Dim future for CA aircrew?`

[SARPilotNY]

The inability to compose a team is not "success".    Making up your own rules is not "success".

Yeah, yeah, I know.  "It's an emergency and lives are at stake so I must go alone!"

Interesting how the same state has members complaining about "no ground activity" because of issues with the
local agencies, then we hear that members are being sent alone to do ELT hunts.

But of course there's no correlation.

[SARPilotNY]

"the inability to compose a team is not "success"  Making up your own rules is not "success"

The CAWG policy for UDF teams is that one person can deploy in the field per vehicle, two vehicles per team and the two teams must remain within simplex radio range.  That is what these guys do and do it well and quickly.  But they would come under fire by many because most in the wing didn't understand or agree with the Commander's policy.  These guys were not making up the rules as implied, but followed them.  As to the inability to compose a team, when I would do my tour as the wing alerting officer, I would call 40 ICs in southern California and would only get the last guy I called (number 40) to take the mission.  It was "him".  Same as for finding aircrew and udf teams.  Four pages for aircrews and teams and the only response was the same one aircrew and one udf team 90% of the time.
The lack of success falls on the wing commander and most of our membership.  Seems like the ones that complain the loudest are the ones that never respond at all.

[Eclipse]

Your points are salient, but don't change things.  Also, your characterization is not the same as the original, which dilutes the original point.
Single-members working together in separate vehicles is not the same as "one guy" rolling on his own as was presented.

Regardless, if people won't answer the phone, you take them off the list.  Either way you win.

Either they step up and respond, or your list, and by association, understanding of real response capabilities, is a lot shorter.

This is literally the exact problem with CAP - instead of addressing issues head-on and holding people responsible for their behavior and
lack of performance, they make up new processes that end around or ignore the bad actors, or make everyone to to refresher training.

Field expediency is supposed to be used in emergencies and extraordinary circumstances, not as the basis for a structured program.

[Spaceman3750]

Wait, CAWG got a "Best of the Best" award for ES but doesn't play nicely with local agencies on the ground?

How is that a representation of the best of the best? There's three sides to operations and they should all be functioning well if you want to be used as an example for anything positive.

[Larry Mangum]

When and how did CAWG fet a "Best of the Best" ES Award?

[Spaceman3750]

Seems like CAWG handles more missions than any other wing, more finds which to me means these few are producing most of the Wing's results and has earned CAWG the "BEST OF THE BEST" award for their ES program.

[Larry Mangum]

Seems like CAWG handles more missions than any other wing, more finds which to me means these few are producing most of the Wing's results and has earned CAWG the "BEST OF THE BEST" award for their ES program.

Well let's see WAWG has earned two "Outstandings" for SAR Evals in the last 7 years, participated in multiple Presidential Declared Disaster Relief Missions, quite a few real SAR missions and is consistently awarded as the best CD wing in PCR.  An that is just WAWG, AKWG probably has more "Saves" then any other wing in the region or country for that matter and the other wings in the region also have good programs. Somehow I think the other big wings like FLWG and TXWG to name a few would probably take exception to that statement as well. CAWG likes to think it is the best in the country, but the facts simply just do not support it.

[SARPilotNY]

This was the award that AFRCC awards through NHQ.  And if I am right, a California aircrew earned an award for their service by the 1st Airforce at last summers National Boards.
They must be doing something right in the eyes of the Air Force. 

[Eclipse]

You might be surprised how little information the AFRCC has about our missions - they don't even know who goes.

They simply hand off the mission and rely on us to follow our internal rules and procedures.  If we find the beacon, they
have no idea who did it, just that it was turned off.

None of this justifies ignoring procedure.

[PA Guy]

Wait, CAWG got a "Best of the Best" award for ES but doesn't play nicely with local agencies on the ground?

Not playing nicely with others may be a poor characterization of the situation.  I think a more accurate description would be CAP ground ops simply aren't needed since many of the sheriff's have ground SAR resources, in terms of  personnel, equipment and training, that far exceed anything CAP has to offer.  The sheriffs are happy to leave electronic search to CAP and CAP often works closely with them in that area.   

[Flying Pig]

CAP plays very nicely with agencies in CA.  Especially in the CD arena.  But like was said above, most agencies in CA just dont need CAP very often.

[vento]

Being in CAWG, I've never heard that CAWG won anything like "The Best of the Best" award. Maybe my paygrade doesn't allow me access to privileged information, who knows... 

However, I do know that a few members were awarded for meritorious mission. Snip from a message sent to ALL CAWG

3 California members have also received the AFNORTH's Commander's Award, established by Maj. Gen. Henry Morrow, which acknowledges the Most Meritorious CAP Mission. 

Congratulations to Tom Charpentier, Ken Deeble and Bob Keilholtz for earning this award during their participation in the mission in which 3 lives were saved near Camp Pendleton.

If we are referring to this one as "Best of the Best", then it had been blown out of proportions and the subsequent sarcasm and comments are really uncalled for. I am sure we have members who had performed mission well and saved lives all across the country, it is not a CAWG only thing. If this is not the event being referred to here, then somebody please enlight me about the truth about "Best of the Best" award, without compromising OPSEC of course. 

[Flying Pig]

Actually, I was wondering that.  Ive never heard of the Best of the Best Award either.

[RiverAux]

I think a more accurate description would be CAP ground ops simply aren't needed since many of the sheriff's have ground SAR resources, in terms of  personnel, equipment and training, that far exceed anything CAP has to offer. 

I very much doubt that any sheriff's SAR team has as many personnel available for searches as they would really like to have.  I don't doubt that they have enough of the specialized teams to handle those missions, but not generic ground SAR missions.  I very much doubt that if they fully understood what capabilities CAP ground teams had that they would not accept such assistance because they had more than enough people of their own.  Keep in mind, I'm only talking about ground teams -- CA seems to be unique in the extent to which county's have access to significant rotary wing resources and which CAP's aerial assets wouldn't be much of an advantage. 

However, developing the personal relationships necessary to get CAP involved at that level are very difficult and I'm not really aware of any Wing that has devoted any significant resources towards doing so and making sure that CAP is on the callout list for such searches.

I note that some on CAPTalk deride any suggestion that CAP go looking for missions for our airplanes as either unfairly competing with private industry or are somehow degrading to CAP by not involving some sort of ES mission.  For example, the grief that some here express about CAP providing support to state agencies involving wildlife or fisheries activities.   

[SARJunkie]

Most SAR teams are part of the sheriffs Office.  In FL all SAR is the responsability of the Sheriff per State Statute.  Unless it is dispatched through AFRCC, then it goes to CAP. 

Many times the Sheriff has been actively searching, and not called out CAP based on previous negative relationships with CAP and Sheriff.

[BillB]

Last year a Florida Sheriff called on CAP for specialized SAR. The SAR needed ARCHER search. In talking to the Sheriff's Aviation Unit, they leave all ELT and most air search to CAP as they don't have ELT search equipment in their helicopters.

[SARJunkie]

I was the IC for that mission.

The only reason CAP was used is one of the deputies (Dispatchers)  was in CAP, and heard that ARCHER could find a target.  Archer never found the vehicle.  It took over 48 hours to get a 'spectral signature' sample to match to the target.

CAP still gets called on all ELT missions directly from AFRCC.  PLB's go to the sheriff. 

I was referring to missing person SAR in my last post.

[SarDragon]

3 California members have also received the AFNORTH's Commander's Award, established by Maj. Gen. Henry Morrow, which acknowledges the Most Meritorious CAP Mission. 

Congratulations to Tom Charpentier, Ken Deeble and Bob Keilholtz for earning this award during their participation in the mission in which 3 lives were saved near Camp Pendleton.

That's interesting. I was at the Boards when they got their award, and there was no mention of anything beyond a brief description of the mission and the presentation of the award.

The mission is documented in the Volunteer magazine, Aug-Oct 2009 issue, pg 11, and the award is documented in the Oct-Dec 2010 issue, Pg, 2. I know these guys, and none of them are glory hounds. They do ES, and they do it well.

[blackrain]

Saw a situation yesterday where a TDOA system may have helped.

Had a find yesterday in southern OK. Piper Saratoga went into the trees about 500 yards off the departure end. Got reports Sunday PM from airliners farther to the North about an ELT. The search started Sunday near Tulsa by other
aircrew(s) but nothing was found. We got called out Monday and started searching much further south.

Many lessons learned (or reinforced).

1) At 30,000 feet the range on an ELT is so long CAP started searching 70 miles away.

2) The only reason anyone knew about the crash was the individual that arrived to pick up the passengers saw it. Fortunately all on board survived with minor injuries and were nowhere around when we found the aircraft. Amazing since the wings were completely sheared off, though the passenger compartment was fairly well intact. The local police were notified but they didn't bother telling anyone else and obviously no one thought to turn off the ELT.

3) We (as in the aircrew) didn't find the aircraft until we landed at the small airport. We (assumed that it was one of the aircraft on the ramp as we had no reports of missing aircraft) Big lesson here....make it a habit of checking the extended runway centerline for at least couple miles in each direction as part of your search and yes, never assume 

4) Instrument rating and having more than one pilot on board helped. Ceiling was 1800. We were able to get cleared to climb IFR to VFR on top to aquire the signal and do the DF magic though the signal was still hard to get a solid direction on. When we got our strongest signal we called center to descend IFR below the clouds to finish the search. G1000 and the moving map were a big help too.

[simon]

Other than aircrew training and proficiency, SAREX's, actual SAR missions, CD and O-Rides, what are CAP planes across the country doing in the air on a regular basis?

Since the annual hours per aircraft in CA seem to be shrinking, I am interested to know what other Wings are doing with their planes.

Is anyone doing medical related work?