Oregon mission

[RiverAux]

From CAP-PAO list:

News Release from: Civil Air Patrol
GENERAL AVIATION COMMUNITY ASSISTS CAP IN SEARCH EFFORTS
Posted: July 11th, 2007 2:14 PM

Despite a record temperatures at the Aurora Airport, the Oregon CAP continues their search efforts and Local aviation service facilities are stepping up to bat to make sure that Oregon CAP search aircraft are able to continue these search efforts for a Piper Cup aircraft reported missing last Saturday.

Three of six Oregon Wing aircraft involved in the search efforts have been grounded for mandatory FAA required inspections and one is grounded for a maintenance issue which has left the Wing with limited recourses for Wednesday's search." Our maintenance officer has pre arranged with local facilities to give priority service to our aircraft that we knew would be coming due for these FAA mandatory Inspections" said Capt. Robert Asher, CAP incident commander for the search.." Franks Flight Service in Bandon has just received one our our aircraft and they assure us that it will be ready in the morning. Aero Maintenance at Pearson field suspended an upgrade on one of our aircraft so it is back in service today while they perform the inspection on another or our aircraft. The third aircraft is at Advanced Aircraft specialties at Troutdale and should be ready for operations in the morning. .We would like to express our appreciation to all of these facilities who are working overtim
e to support our search efforts" said Asher " This is an excellent example of how the general aviation community is pulling together to support this search effort" he said.

In addition, "Three Washington Wing CAP aircraft that had been assisting earlier have had to return to their home bases in Washington, but will be coming back to participate in an all out search effort as early as Thursday" remarked Asher. "We will also be canceling a scheduled training exercise this weekend so that all efforts can be focused on the search

The missing Piper Cub aircraft, piloted by a 68 year old retired airline pilot from SE Portland, was conducting practice flights out of the Aurora Airport last Saturday when it failed to return. Concerned family members contacted authorities at that time and the Oregon CAP, under the direction of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall AFB, FL and Oregon Emergency Management began an intense search operation on Sunday July 8th. During the week, additional planes from the Washington Wing of the CAP brought the total number of aircraft involved in the search effort to nine with 65 personnel involved as aircrew, ground support, mission support and ground search and rescue teams.

Okay, I can't help but be more than a little critical here.  They knew, presumably since the search started, that half their fleet was going to be grounded soon for inspection.  They quite properly requested assistance from a neighboring Wing, but obviously didn't really think the whole process through. 

I would have immediately requested 3-day deployments of 1 aircraft from CA Wing and 1 from ID Wing as well as the 3 aircraft from WA Wing.  Then, when the ID and CA aircraft arrive, take 2 of the OR Wing aircraft in for inspection and when they're ready, send the ID and CA crews home and request replacement crews from those states for another 3 days to allow for the other OR aircraft  to get inspected and do the upgrade on the other one.  And, if you knew the 3 WA Wing crews were going home, why didn't they request more replacements from ID or CA? 

I do agree with parts of MG Pineda's "one CAP" philisophy, and in particular that we need to be a lot more active in requesting CAP resources from outside our own Wings during major missions.  Yes, it will be a little bit of a hassle dealing with crews coming in needing overnight accomodations, but it needs to be done, especially in an incredibly foreseable situation like this.   

[SeattleSarge]

Today's update on the Aurora search...

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july132007/missing_pilot_071307.php

-SeattleSarge

[SeattleSarge]

Just an update.  This mission was closed on July 17th.

Link for more information:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/07/civil_air_patrol_suspends_sear.html

-Seattle Sarge

[SARPilotNY]

Same old problem, no depth.  See what has been happening in CAWG?  They turn down missions due to a lack of resources.  Now NHQ wants to take on more missions.  One of the effects by eliminating the use of member owned aircraft is nobody wants to fly anymore.  We had better turnouts years ago and that was w/o maintenance money.  Where were all the member owned a/c?