5 missions in 3 days

[JohnKachenmeister]

Florida Wing, Group 4.  Major Scott Martin, IC:

1.  Unfunded training mission at Merritt Island Airport supporting Young Eagles, and using the mission as a training vehicle for FLM's and FLS's.  Saturday.

2.  USAF Funded training mission, SAR operations out of Fort Pierce Airport, training MP's MO's and MS's.  Sunday.

3.  USAF Actual mission, ELT search at Sanford.  Training mission suspended, 1 aircrew launched on actual, ground team dispatched from Orlando.  Training mission resumed when it was apparent a second aircrew would not be needed.  2 missions run concurrent.  Sunday.  Non-distress find.

4.  Actual mission, Corporate, for FL Dept of Forestry.  Brush fire air patrols.  Monday.

5.  USAF funded actual mission, ELT search near Longwood.  1 aircrew from Okeechobee had to turn back due to weather, a second aircrew was dispatched out of Ormond Beach.  1 UDF team dispatched out of Melbourne area.  Monday.  Non-distress find.

The following is a message from the Florida Department of Blowing Your Own Horn:

Not very many CAP Groups have a staff that can support this tempo of operations.  We are even keeping up on the paperwork.

We rock.

[Tubacap]

^Nice job!  Keep up the good work.

What do you guys have lined up for tomorrow?

[JohnKachenmeister]

Tonight, you mean.  We just got hit with another ELT mission down south.  The crews should be taking off right about now.

[♠SARKID♠]

Dear lord man, thats more missions than I've been on in four years!  Send some this way!

[DNall]

Little hectic huh? It's not that uncommon really. Especially if you want to count those training missions, which is a little weak. Congrats on keeping up though.

[BigMojo]

Tonight, you mean.  We just got hit with another ELT mission down south.  The crews should be taking off right about now.

It's been slow down here in the new Group 6, we haven't had a ELT mission in like 3-4 weeks....odd.

[Duke Dillio]

I got a call last night for a UDF mission.  Arrived at the squadron HQ, turned on the radio, contacted the IC, and then sat around for two hours.  After negative hits from SARSAT on a second pass, the mission was called.  A great way to start the week I tell you.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Little hectic huh? It's not that uncommon really. Especially if you want to count those training missions, which is a little weak. Congrats on keeping up though.

I don't know what's "Weak" about it.  We need ES qualified folks, folks can only be fully trained by training missions, training missions are a part of the overall picture.

The easy thing would have been to cancel the training mission in favor of the actual, but then we would not have been able to train a new MP and one new Scanner.

Since we have a good staff, we used it to maintain two missions concurrently.  Then went back out on two more missions the next day.  And one more the night after that.

The Group CC has been working for almost two years on improving the Group ES posture.  This weekend was the payoff for all the work.  We were able to sustain a pretty intensive tempo of operations with available resources. 

I think that we are in pretty good shape right now heading into hurricane season.

But I'm a little concerned about the fact that I am happy that the payoff for a lot of work is... more work!   

[DNall]

There's nothing wrong with training. This wasn't 5 missions in 3 days though. It was two non-distress ELTs. That's not unusual. I've done that probably 50 times. That it occurred over the top of training is also not really out of the norm. In fact it seems like we're always re-testing out of training missions.

An ELT is very routine. There's no way that should stand down a SaREx. You just task the aircrew & GT as necessary, just like it were part of the SaREx, but under the other mission number. What's hard about that? It's the same amount of work you would be doing anyway. It's just better AFRCC support for staff training, and you don't have to set out a practice beacon. I can run 6-10 ELTs during a SaREx & the only effect would be a lack of variety in the sorties I'm putting out.

FLS/FLM... I understand why that got a mission number just for liability, but that really doesn't count in this mix.

I'm not trying to down the great work. I'm saying good job, it feels good to get a burst of work like that, but it wasn't really that hard to adjust fire now was it? That's what you're expected to do, and it really isn't that uncommon around here. We've run an ELT & state firewatch during a Redcap. We've done GT advanced training while a major HLS thing was going, and firewatch, and retasked on 3 ELTs - that was 12 days ago. I understand you're talking about the same staff. That's been done, but we actually work hard to ensure they rotate very regularly. Luckily we have enough qualified first team people to make that happen.

[Major Carrales]

Little hectic huh? It's not that uncommon really. Especially if you want to count those training missions, which is a little weak. Congrats on keeping up though.

Dennis, you know I'm on your side, but why do you always display this tendeny to belittle CAP?

[DNall]

It's not belittling, just feet on ground. I'm saying great work to these folks. At the same time we do that kind of thing on a fairly regular basis.

I read that headline & thought, "Wow, I've never done five back to back ELTs in three days with one GT or aircrew." Or maybe they had a redcap after a storm with several ELTs or something. I was all built up for a great story. What I got was, "We ran a couple minor training events while routine firewatch was going on & popped a couple ELTs, had to retask & knock it out. Busy wknd." So okay, yeah busy wknd & good work.

That kind of thing happens around here. The tempo might get the blood pressure up a bit, but our folks deal with it like it's routine, and it happens often enough that it almost is. It's just good professional folks getting the job done & moving on w/ no expectation of anything special.

I guess I probably said it really badly, but I was trying to say something more like welcome to the club.

[cap801]

In New Mexico Wing we have like one exercise every two months.  I'm pretty sure we've lost most credibility with all other agencies around here.  Oh well...

[DNall]

lost credibility cause you exercise too much or not enough? We run something pretty much every month. At least one big thing a quarter. Most agencies do one major exercise a year, the rest is just routine training amongst doing their job. It shouldn't be a credibility issue in any way.

[cap801]

We exercise so little that no one knows what they're doing.  I'll give you an example.  A few months ago, a three year old girl went missing about 50 miles west of where I live.  After the subsequent search they found her dead in the desert.  The only state SAR asset that we own is the Highway Department helicopter and I don't think it was involved with the search.  But CAP never got called for that one.  And it's not because they don't know who we are.  I'm not saying that with CAP in the air that we could have saved her...but I think the chances would have improved.

[Major Carrales]

We exercise so little that no one knows what they're doing.  I'll give you an example.  A few months ago, a three year old girl went missing about 50 miles west of where I live.  After the subsequent search they found her dead in the desert.  The only state SAR asset that we own is the Highway Department helicopter and I don't think it was involved with the search.  But CAP never got called for that one.  And it's not because they don't know who we are.  I'm not saying that with CAP in the air that we could have saved her...but I think the chances would have improved.

That is when you need to "execrise" at the Unit level.  Train your people with "informal" exercises.  Practice COMMS, practice with mutual aid agencies (with in regs of course).

If you don't make a name for yourself (Unit wise) and set up lines of communications with local authorities.  Or, even worse, if the people in your Unit downplay the importance of CAP, there will alway exist that "we never live up to our potential" syndrome.

You have to believe in CAP...cherish your organization and have FAITH in CAP. If not it withers on the vine.

[Major Carrales]

It's not belittling, just feet on ground.

It you don't have a zeal for CAP and celebrate even the small "victories," then our feet will always be on the ground. 

[cap801]

We exercise so little that no one knows what they're doing.  I'll give you an example.  A few months ago, a three year old girl went missing about 50 miles west of where I live.  After the subsequent search they found her dead in the desert.  The only state SAR asset that we own is the Highway Department helicopter and I don't think it was involved with the search.  But CAP never got called for that one.  And it's not because they don't know who we are.  I'm not saying that with CAP in the air that we could have saved her...but I think the chances would have improved.

That is when you need to "execrise" at the Unit level.  Train your people with "informal" exercises.  Practice COMMS, practice with mutual aid agencies (with in regs of course).

If you don't make a name for yourself (Unit wise) and set up lines of communications with local authorities.  Or, even worse, if the people in your Unit downplay the importance of CAP, there will alway exist that "we never live up to our potential" syndrome.

You have to believe in CAP...cherish your organization and have FAITH in CAP. If not it withers on the vine.

We occasionally try to do our own exercises in my squadron, but we could definitely do some more.  However, for the rest of the advice, I'd have to say we have an incredibly different environment.  In Corpus, you probably have applications for CAP and agencies with the resources to work with you in the immediate vicinity.  New Mexico is a bit...sparsely populated.  The only actual ES situation that's EVER come up in the history of our CAP squadron in my town was an EF2 tornado that went right through the middle of our town a year ago last March.  We did fly our town's emergency services director the morning after, but that was just about it.  Everything else that comes up in New Mexico is in the middle of nowhere...and thus coordinated through state agencies, which honestly want nothing to do with New Mexico Wing, with good reason.