What are the advantages of taking this course.
I would have to take 4 days off of work and I'm wondering if it's worth the time and effort.
What are it's application to CAP OPS?
Have you done the BISC? It's basically 4 days of that, with more detail and lots more reps.
It puts you in the science of SAR. It's invaluable if you are are working towards positions of Branch Director of higher - in those
cases it will be directly applicable and worth your time.
If you aren't in those roles and don't foresee pursuing them, the curriculum is less directly applicable but sill an
interesting exercise.
Also there's a patch.
Read the case study and you can answer your own question.
One of the absolute best classes I've done as part of CAP.
Quote from: Eclipse on September 15, 2016, 06:58:43 PM
Have you done the BISC? It's basically 4 days of that, with more detail and lots more reps.
It puts you in the science of SAR. It's invaluable if you are are working towards positions of Branch Director of higher - in those
cases it will be directly applicable and worth your time.
If you aren't in those roles and don't foresee pursuing them, the curriculum is less directly applicable but sill an
interesting exercise.
Also there's a patch.
I know what you mean, but these classes prepare you to work in or lead the planning section. While there are useful things in BISC for branch directors to be aware of, it's aimed squarely at search planning. The problem is that CAP does search planning wrong, which is why we think that planning classes prepare you to be a branch director.
Quote from: Spaceman3750 on September 15, 2016, 09:38:22 PM
I know what you mean, but these classes prepare you to work in or lead the planning section. While there are useful things in BISC for branch directors to be aware of, it's aimed squarely at search planning.
I agree - my point was that someone who is happy as a GT3, or Mission Scanner with no aspirations beyond, may not see much value, especially to
the week-long version.
The BISC is a day of info about AFRCC and SAR and a day of practical tabletops, and it's usually done on a weekend, I'd recommend that for anyone
in ES, the Inland SAR class probably not.
With that said, a lot of smaller real-worlds don't have a PSC, and the IC will be working in concert with BDs or even just field people so knowledge of
planning and the science wouldn't hurt.
One of the fantastic benefits of the Inland SAR course is the opportunity to interact with local EMA search planners, and you get to demonstrate to them CAP's capabilities. One day of the 2 day tabletop is Air search, and the class I was in, the CAP folks took the lead that day and demonstrated that we are a highly capable and professional force that can be of great benefit to the local EMAs. The other day of tabletop you get to watch folks who do ground search planning do their thing.