1st SAREVAL, any hints

[Walkman]

Attending my first SAREVAL tomorrow (aircrew). Any advise/warnings, etc?

[Phil Hirons, Jr.]

Do what you've trained to do. Look and act professionally.

[Extremepredjudice]

Bring Doughnuts. 

[Garibaldi]

Attending my first SAREVAL tomorrow (aircrew). Any advise/warnings, etc?

Make sure you know your sh...stuff. Mainly a SAREVAL, at least around here, grades the mission base on how well they utilize their assets. Just be professional, know your shi...stuff, and wear whatever uniform you wear, flight suit or polo combo, properly. Fill out all your required paperwork when you complete your sortie. Watch and learn, so when you get to be on mission staff you can do what they do.

[Eclipse]

Do what you've trained to do. Look and act professionally.

It's no different then any other mission, other than you're being graded.  (You're going to have a few of our guys up there
with an airplane or two).

Redundancy of system and manpower is critical.  Electronic status boards, shared documents, and other cloud services are the
preferred way to run a mission.  I'm telling you that from personal experience as well as from the comments and directives
of the CAP-USAF people who will be up there this weekend, but you have to demonstrate that you have the ability to fall back
to paper and manual processes if need be.

This is chess, think at least two steps ahead, and make sure your plans make sense and are backed up by facts and details.
Keep good notes, logs, and status boards (and make sure everyone knows which boards are >THE< boards, and anything else
is secondary).

If you are on top of your game as a team, they will start to play the fun games like pulling power, internet, heart-attacking
a key staffer, etc., if you're in the weeds the whole weekend, they will press on you operationally, and keep pushing until you
say "I can't ".  Asking for help from other wings and agencies is encouraged where appropriate.

And don't let a mission go undone or unchecked because you are tunnel-visioned on one task.  Life-safety is first, then property.
A missing kid everyone saw run out the door 10 minutes ago is a higher priority then a Dr. who can't be bothered to file a flight
plane and isn't even confirmed missing, etc., etc.  A known missing aircraft or missing person is a higher priority then
an aerial survey of an area we already know is flooded.   Use your resources wisely and don't overcommit if you can avoid it.

Press the OSC and planning to prioritize sorties.

The goal this weekend is to show that your people know their jobs, can be flexible in their planning and thinking process, can
recover from problems, and will ask for help when needed.

Staffing - every important job should have a backup - the branch desks should have at least 3-5 people, and never be left alone.
A primary, a second chair, an MSA to keep the logging, etc., and a third person knowledgeable about the ops to act as an intel
officer.   On the ground side at our last eval, we had 4 people on the GBD desk (3 experienced GBD's and an MSA), and on the air
side they had 5.

Make sure you have briefing officers separate from the main branch desk staff - our 3rd GBD kept the GT's moving, prepped
109's, and insured they were ready to be briefed and released.  We were launching ground sorties in 15 minutes from being given a
tasking by the OSC.  Air had a similiar setup, and procedure.

Make sure all vehicles are properly inspected at first light, and as needed the rest of the day, ground anything that is marginal,
and make sure POVs are justified and properly approved (and that they have radios).

Insure your GT's understand what "field independent means", and that they are to expected to eat in the field from their gear - none of
this 2-hour lunch nonsense.  THIS IS CRITICAL.

All taskings from the OSC should be in writing, and all sorties to the teams should be in writing.  This insures everyone has a reference to work from.
Best-case is a standardized form with all the details you have that they, and you, can refer to.  This can be attached to the 109.

The Branch Directors should have a clipboard or folder for each sortie that can be grabbed quickly and checked.  Make sure they are current.

FLOPS are not the time to discuss tactics or argue about resources.  Report succinctly, active sorties, planned sorties, # of vehicles in use, # of people in the field, and any resource constraints.

Make sure everything is tied down, taped down, secured, and safe.  The last thing you need is to be at the edge of your mental bandwidth and
have some goof come by and pull the whole desk down because he tripped on a power cord or spilled coffee on your papers. Keep things as
clear and clutter free as possible.

Stay hydrated - you'd be surprised how important this is.  Don't forget to eat.  Take some breaks.

If you find yourself at the end of your rope, or about to strangle someone, take a 10, and discuss it privately.  Also, this is absolutely 100% NOT the time for disinvolve staff or personnel to try an get your attention about some non-eval business just because your are "handy".

If you look like you're enjoying yourself, then the evaluators will have more confidence in your abilities, and if you're not enjoying
yourself, then you're doing something wrong.

[Spaceman3750]

Depending on what you're doing, Attachment 7 might be useful (cheat sheet): http://members.gocivilairpatrol.com/media/cms/CAP_USAFI_10_2701.pdf

Plus everything Eclipse said.

[spacecommand]

Bring Doughnuts. 

Don't eat all the doughnuts. 

[Fubar]

So, how'd it go?

[Walkman]

So, how'd it go?

The air was very bumpy! Every scanner that came back (including myself) was green around the gills.

I haven't heard anything official, but we seemed to do very well.

[JeffDG]

So, how'd it go?

The air was very bumpy! Every scanner that came back (including myself) was green around the gills.

I haven't heard anything official, but we seemed to do very well.

Really?  SAREVALs and GTEs I've been to, we get an outbrief day-of from the CAP-USAF folks.

[Walkman]

Really?  SAREVALs and GTEs I've been to, we get an outbrief day-of from the CAP-USAF folks.

I'm sure it went that way. But I was just there one of the three days and not in a leadership or IC position, so I wouldn't be in the loop for any direct feedback like that. I'm expecting a AAR from Wing at some point soon.

[RogueLeader]

Wyoming wing just finished our SAREVAL (sorry to derail your thread Walkman) with a strong SUCESSFUL.  Whoo hoo.

[RogueLeader]

Really?  SAREVALs and GTEs I've been to, we get an outbrief day-of from the CAP-USAF folks.

I'm sure it went that way. But I was just there one of the three days and not in a leadership or IC position, so I wouldn't be in the loop for any direct feedback like that. I'm expecting a AAR from Wing at some point soon.

The outbrief is usually presented to all attending, at least ours was.

[JeffDG]

Really?  SAREVALs and GTEs I've been to, we get an outbrief day-of from the CAP-USAF folks.

I'm sure it went that way. But I was just there one of the three days and not in a leadership or IC position, so I wouldn't be in the loop for any direct feedback like that. I'm expecting a AAR from Wing at some point soon.

The outbrief is usually presented to all attending, at least ours was.

Same here...everyone we could scrounge together.

And our SAREVAL was one day (at least the EVAL part...we still had budget, so we kept going after the CAP-USAF folks left!)

[Walkman]

The outbrief is usually presented to all attending, at least ours was.

It could have been. The EVAL ran from Friday PM through Sunday. I was only there for Saturday.

[Private Investigator]

Wyoming wing just finished our SAREVAL (sorry to derail your thread Walkman) with a strong SUCESSFUL.  Whoo hoo.

The last one we had we got an "industrial strgenth" SUCCESSFUL so that is one step upmanship at its best   

[JeffDG]

Wyoming wing just finished our SAREVAL (sorry to derail your thread Walkman) with a strong SUCESSFUL.  Whoo hoo.

The last one we had we got an "industrial strgenth" SUCCESSFUL so that is one step upmanship at its best   

How about our "EXCELLENT", including several "OUTSTANDING" grades for various staff?