Lights and Sirens

[SARPilotNY]

I see where Oregon Wing has been experimenting with load speakers and sirens in their aircraft.  We have had lights and sirens on our ground team vehicles too.
This is not new for law enforcement aircraft either, simply it works.  We need FLIRS, night vision and sirens in all of our aircraft and vehicles.  Why won't the AF let us screen some used equipment for our aircraft and ground teams?  Letting our members drive with lights and sirens would get them faster and safer to the crash sites and airports to turn the ELTs off.  An aircraft could fly over an airport and remote hangers and make announcements for everyone to check their ELTs.  They would never even need to land!  We could recruit members from security guard companies that already have emergency light to join CAP and teach them how to DF.  I think this would help increase our membership too as well has making CAP look more professional. 

[IceNine]

Since you mentioned them, interesting tidbit on the NVG's

When I took the Inland SAR Planner Course the instructor, an AF Helo Pilot,  found out that our pilots are not allowed NVG's and started flaming a little about it.  His exact words were " there's no way in Hell I'd fly at night without NVG's, why do they expect you guys to?" 

[SARPilotNY]

I agree, if it makes our mission safer and more successful we should use them.  All we need is the equipment and training.  I could only imagine what a crashed airplane in a field would look like with a full moon.

[DKruse]

Since you mentioned them, interesting tidbit on the NVG's

When I took the Inland SAR Planner Course the instructor, an AF Helo Pilot,  found out that our pilots are not allowed NVG's and started flaming a little about it.  His exact words were " there's no way in Hell I'd fly at night without NVG's, why do they expect you guys to?" 

Because we're not supposed to fly lower than 2000' AGL at night.  If I was a helo pilot doing low-level flight at night, then I'd feel different.

[Pylon]

The lights and sirens bit as it relates to CAP use has already been discussed a bit in this thread.

A quick summary of my take on the cons against lights and sirens for CAP vehicles:

• Adds a lot of liability to CAP, Inc. and will increase CAP's vehicle insurance rates substantially
• CAP van drivers do not have emergency vehicle driving education necessary to understand how to properly operate such a vehicle
• CAP Regulations (specifically CAPR 77-1) prohibits CAP vehicles from having and using sirens of any form and also prohibits lights of any color other than clear and/or amber.  Even then, if your state doesn't allow you to have clear or amber lights, CAP says you better not even do that.
• Laws vary from state and state and may not even allow agencies like CAP to operate as emergency responders to begin with
• But the most effective argument, I think, is that it's not needed.  CAP Ground Teams are not first responders.  We do not provide Emergency Medical care, we do not provide protection, law enforcement, or other first responder services.  ELTs are not so urgent to shut off that we should risk the lives of our members and members of the public to get there a few minutes sooner.  In addition, CAP is not set up for rapid response anyways; it generally takes us an hour or two to mobilize an aircrew or ground team.

In my opinion, it's just not a wise idea.  I think amber lightbars and maybe directional arrow sticks in the rear are nice additions to CAP vans for visiblity purposes when stationary.  When parked along side a road, around a blind curve or over a blind hill, or in an otherwise potentially dangerous spot, it's nice to have that added visibility.  

In addition, a PA horn (not a siren) could be a useful addition to CAP vans for some situations.  Examples may be CAP volunteering for crowd control at large events, or trying to attract the attention of a lost hiker in the woods, etc.  That would have useful applications.

I just don't see any benefit to CAP that outweights the list of detractions to warrant any type of warning device while en route, regardless of the mission type.  If it's that urgent of a call, be assured legitimate first responders will also be answering the call.

[SARPilotNY]

I thought  we were first responders!  We should have teams on the road within 30 minutes of activation by AFRCC.  To wait 2 hours should be unacceptable!  And ALL ELTs at an airport should be considered an emergency until it is located and deemed otherwise.  As far as the regs., change them.

[floridacyclist]

And someone accused those involved in the Ranger program of being fanatical? LOL

[SARPilotNY]

I  was almost a Ranger long ago, great p and training!  We need all our ground teams like them.

[arajca]

We need all our ground teams like them.

No, we don't. There is reason many wings dropped ranger programs. The problem was the egos of the Rangers. Big head, low tolerance for working with anyone besides rangers. Royal pains in the backside.

[Pylon]

We need all our ground teams like them.

No, we don't. There is reason many wings dropped ranger programs. The problem was the egos of the Rangers. Big head, low tolerance for working with anyone besides rangers. Royal pains in the backside.

Just a friendly note: Already threads discussing this potential tangent, including this 6-page gem.

[arajca]

I thought  we were first responders!  We should have teams on the road within 30 minutes of activation by AFRCC.  To wait 2 hours should be unacceptable!  And ALL ELTs at an airport should be considered an emergency until it is located and deemed otherwise.  As far as the regs., change them.

Within 30 minutes, you're lucky if an IC has been found.

Use some common sense. If an ELT is going off at an airport, why not have the local sheriff or pd swing by. If they don't see anything amiss, it's not an emergency. If they do, they're more than capable of calling in help. As has been mentioned several times in various discussions here, CAP is not a first response agency. It is a second or third tier response agency. There is no point to running lights and sirens for CAP. Aside from that, there are far too many folks don't understand that running lights and sirens does not mean you are immune from any problems that result from violating the speed limits and busting stop signs/lights.

[floridacyclist]

We need all our ground teams like them.

No, we don't. There is reason many wings dropped ranger programs. The problem was the egos of the Rangers. Big head, low tolerance for working with anyone besides rangers. Royal pains in the backside.

No, we do not need all ground teams like the Rangers; not everyone enjoys training this way. There is plenty enough room in the sandbox for everyone however as long as some will stop their whining.

A couple of things to understand are:

A)We don't train on the concept of "Ranger Teams". Every class that we've taught has had a session on teaching and evaluation techniques. This is based on the premise that they might likely have more training than some others when they return to their squadrons and they are expected to share the love so to speak. I am a huge believer in the ripple effect; that by training a handful (the ones that are willing to show up) to within an inch of their lives then sending them home to train others, we can have a much greater effect than simply putting on training for our local groups.

B) Big heads and egos are counter-productive to getting folks to listen to you and your training. We don't want folks going home with a know-it-all attitude as that simply gets in the way of what we're trying to accomplish.

If you really want to know how I feel (or even care), read the email I sent a while back and linked to below; it is a reply to something someone else had written so some of it may seem out of context, but you'll get the important parts. It explains a lot why it hurts me to hear some folks talk about our Ranger program the way they do.

http://www.tallahasseecap.org/htm/email.htm

[ZigZag911]

As a practical matter, CAP generally can not function as a first responder....our members, ground teams, aircrews have jobs, school families and are not necessarily located near enough one another to assemble that quickly.

In DR situations we are viewed as 'follow on' forces, coming into service as the scope or length of the incident expands or extends.

Legally I doubt we'd be considered first responders even in SAR situations, since that responsibility devolves on the individual states -- mot of which assign it further to state police and/or county sheriffs.

[isuhawkeye]

^^^ over 80% of emergency services across the country (depending on whose statistic you read) is volunteer with members coming form home to support the community.

[SARPilotNY]

I know of a mission where the plane crashed just off the runway.  The pilot and passenger survived but the pilot later died while waiting for help.  CAP did not respond until morning because the ELT plotted near the airport and the FBO confirmed he could hear it...so they waited.  By the time CAP was on the road way after first light another pilot heard the ELT and spotted the crash.  The pilot has passed away just a few hours earlier.  It think CAP needs to consider themselves as first responders like volunteer firefighters or EMS or should get out of the SAR business.  How would you feel about CAP if you were that passenger or pilot's family?  We all want to be like the AF, treated like the AF and be considered "professionals", maybe we need to step it up a notch or two.  There is no reason it should take more than 30 minutes to find an IC after the AFRCC alerts the wing and 30 minutes to get a UDF team on the road.

[JohnKachenmeister]

CAP is NOT the volunteer fire department.

We do not usually even get called by AFRCC until about 6 hours after the first ELT signal is received.  (They get at least 2 sattelite passes to confirm the coordinates of the signal)

But, on the subject of emergency CAP vehicle driving, who remembers "Big Red" from one of the other CAP sites?

[SARPilotNY]

Don't know what big red is...or was.  As far as missions as in fires, fires start small at first and grow.  When they get big enough, people call the fire department, the siren goes off and the volunteers drop what they are doing and respond...24/7 in minutes.  ELTs start the same way, when the AFRCC gets "noticed", they sound the "siren" (CAP) and we do what?
Sounds like most of the wings wait several hours  before they can find an IC and than several hours more before they get resources to respond.  Now it is 12 hours plus before the average wing responds.  Ever heard of the "golden 24 hours for survival" for aircraft victims?  We want to be called the USAF Aux and look like the USAF, why can't we act like professionals?  Does it concern anyone that flies that it will take at least 12 hours before searcher begin to look for use and another 12 plus hours to find us?  I say carry a 406 beacon, a sat phone and a life insurance policy if you expect us to find us...and survive!

[SARPilotNY]

^^^ over 80% of emergency services across the country (depending on whose statistic you read) is volunteer with members coming form home to support the community.

Absolutely correct, nearly 80% of the US is protected by volunteer fire and EMS first responders.  If CAP were the fire departments or medics, either 80% of our towns would have burned down or died of heart attacks.  Saying CAP are just volunteers as an excuse to not respond quickly or professionally is just wrong.
Why do we use volunteer status as an excuse?  Some of our volunteer fire and EMS agencies respond (per station/unit) to six or seven responses a day week in and week out.  Some volunteer firefighters go on strike forces for weeks at a time without pay or job protection.  Why are we so different when we only have 40 or 50 missions a year wing wide?

[O-Rex]

I had a buddy who went to Hawaii Wing, said CAP acft were fitted with loudspeakers to fly "tsunami warning" flights.

[SARPilotNY]

Same as Oregon Wing.  The have an aircraft outfitted with special speakers that can be heard 2 miles away  (good luck).  Our state trooper helicopters just use siren speakers and can be heard clearly to one way communicate with stranded motorist.  They think that works well, hell for ground teams, who needs signal panels anymore?