are fielding dozens of phone calls from potential witnesses that need to be checked etc., and just didn't have the teams/people to do it.  We realized that if those 40-odd people were UDF qualified then we could send them out in 2 man teams in COV's and POV's to run the roads, conduct ramp checks, and do interviews. 

The aircraft was finally located by one of the witnesses who had called in on day 1 of the search.  We had sent one of the teams to his location, but by the time they arrived to interview him, he had left. We couldn't re-establish contact for 2 days.

Unfortunately, the pilot was lost in the crash, and the timing wouldn't have made any difference, but it did drive home the fact that aircrew that are only aircrew qualified are useless if the weather prohibits an air search. 

By getting them all at least UDF qualified, they can be a big asset to the search when you can't fly.  If we had been able to use those aircrew as 20 or so 2-man UDF teams out on the road, doing the ramp checks, talking to witnesses and just talking to people in the area, there is a good chance that we would have found the aircraft the first day.

How's that for a good reason to get ground qualified?

[jpizzo127]

You do not need a study to find out some teenagers are easily distracted.

Here's a news flash:

Some cadets stink and should not be on any ES mission and some are better than any senior I've ever worked with.

The best GT man I ever knew was a cadet who is now a senior and the assistant group ES officer.

Though you may generalize, and say teenagers in general, are less effective, if you select the right one's and train them properly, and supervise them properly, they are as good or better than a senior.

As long as the person can physically do the job, it all comes down to choosing the right person and training regardless of age.

[JeffDG]

In our wing the policy is that you must complete UDF before you complete any aircrew qual's.  The reason is two-fold. 

There is one qual...PSC, that requires you to cross train.  If you go to PSC as a GBD, you need to have had MS (need not be current, but must have been qualified at one time).  If you go from AOBD, you need UDF or GTL (same caveat about currency).  I think it's an excellent requirement, and maybe should actually bump down a level to the GBD/AOBD level...these two need to talk to each other and coordinate activities, maybe having them have some exposure to the other side would be a good thing.

[RiverAux]

Here is the abstract of the actual research article:

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although lost-person search managers try to direct search efforts quantitatively, it has historically been difficult to quantify the efficacy of search efforts accurately. The effective-sweep-width (ESW) methodology represents an avenue for accomplishing this goal but has not yet been widely disseminated among practitioners.

METHODS: We obtained ESW values in the summer and winter in a typical disturbed-forest environment in southwest Pennsylvania. We used nonparametric statistics to compare individual ESW values for two types of search objects detected by 18 summer and 20 winter searchers, cumulating the P values for similar comparisons and correcting for false discovery via a stepped method.

RESULTS: We detected robust differences (all at P <.001) associated with search object color, season, and vegetation thickness. In contrast with earlier studies, we found a significant correlation between individual searchers' ESWs for different search objects and different types of vegetation (P <.001). We also found that adolescent searchers had significantly lower ESW values than adults (P = .002). Apparently significant positive correlations between time spent on the course or field search experience and ESW disappeared when teens were excluded from the comparisons.

CONCLUSIONS: These results (the first comparison of seasonal ESW effects in identical terrain) represent the first statistical demonstration that the ESW methodology provides more than enough resolution to answer fundamental questions about the efficacy of visual search for lost persons by human searchers. They also add support to the imperative of operationally disseminating these methods among search-and-rescue practitioners, and offer some initial operational lessons for search managers.

From Wilderness and Environmental Medicine Sept. 2010 Volume 21 pages 188-201