Mission Observer Advancement

[RiverAux]

Given that many Wings struggle to maintain the 200 hours per year on corporate aircraft that is our target, your squadron is WAY out of the mainstream --- Good for you!

[jayleswo]

CAWG had published an Observer Handbook and Log back in the early 1980's and I started using that to log my hours as an Observer. I also started using a spreadsheet to log all my missions. My first several sorties were recorded on the backs of the old 101 cards. Took 23 years but finally logged 200+ hours.

John Aylesworth, Lt Col
Master Observer

[O-Rex]

SDIS is not very hard or complicated and frankly is easier to use than the old Slow Scan equipment we used in the past.  All it is is taking a photo and sending an email messsage. 

I've done "double-duty" more than once: no right-seater, I'm in the back of a 182T, hitting the "transmit" button to talk to the agency we were supporting, taking the photo, getting a fix from the Avmap GPS, and trying to send the email, with all the connectivity issues that Globalstar is having of late . . . . .

Or worse, being the SDIS operator, and having to babysit a marginally-functional right-seater.

I'm not logging "scanner time" on those.

Stillamarine: your unit flies 150 hours a month?  Woo-hoo! I need to party with you guys......

[stillamarine]

Stillamarine: your unit flies 150 hours a month?  Woo-hoo! I need to party with you guys......

4 hours a day, 7 days a week just for the fire patrol right now. It'll slow down a little bit....to about 2.5 to 3 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's not including O-Rides, Low-levels, the occasional SAR, and god forbid Hurricane Season is fast upon us.

I logged 8.3 hours this weekend alone.

[wingnut]

ah Yes SDIS, reminds me of the early days of internet, remember the modem dropped calls, your neighbors dog farts and you get kicked off. . .

oh sorry back to SDIS
I have flown maybe 10 Sorties training SDIS, we found a little trick that seems to work. Try sending a quick email to your own email with no picture attached first, this seems to get the inner FM working and the message registry dumps the rest of the messages (remember send two, the first to a known email account with the picture). Another important trick is to make sure you have a known good email account to send your SDIS picture to.

Yes SDIS does work for me about 90% of the time

We have flown a lot this year, but we have access to three other aircraft besides ours. I know one pilot that has flown over 100 hours on the USAF dime

[stillamarine]

Those of you using excel to track time, any chance of sharing a template?

[BillB]

150 hours a month?? Where do you get your 100 hour inspections done so the plane is back in service so quickly?

[stillamarine]

We have 2 aircraft assigned and they go down to Daytona about 3 1/2 hours flight away. While it's there we get a loaner from Wing

[capchiro]

I'm not sure if it still the case, but back in the old days, a lot of the Florida Squadrons on the coast got to fly Sundown Patrols every day to look for small boats in distress, etc.  A tough job, but someone had to do it.  This usually put 50-75 hours a month on an aircraft and gave both the pilots and observers a lot of flying time.  I think some of the otehr states that have coast line have done the same.  Inland, there are only orientation flights, missions, and training, not too many hours for observers. 

[RiverAux]

Sundown patrols are great if you can find some local agency willing to pay for them. 

[O-Rex]

I'm not sure if it still the case, but back in the old days, a lot of the Florida Squadrons on the coast got to fly Sundown Patrols every day to look for small boats in distress, etc.  A tough job, but someone had to do it.  This usually put 50-75 hours a month on an aircraft and gave both the pilots and observers a lot of flying time.  I think some of the otehr states that have coast line have done the same.  Inland, there are only orientation flights, missions, and training, not too many hours for observers. 

Sundown patrols had their heyday, but give our current situation and missons, its an excuse to "bore holes in the sky."  There has been a movement to bring them back, again there is the issue of what we are offering opertionally, and what is the value-added to the participants (besides flight time.)

Getting Senior an Master ratings are all well and fine, but it's what you put into your flight hours more than the hours you put in

[RiverAux]

From what I recall the Marco Island (FL) Senior Squadron was claiming about 40 incidents a year with their Sundown Patrol in the mid-1990s where they found people in some sort of trouble.  I don't think thats anything to sneeze at. 

The CG Aux Air program still does quite a bit of this sort of thing and gets regular funding from the CG for such flights.   

[O-Rex]

From what I recall the Marco Island (FL) Senior Squadron was claiming about 40 incidents a year with their Sundown Patrol in the mid-1990s where they found people in some sort of trouble.  I don't think thats anything to sneeze at. 

The CG Aux Air program still does quite a bit of this sort of thing and gets regular funding from the CG for such flights.   

It was Naples & Marco Island.  The "bang for the buck" was overstated.  Units below wing level cannot enter into such agreements anyway.

There have been some attempts to restart, to no avail. 

They have secured partial funding for some SDIS equipment from their County, but in a DR capacity.

The original post talked about the "old days:" as I like to tell folks, "this is not your Father's Civil Air Patrol."

You know, I used to lambast DNall for heralding "the winds of change" with NIMS, ratcheting up operationally, etc., but there is credence in it as the buzz at NHQ about CAP needing to "ratchet things up a bit" (as an organization and individually) to support some of the things coming down the pipeline.

Sundown Patrols isn't one of them.

[RiverAux]

It was Naples & Marco Island.  The "bang for the buck" was overstated.  Units below wing level cannot enter into such agreements anyway.

Until about 5-6 years ago it was very common for CAP squadrons to have MOUs with local agencies for activities such as this.  Since the development of the NOC there isn't really a need for such local MOUs anymore. 

[ctrossen]

Those of you using excel to track time, any chance of sharing a template?

Try this.

should be mostly self-explanatory. Track ground sorties, flight time and manhours in xx.x format (2.4 hours, for example). For finds, mark "1" for each distress find and for the first find (if not distress), and .05 for each additional non-distress find (it takes 20 non-distress finds to "equal" a distress find).