Where were you at 0330 this morning?

[Hill CAP]

Well if you happen to be Lt Tomasone and myself you where headed for a ELT Mission in Florida.

Get to where the AC thinks the strongest point is and we have No swoop sound come to find out that the AC says this is the strongest spot and that they are both Mission Pilots.

We track to strongest point to find a dual pole High Voltage Power line amazingly our signal gets really strong so the AC decides to RTB.

After driving around Bushnell FL for about 2 hours we decide to try the other possible hit with no luck and we come home.

Moral of this story NEVER TRUST A MISSION PILOT

[Larry Mangum]

ELT signals can travel a long way along power lines.  One question I would have posed to the pilots is "Are you hearing tone or are you tracking a carrier?".  Unless you know the answer to that, they could very well have been correct as it might have been a carrier they were tracking.

[tarheel gumby]

Must be the two that left me and a ground team in the middle of Central Fla in an orange grove saying that we were on top of the ELT. this was way way back in 1987 though.

[es_g0d]

Moral of this story NEVER TRUST A MISSION PILOT

This kind of attitude has no place in my Civil Air Patrol.  I'll give the benefit of the doubt and hope that it was said tongue-in-cheek.  I've certainly made glib comments like that myself from time to time.

I thoroughly read your post, and I understand your sentiment.  I've been in situations both in the air AND on the ground where the other segment of the SAR team saved the day: it might have been one DF direction, or simply a clue that could not be observed from the other vantage.

Sometimes technical issues lead one to believe that an ELT is somewhere that it is not.  If an individual has a perfect track record, I'd sure like to hear about it.  Additionally, an aircraft should remain on station -- OPERATIONAL ISSUES ALLOWING -- until positive identification of the objective is obtained.

The fact of the matter is that we do the best job with our mission by working the ground and air segments together and in concert.  Its terribly unfortunate that we don't practice air-to-ground coordination often enough--my eternal soapbox!  Perhaps a bit more practice could have alleviated the unfortunate situation as described.  Of course there is room for error on anyone's part, and because of that I'm very prone to President Reagan's famous statement, "Trust, but verify."  This rings true particularly in disciplines where all the facts aren't crystal clear.

Often times issues such as this can be resolved through a good post-sortie debriefing.  The perfect sortie has yet to be conducted, so there's always something you can do better.  Be candid, talk about this amongst your team and with other teams.  Be diplomatic, but insistent.  Making blanket statements about a discipline to which -- presumably -- you do not belong is not considered constructive criticism.

[RedFox24]

About two days after 9-11 we were called out for an ELT mission at about 2300hrs.  The SARSAT hit was in a "small" (like 12-15 houses) burb or one of our larger towns here in southern Illinois.  It also happend to be almost right on top of the VFW.  We got there and looked and listend with the ELT locator's and yes we had a faint signal, but nothing. 

Next SARSAT hit was about five miles west, next to the hotels on the interstate.  Same thing, got there, faint signal, noting to be seen.  its about 0300, call it a night come back in the morning.

Remember, this is after 9-11, no flying, no aircraft help, everyone suspicious of everything.  IC, AFRCC and FAA calling every hour or so wanting to know what we got.  Annoying as H#$L trying to search with IC and everyone else calling every hour wanting to know why we haven't found it.  Wanting to know if we see anyting suspicious or terrorist in nature etc. 

0600 were back on the search and a new SARSAT hit, south five miles.  Again search, stronger signal, but still nothing.  At this point we notice that all three sites have something in common.  All three sites have a Power Substation.  Each one is a littel bigger than the last one. 

We triangulate our readings from the new site just as new SARSAT hit comes and our triangulation is close to their coordinates.  Drive up and guess what: Great BIG Power Substation..............

About two hours later we find the ELT.  About 1/4 mile from the last SARSAT and the big sub station.  A guy had a kit plane he was refinishing in his shed, laid the ELT on the shelf above the bench, it fell over and laid up against the electric breaker box.  The guy about soiled his pants when he opened the door and there stood 4 cammo men with an Elper screaming out at him.  He thought he would be arrested.

In the middle of all of this, the IC calling every hour, AFRCC calling, FAA calling etc. were tired, and wet from it raining all morning our Wing CV calls and warns us not to deal with anyone who is suspicious looking and to report anything out of the ordinary. 

It was at that point I turned in my 101 card to my Group Commander.  I didn't participate in ES for about 4 years.  That mission really soured me in a lot of ways.  When I did get back in ES, it is not as at GTL or GT what ever. 

All of that to say these two things: 1) Power lines and substations can really screw up your electronic search.  So can rail road tracks.  For fox hunting in ham radio it is always fun to set up on a substation or on a cross tracks of the rail road.  I do the same now when I am the target of a practice search.  2)  Let people do their job.  We knew it was serious without everyone calling all the time.  We didn't have help from the air, and we would have gladly took it.  Work together.  We did the best we could with what we had.  And everyone calling every hour didn't help any.  You cant arm chair quarterback from half a state or nation away and know what or why things are happening.  Same goes for what happens between the ground and the aircraft.  Work together.

My .02