Mission Decline

[floridacyclist]

Yes, I saw that. When I first re-joined CAP in 2002, we were averaging about a mission a week and folks were complaining about getting burnt. Whatever trend was up in 2000 is not really relevant to what I'm talking about the decline since 2002.

I don't think it's going to be tracked down to any single factor but rather a combination of things. One other thing the sq CC pointed out was that many of our previous ELT false alarms in our area were related to purely recreational flying, which has likely declined more than business-related GA.

[Psicorp]

(Yes, today, Dec. 31st, 2006, we are out by the pool.  Sorry about you Northerners.  It is 83 degrees Fahrenheit right now.  I haven't made a pitcher of Margaritas yet, but if a plane crashed out there and missed my pool, I would make one to celebrate my good fortune, since my insurance rates are high enough after all the hurricanes! )

I respectfully hate you now, Sir.

It's actually not too bad here, much better than this time last year when it was too cold to snow.

Happy New Year!

[bosshawk]

Eclipse: no, CD and border missions are not run through AFRCC: they are run through and approved by the NOC, with AFAM numbers.  I run perhaps 50 to 70 CD missions per year and I do the WMIRS thing for every one of them.

[floridacyclist]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Office of Public Affairs
U.S. Coast Guard

Press Release
Date: Dec. 8, 2006

Contact: Steve Blando

BOATERS MUST NOT OPERATE 121.5/243 MHZ EPIRBs AFTER 31 DECEMBER 2006

WASHINGTON - The Coast Guard reminds all boaters that beginning January 1, 2007, both 121.5 and 243 MHz Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs) are prohibited from use in both commercial and recreational watercraft.  Boaters wishing to have an emergency rescue beacon aboard their vessel must have a digital 406 MHz model.

The January 1, 2007, date to stop using 121.5 MHz EPIRBs is in preparation for February 1, 2009, when satellite processing of distress signals from all 121.5/243 MHz beacons will terminate.  Following this termination date, only the 406 MHz beacons will be detected by the International Cospas-Sarsat Satellite System which provides distress alert and location data for search and rescue operations around the world.

The regulation applies to all Class A, B, and S 121.5/243 MHz EPIRBs.  It does not affect 121.5/243 MHz man overboard devices which are designed to work directly with a base alerting unit only and not with the satellite system.

This change, in large part, was brought about by the unreliability of the 121.5/243 MHz beacons in an emergency situation.  Data reveals that with a 121.5 MHz beacon, only one alert out of every 50 is a genuine distress situation. This has a significant effect on expending the limited resources of search and rescue personnel and platforms. With 406 MHz beacons, false alerts have been reduced significantly, and, when properly registered, can usually be resolved with a telephone call to the beacon owner.  Consequently, real alerts can receive the attention they deserve.

When a 406 MHz beacon signal is received, search and rescue personnel can retrieve information from a registration database. This includes the beacon owner's contact information, emergency contact information, and vessel/aircraft identifying characteristics. Having this information allows the Coast Guard, or other rescue personnel, to respond appropriately.

In the U.S., users are required by law to directly register their beacon in the U.S. 406 MHz Beacon Registration Database at:  http://www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov/ or by calling 1-888-212-SAVE. Other users can register their beacon in their country's national beacon registration database or, if no national database is available, in the International Beacon Registration Database at https://www.406registration.com/.

The United States Coast Guard is the lead agency for coordinating national maritime search and rescue policy and is responsible for providing search and rescue services on, under and over assigned international waters and waters subject to United States jurisdiction.

[Dragoon]

We've been hearing for at least a decade how SAR was going to dry up with the new ELTs.  So far, it seems that's not been the case.  Of course, once they shut off the satellites, things will change.

There have been a couple of very good points in this thread.

To begin with, if you don't have a certain level of activity, people's skills diminish.  Best if some large percentage of that activity be actual missions.  Use it or lose it.  If there IS a drop in missions, unless we get more training dollars to do more practice missions, we're gonna get rusty.

Also, as part of the country get more urbanized, there is less SAR going on there.  After all, it's hard to get lost when there's a McDonalds every 5 miles across your state!

I recall some briefer projecting the future of ES by pointing out that this urbanization will lead to less SAR, but more DR.  Because storms have a higher probability of hitting a population center the bigger the population.   He was suggesting that CAPs future lay in better DR response.  Which, I know is sort of a FEMA/Army thing.  But he may have been on to something. 

[DNall]

Also, as part of the country get more urbanized, there is less SAR going on there.  After all, it's hard to get lost when there's a McDonalds every 5 miles across your state!

I recall some briefer projecting the future of ES by pointing out that this urbanization will lead to less SAR, but more DR.  Because storms have a higher probability of hitting a population center the bigger the population.   He was suggesting that CAPs future lay in better DR response.  Which, I know is sort of a FEMA/Army thing.  But he may have been on to something. 

I don't know if I'd go that far thinking about urbanization. There's still a whole lot of space to get lost in. It's not as if the whole country is getting paved over, despite what it seems like in my town most of the time. Plus I've seen some real world missions where targets were located after a significant search very close to civiliazation.

I think the big deal is 406 is great for the CG & anyone wanting to be rescued. The problem is CAP has devolved a whole long time ago now to strictly a search asset. When they get hits in the future w/ more accurate GPS & no answer on the owner, they'll call the state & put LE/Fire right on top of them. Some, but not a lot of use for CAP in those conditions.

DR we've done forever & there's a bigger role for us there as demonstrated in places like Florida. However, as you say that's primarily an Army & FEMA directed thing, to a lesser degree (as far as the scale we're useful on) a state thing. AF does play a role, and an important one. We can help with that in a unique way that no one else has - what Florida does was taken over from a special forces detachment but we can do it w/ combined organic air, massive comms capabilites, & tied into a bigger resource network at 1AF. That's a good thing to work toward, but we need to keep in mind the frequency & distribution of disasters isn't something that's going to widely impact all of CAP.

Homeland Defense is a real nice one, but it's going to be almost all air based. I can't envision an ground team role. Picking up the slack there is where we try to come in w/ changed skill sets for the augmentation & force multiplier type things (cyber is the one thing mentioned so far that'd be big but low impact to many of us).

I don't know we'll see how it goes. There's a lot of smart people on both sides of the fence that I think can help us evolve & change to wherever we need to get. I'm optomistic.

[RiverAux]

I'm not as confident in the numbers I presented from the AFRCC reports as I was when I posted them.  There seems to be some situations where CAP Wings are given credit for more missions than there actually were for that state, other situations where the 2004 report gives the exact same info as was given in 2003, and at least one case where an absurd number of ELT missions were credited to one state which is far beyond typical. 

And though the AFRCC numbers aren't out yet it does appear that overall mission numbers are down in my area, perhaps only half or less of "typical".