ICs for ELT missions

[RiverAux]

Before I start, let me state that I fully understand that even a lowly old run-of-the-mill ELT mission has the potential to quickly escalate into something major and their is the potential for all sorts of things to come up.....

But, I would like us to consider whether we really need a fully-qualified IC working every single ELT mission considering that the vast majority of them involve 1 aircraft and 1 ground team or sometimes just one or the other and considering the regular burnout that can happen when ICs just get burned out by having to run too many ELT missions. 

According to the CAP Homeland Security resources page (and I have no idea how current that is), we have 691 Incident Commanders of all types.  That sounds like an adequate amount and in fact in most states it probably is (though we could always use more).  But, in the states with high level ELT/EPIRB I don't think even that is enough.  For example, Florida which has a huge number of ELT missions, only has 32 ICs and I bet each of them easily might get several calls a week to do missions. 

So, what I would like to throw out for discussion is the possibility of allowing qualified Operations Section Chiefs to be placed on the call out list used by AFRCC for ELT missions only.  Their is very little real difference between and IC3 and and OSC and any OSC should not have any problems running an ELT mission. 

Obviously, we would need to implement some criteria for when an ELT mission run by an OSC has to be turned over to an IC.  For example, if other information comes in that indicates that an actual crash or a known missing airplane is involved.

And, I probably would consider limiting this to areas with high ELT mission volume.   Heck, the OSCs in those areas have probably done dozens more missions than ICs in many parts of the country anyway.   

[Short Field]

So, what I would like to throw out for discussion is the possibility of allowing qualified Operations Section Chiefs to be placed on the call out list used by AFRCC for ELT missions only.  Their is very little real difference between and IC3 and and OSC and any OSC should not have any problems running an ELT mission. 

The only difference between an IC3 and a OSC is sign-offs on six C-XXXX tasks and participation on two missions as an IC.  Three of the tasks are key to running any type of incident - how you do a 201, develop a IAP, and close the incident with a 115.  Oh, also a willingness to be the Incident Commander (as in the buck stops here).

Just have the OSCs get in gear and finish their training and become ICs.  If they can't get the Wing and other ICs to support the training, then maybe this is a non-problem with the current ICs.

You are either an Incident Commander or you are not.  There is no "well, I can run the mission just fine - except I am not signed off as qualified".

[lordmonar]

And heck....for a simple ELT seach...the IC could be clear across the state running it from his home.

[isuhawkeye]

There is no reason that an IC couldnt get the call.  delegate the entire mission to staff, get the report at the end of it all, and file it with AFRCC.  builds experience with the OSC, and takes the burden off the IC

[BigMojo]

And heck....for a simple ELT seach...the IC could be clear across the state running it from his home.

That's happened on a couple occasions to me here in S. Florida with having an IC in the Tampa area...a little more of a pain having to cell phone in as opposed to the VHF, but not so much as to detract from effectiveness of the team or IC.

[Eclipse]

And heck....for a simple ELT seach...the IC could be clear across the state running it from his home.

That's generally how its done by me - being essentially run by qualified people in the field with oversight by an IC on the phone, but at the end of it the IC is still ultimately responsible.

[RiverAux]

Yes, the actual running of most of the mission can basically be delegated to an OSC right now and yes an ELT mission can be run by anyone in the state.  But, that doesn't keep ICs from slammed with phone calls on a regular basis, especially if they are known to be one who actually answers his phone and takes a mission. 

[Short Field]

Our state has 3 people who are not ICs but qualified above the AOBD level (either a OSC or a PSC).  Not much of an addition to cure a problem.

How many OSCs who are not ICs does FL Wg have?
Why are they not progressing to IC (two missions and some training)?

The bar is low enough has it is to become a qualified IC - why lower it even further by allowing non-ICs to run a mission.

[isuhawkeye]

being essentially run by qualified people in the field with oversight by an IC on the phone, but at the end of it the IC is still ultimately responsible.

Does this explain why the same aircrew's, and ground teams get called time, and again. 

Trust

[JohnKachenmeister]

Before I start, let me state that I fully understand that even a lowly old run-of-the-mill ELT mission has the potential to quickly escalate into something major and their is the potential for all sorts of things to come up.....

But, I would like us to consider whether we really need a fully-qualified IC working every single ELT mission considering that the vast majority of them involve 1 aircraft and 1 ground team or sometimes just one or the other and considering the regular burnout that can happen when ICs just get burned out by having to run too many ELT missions. 

According to the CAP Homeland Security resources page (and I have no idea how current that is), we have 691 Incident Commanders of all types.  That sounds like an adequate amount and in fact in most states it probably is (though we could always use more).  But, in the states with high level ELT/EPIRB I don't think even that is enough.  For example, Florida which has a huge number of ELT missions, only has 32 ICs and I bet each of them easily might get several calls a week to do missions. 

So, what I would like to throw out for discussion is the possibility of allowing qualified Operations Section Chiefs to be placed on the call out list used by AFRCC for ELT missions only.  Their is very little real difference between and IC3 and and OSC and any OSC should not have any problems running an ELT mission. 

Obviously, we would need to implement some criteria for when an ELT mission run by an OSC has to be turned over to an IC.  For example, if other information comes in that indicates that an actual crash or a known missing airplane is involved.

And, I probably would consider limiting this to areas with high ELT mission volume.   Heck, the OSCs in those areas have probably done dozens more missions than ICs in many parts of the country anyway.   

Florida has 33 IC's.  I got my new qual added on Sunday.

[NavLT]

Better to have an IC assigned, even if they are on the far side of the state asleep during the mission, then to assign the mission to a non-IC have it go bad and try to find one.....

Command is Command.  Right now my wing is covering missions from the next wing over due to lack of ICs, but I would not think it wise to dump the mission on a GBD/AOBD/PSC/OSC who does not know how to run a full mission.  They can run the OPS stuff (and ususally Do) without any signifcant input from the IC, but when it gets ugly you want the qualifed member running the show.

V/R
Lt J.

[Short Field]

They can run the OPS stuff (and ususally Do) without any signifcant input from the IC, but when it gets ugly you want the qualifed member running the show.

A good IC might keep it from getting ugly in the first place. 

[Major Carrales]

A while back, the Teas Supplements had made allowances for an "ELT MISSION MANAGER" which was basically an mini-IC. who was designed to handle such things.  I don't think this exists anymore.

Anyway, I do not really see this as an issue.  If you recall your ICS training, the first one on the "scene" is the mission Incident Commander until relieved by a person of higher authority (more experience, position et al.)  Thus, if an ELT call were to "go RED CAP," then all that would happen is the the intial fellow managing the mission would surrender his/her position to a more able person when the time comes.

[SJFedor]

I've "run" multiple missions without being an IC. For that simple "wake up, turn the prop, and find the guy who left his ELT going off in his plane" missions, we'd find an IC who would sign onto the mission, he would then turn it over to his "staff" (me) as the OSC or AOBD, and I would plan and execute as usual, giving him updates as needed.

This has kept my ICs happy, gives some of our "up and coming" types experience, while still having someone they can call at a moment's notice, and taught me quite a few things.

[IceNine]

I for one like the security of having the IC to field any problems that occur.

there have been dozens of times when I go into the field and run the ground ops and let the IC sleep.  Periodically we call or in some cases simply text ops normal (preferred).  But even being an OSC myself I don't want the responsibility of working with AFRCC or doing the mission paperwork.  It is much easier to run the mission than run the mission, coordinate with the customer, and go get the thing.

I am a firm believer that the man in charge should not be in the field

[RiverAux]

To be clear, I would want an OSC running an ELT mission to stay at their base (living room/home office) and not out in the field just like most ICs run those things.  Also, I wouldn't advise having a GBD or AOBD serving in this role either.

How many people would allowing OSCs run ELT missions add to the mix?  Well, hard to say, but based on the pyramid principle, there should be more OSCs in a Wing than ICs, so even if we assume that not all of them would want to be on ELT mission list, I think it could add a significant number of people into the mix when AFRCC goes calling. 

[IceNine]

So would OSC's require approval of a corporate officer to begin training?

The way i understand it IC's require Wing commander approval before being allowed to train because they will be directly charged with making commitments to our customers, or put another way entering into verbal contract and offering whatever services we can provide.

While the idea is not totally out of the box, it does have some fundamental flaws.

[Eclipse]

The other issue here is treating "elts" as "non-distress ELTs".  Giving some missions "lessor" commanders insinuates a "lessor emergency", which is a symptom and problem today of the way our people respond.

Frankly we should be treating all AFRCC alerts with a full-press, if only to exercise out too-lazy muscles.  You can light up an entire ICS structure without anyone actually leaving their home, and they are all ready if things go "real" on you.

Fire department roll full-blast without making assumptions, and don't stand-down until a competent authority puts eyes-on
the situation.

We've had more than a few "non-distress" situations in the last year, both in my state and others where the "non-distress" signal at the end of the ramp turned out to be a crashed-airplane with pilots literally hanging in the straps.

Throwing up our hands and saying "being an IC is too hard, so lets just lower the bar" isn't the answer.

[RiverAux]

Yes, I would suggest Wing Commander approval for OSCs in these situations. 

I fail to see much of a difference between the 1-person mission staff made up of an IC vs one made up of an OSC in terms of CAP committment. 

As to treating each of them with a "full-court press", I can only assume you're talking about standing up a full mission staff with OSC, PSC, GBD, AOBD, IO, CUL, etc. which is wildly inappropriate and a waste of resources for ELT missions, especially in the "hot zone" wings that have 2-3 (or more) ELTs a week.  Sure, if you want to do a little bit of staff training every now and again, thats fine.

We've had more than a few "non-distress" situations in the last year, both in my state and others where the "non-distress" signal at the end of the ramp turned out to be a crashed-airplane with pilots literally hanging in the straps.

Sure, but 97% of the time it is a non-distress mission and frankly, if at the end of your ELT search you find a crashed plane CAP's involvement in the mission is going to end so quickly (almost all the time) that it won't matter at all whether an IC or OSC was on the other end of the cell phone.

Its all about a wise allocation of resources.  In some places we are burning our people out on minor missions that someone with a slightly lower qualification is perfectly capable of handling.  You don't send in the Delta Force when the local SWAT team can handle it.

[Eclipse]

I fail to see much of a difference between the 1-person mission staff made up of an IC vs one made up of an OSC in terms of CAP commitment.

We're not talking about commitment, it has no bearing on this discussion, we are talking about objective qualifications.

CAP has set a standard for the "head cheese", period, and those who wish to aspire to that role have extra work to do.
There are plenty of us who don't want the burden and choose to stay at lower rungs on the ladder.

The average GBD, or AOBD could run the vast majority of our missions, some actually do in practical reality, but at the end of the day you need a guy in charge who knows the whole score, knows how and when to escalate things, and has the authority to go along with it.

OSC's, for whatever reason, haven't achieved that yet, either because they are too new, or have chosen not to take up the training and responsibility.  Granting them the keys to the executive washroom for expediency's sake is not the answer.  Also, for every rung you push down the ladder, the fudge factor of the next in line increases.

A different class of IC, maybe, but not pushing things further down the chain officially.

A compensated service would solve this problem by requiring billeting for "x" number of IC's, and restricting other activities if you hold the IC qualification (to reduce distractions), while also increasing the compensation or ancilary benefits of the duty.  The solution for every one of CAP's problems is "telling people what they will do", instead of asking them "what they'd like to do" and then allowing them to do "everything" to the end of being proficient in nothing (in many cases).

Since that ability will likely never exist in a volunteer organization, I have no idea how you wrangle more people to do these jobs. 

I thoroughly enjoy being a GBD. That and AOBD are about as high on the food chain where you are still effectively an operational asset, and can mostly stay out of the line of fire of the political and ego fallouts of planning and above.  Plenty of responsibility, plenty to do, yet you're still ultimately a shooter on someone else's point.  I have no particular interest in moving up higher right now, even though I am getting pressure to do so.

What I'm seeing is many of our people move into IC because "if they don't, who will?" and then they find themselves saddled with huge responsibility and none of the fun of CAP.  Thankfully my wing has some butt-kicking IC's, who have proven themselves on a national level, for us to emulate, but the actual carrot for all the extra work and headache escapes me.

[isuhawkeye]

This is a very interesting conversation, but I thought I would add a different perspective.

CAP is the only agency I work with that starts an operation with the highest level certification, and works down.  The fire department I'm on does things the other way around. 

The first unit tasked has a company officer (lets say a lieutenant)  they arrive on the scene and become the IC.  After that the Ladder truck comes with a Captain.  If the situation warents he/she takes over the command. 

Finally a Chief officer arrives.  If the incident is under control he lets the captain run things.  If it is more complicated a transfer will take place. 

this system allows junior officers to gain valuable experience as they develop.

I'm not saying CAP should do this

Just a different perspective

[Eclipse]

A good point - a lot of agencies do that, even basic ICS training tells us that the person who is "there" is the defacto IC until told otherwise by a competent authority.

However, where this breaks down for us, again, is our lack of grade-based authority and inconsistency of training. 

A fire or police LT >is< an LT, at least in their context, afforded the command authority and responsibility commensurate with a similar level of both in most departments nationwide.  Many departments have inter-agency agreements that provide authority to "whomever is there" or "whomever is local".  Those that don't have agreements still do it in practice.

So in most cases, when multiple companies or cites show up (i.e. squadrons) to the same event, first-guy-there is in charge.  In CAP, we have a lot of "ok, I'm here now, I'll run the show", regardless of their real place in the universe - having a top-dog IC from the start quells most of that.

Starting at the top in CAP may be a symptom or reaction to the reality that if you let on-scene people run the show you'd have ego contests all over for "chief", and then everyone disavowing responsibility for the paperwork or any snafus.

Starting with a UDF team(s) or GTL who then grows things from there makes sense, but you'd need a big stick to whack the egos of ribbon-hogs and power-nuts.

[RiverAux]

I suppose what I'm getting at is that an OSC is the lowest rung in CAP's ES structure that is trained to lead a task force (which is what an aircrew/GT combo is) responding to a minor incident.  So, we should use it as such for those missions.

Sure, the OSC isn't a CAP qualified "Incident Commander" but neither is a police officer (the incident commander) making a traffic stop, which is used as an example of a Type 5 Incident Type in my ICS 300 book.  That cop is fully qualified to handle that type of incident, but you wouldn't put him in charge of a hostage situation where you've got SWAT and 50 officers participating. 

Our problem is that we've set up our ES training structure to handle major mission missions such as missing aircraft searches, which surely do require a full mission staff and an "IC".  Those are our most complex missions, but not our most common.  You wouldn't send the same guy to run the traffic stop that you'd use to run the hostage situation, but that is exactly what we do. 

We have made some steps towards acknowledging this situation by having 3 types of IC, but the differences are so minor so as to be meaningless and will probably be even less so as we make people take ICS300/400 for those jobs. 

[Short Field]

How many people would allowing OSCs run ELT missions add to the mix?  Well, hard to say, but based on the pyramid principle, there should be more OSCs in a Wing than ICs, so even if we assume that not all of them would want to be on ELT mission list, I think it could add a significant number of people into the mix when AFRCC goes calling. 

Maybe in your wing.  In ours, it adds THREE people to a double digit list of ICs.   OSCs and AOBDs and PSCs and anyone else have NO authority.  They only function on the DELEGATED authority provided by the IC.

RiverAux - I will ask again:  How many additional bodies does your solution provide?

[Short Field]

this system allows junior officers to gain valuable experience as they develop.

And that junior officer has had how many more hours and days of training in running that situation than our entry level IC3 gets in running a SAR?  Lets see - it takes mission participation on 14 exercises (defined as a sortie or a operational period)  to progress from MS to IC3.   I don't think your LT had less than three weeks of training?   

[wingnut55]

In the Day before ELTs CAP would be called out on an "overdue" aircraft, or a "Missing AirCraft. After a ramp check they would start a route search.

Now CAP spends a huge amount of time searching for "malfunctioning ELTs, now a malfunction includes "operator error, and crappy maintenance. Don't give me any horse doo about the " They might be hanging in their straps stuff", you don't know anything about it, except the propaganda.

in 2009 this will come to an end, WHY? because the ELTs will not be monitored by the AFRCC on 121.5, so all of those broken down airplanes (with the flat tires), or the "Thrown in the Trash" ELT units will not need us. CAP was never meant to be a "Maintenance whipping child" for General Aviation. Our Commanders at Wing and National allowed it to keep up the false image of our inflated self worth.

A decade ago the Air Force began a study that Criticized CAPs need for 500 Aircraft,
CAP was not able to be open and Honest with the Tax payers as to the utilization and use of these aircraft. 911 came along and our leaders have tried to create many roles for us, much of that has been eyewash, the truth is 25% of our aircraft are not being flown, many of our pilots are too old to be flying military style missions. During the Fosett mission we were referred to as the "Diaper patrol" by people on the ground at one of the televised mission bases. In California there are squadrons with only 2 mission pilots for their plane. ELT searches?? AFRCC can't get the US Navy and the US Army to look for ELTs going off in their own Aircraft, so CAP has to go out to be denied entry on the base. So what are we learning from all this??

As for 911, the California wing had been operating on a Air National Guard base, 911 came along and the Air Guard shut the gate and California Wing staff was not allowed to enter, to obtain equipment, records, computers, radios, NOTHING", California Wing operated from trunks and peoples homes. Why??

I will rant about that another time.

[RiverAux]

Maybe in your wing.  In ours, it adds THREE people to a double digit list of ICs.

Then I would say that your wing is sadly failing in building up their upper level mission staff cadre and until that problem is fixed this idea wouldn't help your wing. 

And yes it is a problem to have such a small number of people in the pipeline to becoming an IC.  Maybe you've got the "right" number of ICs for your state right now, but if you don't have people preparing to take over for those that inevitably retire, burnout, or otherwise leave active CAP service, you're looking at trouble down the road.  By the way, keep in mind that you're probably going to lose a percentage of those ICs for not taking ICS300 and 400 by later this year.     

[IceNine]

In the Day before ELTs CAP would be called out on an "overdue" aircraft, or a "Missing AirCraft. After a ramp check they would start a route search.

Now CAP spends a huge amount of time searching for "malfunctioning ELTs, now a malfunction includes "operator error, and crappy maintenance. Don't give me any horse doo about the " They might be hanging in their straps stuff", you don't know anything about it, except the propaganda.

in 2009 this will come to an end, WHY? because the ELTs will not be monitored by the AFRCC on 121.5, so all of those broken down airplanes (with the flat tires), or the "Thrown in the Trash" ELT units will not need us. CAP was never meant to be a "Maintenance whipping child" for General Aviation. Our Commanders at Wing and National allowed it to keep up the false image of our inflated self worth.

A decade ago the Air Force began a study that Criticized CAPs need for 500 Aircraft,
CAP was not able to be open and Honest with the Tax payers as to the utilization and use of these aircraft. 911 came along and our leaders have tried to create many roles for us, much of that has been eyewash, the truth is 25% of our aircraft are not being flown, many of our pilots are too old to be flying military style missions. During the Fosett mission we were referred to as the "Diaper patrol" by people on the ground at one of the televised mission bases. In California there are squadrons with only 2 mission pilots for their plane. ELT searches?? AFRCC can't get the US Navy and the US Army to look for ELTs going off in their own Aircraft, so CAP has to go out to be denied entry on the base. So what are we learning from all this??

As for 911, the California wing had been operating on a Air National Guard base, 911 came along and the Air Guard shut the gate and California Wing staff was not allowed to enter, to obtain equipment, records, computers, radios, NOTHING", California Wing operated from trunks and peoples homes. Why??

I will rant about that another time.

Interesting rant but its completely inaccurate for the post you are replying to.

In 2007-2008 I can think of 4 crashes, 2 of which were multi day/ multi wing events, where quite literally the pilot was hanging from the straps.  And that is just in Illinois. 

Your mentality is the poison that is affecting CAP's mission readiness on a daily basis.  Everyone wants to respond when they can, or once everyone has been given a chance to go.

I say once you have a team roll with it and as other's call in they can wait for the next team to roll.  Just like the volunteer fire dept's.  The first people at the station jump on the truck, and roll out, the next people wait to fill the next truck and roll it out.  until a competent authority makes a decision on what resources are required.

The fact that the Army and Navy won't look for ELT's on their aircraft speaks only to their vigilance on their aircraft.  They know that every plan/helo that took of today is sitting on their ramp so why do they care if the locater is on

The fact that we were referred to as the diaper patrol at 1 mission base tells me that there was likely someone of power at that base who was spreading hate and discontent, most likely because CAP at these types of missions is a federal asset and local folks don't like having "the gov't" shoved down their throat.  This is the same reason why it is increasingly difficult to get the local EMA's to request us through their states.  If they call in the fed's they feel they have lost the game.  but if they call us through the NOC, we are a local asset, we just won't get the funding we'd hoped for.

[NavLT]

Capability and Response is a defining characteristic in where things are going for CAP.  10 years ago we got called for 24 missing person searches in NY, last year we got called for 2.  The number of missing person searches state wide only changed by 1. What is the difference it is the marketing job of our wings Ops and PAO folks to the Responsible Agencies (RA), the capablilities of our troops to respond in a guaranteeable fasion (can you launch an Aircraft in the next 2 hours?  HMM not sure I'll try ), and What are the troops in the field capable of (your a GTM 1,2,3 lets see your 72 hour pack...oh I don't have one).

Most of the "volunteer fire" descriptions revolve around a first in truck, which in most cases has a company grade officer (LT or Capt) that has IC training per NFPA and IAFF.  And most of the fire agencies have a battalion or other cheif on duty to call for the 2nd, 3rd, alarm when it goes bad.

If we hope to get called for missions that matter (and I would argue that most actuals start off with an ELT, even though most ELTs are not an actual) we need to train to a professional standard, have enough people trained to offer a reasonable response time and duration, and then sell our services to the people who would call for them.

Does the local GTL know how a local Sherrif can request CAP services?  Probably not but the IC does.

Lets not even go into paying for this as the payment for CAP on missions not from AFRCC gets really messy.

V/R
Lt J.

[Short Field]

And yes it is a problem to have such a small number of people in the pipeline to becoming an IC. 

We keep our pipes clean.       Once a person shows a desire to progress past AOBD or GBD, we try to move them along in their training and provide training opportunities for them.  One of the three is now a IC3-T.  The other two appear to have lost interest in progressing.   That does not count the 4 new ICs we trained in the last six months.  OSCs should be on a fast track to IC and not allowed to loiter at the OSC qualifications - unless the Peter Principle comes into play.

How are your pipes?

[Larry Mangum]

Washington Wing use to have Mission Mangers to run ELT missions and a signed and approved supplement to CAPR 60-3 authorizing it.  The minimum qualification to be a Mission Manager was to be a qualified Air Branch Directory. The Mission Mangager was limited to events that utilized no more than 1 HighBird, 1 Search Aircraft and 1 Ground Team.  Anything else required calling out an IC.

The Mission Manger program went away about 2004 as the wing transitioned to NIMS and all missions were handled by at least IC-3's.  NHQ, envisioned IC-3's as being the lowest qualification for running small missions, at least that as how I remember a phone conversation with John Demarais at NHQ.

[Major Carrales]

Some of the "CAP Self-loathing" in this thread is making me sick.

The fact is, we care called to be professionals.  There are a few people in CAP that think we are a "flying club" and are never around to be mission pilots, air or ground crews. 

Fact is, CAP works best when it is working in all its missions.  The ELT phase out in 2009 is going two do two very important things, 1) reduce false signals, 2) increase the likelihood that when called (because of the system to be in place) the mission is likley to be REAL!!!  You know, Distress.

That is going to mean being more vigilant than merely semper vigilans as it exists today.  I'm talking having people on standby to fly, real training, interagency operability and assests in all parts of the WING.  This requires training at the Squadron Level in local areas.

This will require that CAP be more like the fire companies mentioned in this thread, first to get there set the ball in motion and the more experienced takes command as needed.  IC3 is going to have to be a position every unit has, for Group at least.

[Eclipse]

Icenine, thank you for your factual reply to Wingnut.

Mine was likely to be a TOS violation.   

[IceNine]

[emote]

Bow's to Eclipse

[emote/]

[sardak]

The original intent of the IC3 rating was to manage the typical non-distress DF missions.  A number of wings had created a special category of IC, or used IC trainees, to run these missions.  The idea was to not burn out the ICs needed to run missing aircraft missions on these frequent, less complex incidents. This concept also recognized the fact that a member with ground team experience, not aircrew experience, often had more appropriate knowledge.  It potentially built up the number of members who might want to transition into managing the missing aircraft or lost person searches, or at least help a fully qualified IC manage them.

To give an official rating and credibility to these personnel, the IC rating was split into the three "types," following the wildland fire model.  However, in implementing this plan, focus was lost, or the intent ignored, or the naysayers got their way.  These were the members who believed that only fully qualified, know everything about anything, ICs should run all missions.  What if the "typical" non-distress DF mission turned into a distress mission?

Now there is a proposal to create five levels of IC in CAP, in the completely erroneous belief that this is required for NIMS compliance.  The fire service identified five levels of incident complexity and now has five types of IC.  FEMA has included the five levels of complexity in some of its documentation, but not five levels of IC. But some in CAP think we have to have five types of ICs or we won't be NIMS compliant.  Nonsense.

Mike

[IceNine]

I am under the whole hearted belief that IC-3's should run missions that start out as an ELT and missing person's type, but should be fully aware of their abilities.

2's should be able to manage region level disaster or wide area searches

1's should be able to handle anything tossed at them. Katrina, Fossett, etc.

I idea of using IC-3T's to run ELT missions with minimal supervision is a good idea, provided they have someone that they can hand off to as soon as it gets beyond a certain point, and that they are checking in at appropriate intervals.

I don't see CAP being able to staff 5 level's of IC and more importantly appropriately allowing members into those positions.  There are already entirely too many IC-1's and even more so with IC-2's that cannot handle the types and magnitude of missions that they are being handed.

It is a thin line that we walk already and there needs to be better defined criteria for what is required to be an IC at the different levels.

[RiverAux]

The multi-level IC concept is generally okay.  However, having to go all the way through Branch Director, PSC, OSC before getting to the lowest level IC in order to run a simple ELT mission defeats the purpose since what this does is mean that in practicality there is very little difference between the ICs.  Having 5 levels given this basic starting point is not bright either. 

[Short Field]

We had a similar discussion a couple of years ago.  It was decided that we really had no way to train anything higher than a IC3 in our wing.  To get an IC1, you first need a IC1 to train them.  Then you need a couple of training missions rich enough in Major Incident exercise inputs to allow them the experience of a Major Incident.  Otherwise, it is just a paperwork drill.

[IceNine]

The multi-level IC concept is generally okay.  However, having to go all the way through Branch Director, PSC, OSC before getting to the lowest level IC in order to run a simple ELT mission defeats the purpose since what this does is mean that in practicality there is very little difference between the ICs.  Having 5 levels given this basic starting point is not bright either. 

What is the problem here?

So our IC's must have done enough before they become an IC to be able to manage a mission should it escalate beyond a non-distress situation.  And IC regardless of level should be able to handle a known fairly contained known search area.  If there is an overdue aircraft that we know from NTAP or whatever was within the state an IC-3 should be able to handle that.  Or if we have a disaster site from tornadic activity, again IC-3 should be the way to go.

Again going in with someone who is only trained to handle non-distress ELT's is NOT an appropriate response.

If we are going to send in someone who cannot run OPS, or planning, or finance admin, we are setting them up for failure.

Those areas are required because even the smallest non-distress hard landing will require all of these things, and they will require that it be done by the IC.

There is no reason to dumb down any of our training to cater to the probabilities in this situation.

[RiverAux]

If we are going to send in someone who cannot run OPS, or planning, or finance admin, we are setting them up for failure.

My suggestion was to use qualified OSCs.  They already know how to do all that. 

What is the problem here?

As explained above, we're using our most highly trained personnel to run the simplest missions rather than using the general ICS concept of using the right amount of resources based on the complexity of the mission. 

If the incident becomes more complex, then you call in resources more appropriate for the more complex incident -- also a basic concept of ICS. 

[Short Field]

How many qualified OSCs does your wing have?  Where is the gain over what your wing does now?

[RiverAux]

I'm talking about the several wings mentioned on this board on a regular basis where it is apparently quite difficult to find an IC to take an ELT mission. 

[cap235629]

And heck....for a simple ELT seach...the IC could be clear across the state running it from his home.

As CAP requires more ICS training to be NIMS compliant we have to rethink the way we do things.  ICS300 teaches that an IC MUST be an ON SCENE commander, close enough to have sight and sound control.  As others have said above, CAP seems to be doing it opposite of the rest of the ES world

[heliodoc]

As a former IC for fires 2500 acre or less, I will relate that to all my future training in CAP whether CAP wants to board or not....

Here's the thing... IC onsite or relatively close to the incident not necessarily at a mission base at some FBO.

How about pulling your FEMA trailers closer to the incident?  Next one would think that even the gods of CAP would establish a training program for IC and IC trainees.  The wildland fire world constantly is TRAINING successors to each IC   (IC Types 1 thru 5 according to complexity)

CAP, if it wants to play in the big world of ICS and Incident Management had better start insisting on better training the just the SQTR system.  BETTER get on board the idea of tabletops at least once a quarter and at various locations.  Figure out if your comm equip is reliable in ALL areas, you'd be suprised the numbers of problems on wildland fire assignments that the biggest problem next to crew accountability  IS communications......

START training IC's and IC trainees.  If this organization is going to survive in ANY environment (read incident) better train to DHS, FEMA, and State EM/ES standards.  CAP SQTR's are sometimes woefully short of triaining meat and start asking around to be I300 and I400 at your local FD or EM organization.

CAP will do its membership a better service if it does the way the world does NOT just the way CAP wants to do it. 

Like Hulk Hogan says  "You've got to train hard, brother!!!"

[IceNine]

While I agree with the large bulk of what you are saying.  The reality of what we do v.s what fire, ems etc do is fairly distant from what we do.

Fire needs to be on scene to be able to visualize changes on scene.  For a missing person I am totally in agreement that we should set up in the closest proximity to the last know location.

But for ELT's or missing aircraft, I believe that anywhere close to where we are searching is appropriate.  There is no need for the IC to be on the airport that the plane took off from or whatever.

I do totally agree that the training program that we have for IC's if followed to the T will set the IC up for complete failure.  However, I do know that a few wings have taken this as an opportunity to provide appropriate training for the area they will be commanding.

[heliodoc]

Yep

It was a stretch.  I can stand corrected, Natl doesn't need to fund the taskbooks.

But seriously they need an overhaul on some things and that has proven many a time here on these forums.

I wonder if CERT has these problems??? You know they do.  But that is Federal and State funded and coming thru DHS money somewhat like AFAM.  Obviously our training is more technical in some regards and on other training regimes, almost similar

[RiverAux]

Unfortunately, we have developed a very rigid training structure that assumes most missions are relatively large and require our very best people to be in charge every single one rather than the more flexible system utilized by just about every other agency I can think of.  While my proposal was to allow OSCs run ELT missions, I think it would be a safe bet that in just about any other agency you can think of it would be one of their equivalents of a UDF team member that would be their IC for the mission.  

There is a difference between the Incident Commander position CAP has created and the more generic term "incident commander" as it is more commonly used throughout the rest of the system.  

Another way of approaching it would be to have several different types of Incident Commanders.  For example:  
IC- Air SAR
IC- Lost Person
IC- ELT
IC- Disaster Relief

Then we could tailor make the training requirements for that particular type of mission.  Obviously the Air SAR and DR ICs would be our most highly trained as those are our most complex missions.  A IC-Lost Person could basically be a Ground Branch Director with a few additional skills.      

[MIGCAP]

Just more problems created by the "Lets pretend" attitude of CAP.  We embraced ICS so we could pretend to be important, we want to have an Incident Commander because that looks important.  We do not need ICs at all, or perhaps we need two or three at the NOC.
Years ago we had Mission Coordinators, job was to apply CAP assets to a task assigned by someone above us in the food chain. If a real IC needs support of an agency that provides services like search dogs, bulldozers, mounted SAR teams, etc. it is not a requirement that those suppliers by ICS, or have their own IC. They just have to follow orders. Write off all the ICS compliance, bring back the Mission Coordinator, and admit we have wasted a fortune and burned out 50% of our folks.

[RiverAux]

Like it or not, CAP does basically run the vast majority of our missions for all intents and purposes and using the ICS system and the associated titles are totally appropriate.  There is very little, if any, substantive difference between the training or duties of the old Mission Coordinators and our current ICs, so what would be served by going back other than making us less interoperable with other agencies when we do work with them? 

[DNall]

We're not interoperable now. We're bastardizing titles on people that don't meet the legit standards. An IC in CAP is not remotely the same as a FEMA IC. A CAP IC is not going to be picked up (on the basis of CAP trng/quals) to run a full multi-agency response. That's what an IC legitimately is.

The poster who said we should have a handful of highly qual'd ICs at the national/regional level who can & do take lead in a multi-agency/multi-state/jurisdiction response is dead on.

CAP runs team & at most task force level response with task organized staff & support. It's not full on ICS, and it doesn't really need to be for our internal operations. If we want to step higher on the playing field then it would be nice to learn and operate the right way, and we should train like we fight as well as do our internal missions the way we want to operate externally/strategically.

All that said... the current CAP/IC qual is not a big challenge. That's fine for ELT missions. If you don't have enough ICs, it's not cause the standards are too high. There's other org issues going on that you need to address.

[RiverAux]

An IC in CAP is not remotely the same as a FEMA IC.

And neither is the IC from the local fire department that regularly command operations involving dozens of people, but they are "Incident Commanders" as well.  There is no one standard for an Incident Commander that can run every conceivable type of incident.  Are you expecting FEMA to send an IC to run a CAP missing airplane mission at some point in the future?  No, I don't think so -- they aren't going to know the subject matter any more than a CAP IC would be able to run one of their operations. 

A CAP IC is not going to be picked up (on the basis of CAP trng/quals) to run a full multi-agency response. That's what an IC legitimately is.

Who says that?  The Fire Department IC isn't going to be asked to run a CAP mission either.  He isn't going to be put in charge of a lost person SAR or the response to the next Katrina. 

Every single agency under the sun is going to have their own specific training standards for their incident commanders and very few of them are going to be able to seamlessly run a mission for another agency or group of agencies. 

What NIMS is doing is getting everybody in the same position to have a basic core of knowledge (primarily of the NIMS system) so that when working with other agencies they're all using similar processes to run their operations and yes, at some levels, integrate with each other.  Sure, there may be some opportunities for individuals to mix and match with each other, but most likely this will only occur between agencies performing similar missions and it would be very unlikely to occur at the IC level as opposed to the lower end of the food chain.

[RiverAux]

Another way of approaching it would be to have several different types of Incident Commanders.  For example:  
IC- Air SAR
IC- Lost Person
IC- ELT
IC- Disaster Relief

I had forgotten that we sort of do this already -- we use "Counterdrug Mission Directors" to run CD missions. 

[NavLT]

I guess the discussion on old vs new is largely moot for a reason that has not hit the board yet "Funding".

CAP gets funding for ES missions, the Federal government has set some minimum standards for ICS to get funding.  IE we play by the rules or we don't get $$$.

As to the "Real ICS, or Full on ICS".  If you read the National ICS standards there is no such thing.  Level 1 Incidents are multi state national disasters, Level 4 are local multi agency and Level 5 are local one agency.  So the standard says the "Big One" is a level 1 but recognizes ICS for running smaller missions.

ICS is about scaleability and common tools.  ICS does not mean an OPS Section chief every time or helicopters every time it means when needed to maintain accountability and span of control.

As to the CAP running a mission or the Fire Chief running an air Search.  If they are appropriately trained, practice interoperability and have the capable ARs (Agency Reps) why Not?

It sounds like the old argument that a general cannot tell ships what to do and an admiral cannot tell tanks what to do.  But guess what they do, its called Joint.

ICS is supposed to be about a Good CAP ES guy trained for Plan Section Chief can do plans on a variety of incidents not just CAP SAR. 

I wear multiple hats (and have not gone bald yet) and it helps to have multiple players trained in different areas in on the command and general staff, they provide options a single point of view might never see.  Not being trained in ICS just takes the CAP options off the table which is not good for anyone.

V/R
LT J.

[Al Sayre]

The IC is a manager, he picks his staff based on the available resources and expertise. 

When I went through ICS 300 & 400, most of the table tops were related to Fires and Natural/Ecological Disasters.  I have a rudimentary knowledge of Fire Service Procedures from 30 years ago on the VFD, and 3 semesters of college chemistry to help me understand chemical spill implications, but I claim no expertise in either area, but I didn't have any problem running the exercises because I had people on my "staff" that were experts.  They knew best how to fight a fire, plan an evacuation etc.  As the IC my job was to see that they got what they needed to do it, keep track of the big picture, and make sure the paper got processed. 

That is the real beauty of ICS, you can put the experts where they are needed, handling all the details in their area of expertise, rather than tying them up trying to solve the managment issues. 

You don't need to be an expert in the field to run a mission; Search, Disaster, Fire, etc.  You just need leadership skills, a little common sense, a knowledge of the required paperwork, and most importantly know how to get in touch with those that are the experts.

[Larry Mangum]

As someone who has particpated in missions under the old MC system and under IC's as we do now, there is a big difference.  The majority of the MC's I have know or worked with have a tendency to be play GOD. They did not delegate or fully utilize the mission staff.   The IC's I have worked with on the other hand have been really good at utilizing the mission staff and understanding that CAP was just one player in the mission.  Why the difference? Because the training to become an IC for CAP is much more specific and requires specific training and classes in NIMS then it ever was for an MC.  You could be an MC just because the wing king decided you should be. The requirements to become an IC can not be wavered by the Wing King, only national can do so and they are very reluctant to do so. 

Is CAP NIMS compliant? NO, but individual wings are working on it and in some cases the majority of the IC's have completed all of the NIMS requirements.

[DNall]

An IC in CAP is not remotely the same as a FEMA IC.

And neither is the IC from the local fire department that regularly command operations involving dozens of people, but they are "Incident Commanders" as well.  There is no one standard for an Incident Commander that can run every conceivable type of incident.  Are you expecting FEMA to send an IC to run a CAP missing airplane mission at some point in the future?  No, I don't think so -- they aren't going to know the subject matter any more than a CAP IC would be able to run one of their operations.

No. I'm expecting at some point a CAP IC could go run a multi-state/multi-agency disaster response mission - not just the little piss ant jobs that get pawned off on CAP as one tiny little volunteer group in a mass of professional agencies. Moving our training to a point where some of our people can be the decision makers, and be team players with the real emergency response community... that's what IC actually means. Any other use of it is bastardizing the term to the point it has no meaning & ICS is all BS - hundreds of billions of dollars worth of BS at that.

A CAP IC is not going to be picked up (on the basis of CAP trng/quals) to run a full multi-agency response. That's what an IC legitimately is.

Who says that?  The Fire Department IC isn't going to be asked to run a CAP mission either.  He isn't going to be put in charge of a lost person SAR or the response to the next Katrina. 

Every single agency under the sun is going to have their own specific training standards for their incident commanders and very few of them are going to be able to seamlessly run a mission for another agency or group of agencies. 

What NIMS is doing is getting everybody in the same position to have a basic core of knowledge (primarily of the NIMS system) so that when working with other agencies they're all using similar processes to run their operations and yes, at some levels, integrate with each other.  Sure, there may be some opportunities for individuals to mix and match with each other, but most likely this will only occur between agencies performing similar missions and it would be very unlikely to occur at the IC level as opposed to the lower end of the food chain.

[/quote]
Actually, the point of NIMS is to take pieces from all over the place & assemble them into one single unified (temporary) organization/command structure that exists for the purpose of responding to X situation. It's just like an expeditionary Air Force, or what we more commonly call task organized units. CAP can't plug & play in that system. A whole lot of people can't yet and it may be some time before they can, but that's the purpose of NIMS (ICS is just a tool - software within that hardware environment).

My point being we don't need to lower the standards of what we got now. We need raise those. With ELTs though... a police dept doesn't activate ICS to run a house alarm call. That's done under a routine SOP with an in-place command structure. It's completely reasonable for us to run UDF in the same way, just like we do O-flts & a hundred other things.

[ZigZag911]

A police department, according to NIMS doctrine, actually does "activate" ICS on a house alarm response or any other minor event....however, it does notexpand the ICS staff structure -- that is, the "IC" would be the LE officer responding to the initial call, who would handle the situation and close it out.

Hypothetically let's say the event escalated --turned out to be a home invasion in progress. This would almost certainly expand quickly just within LE structure: SWAT, crowd control, investigators negotiators, senior supervisors.

And that's just within one resource specialty...depending on how things develop, this could eventually call for EMS, possibly fire dept, who knows?

The whole point to NIMS is to give emergency responders (first or otherwise) common terminology, forms, structures -- a format for encouraging interoperability when needed.

"IC" is the common term that signifies 'person from our agency who makes command decisions". It is not grandiose for CAP to have such individuals....it is a necessity.

Further, while an ELT-only IC makes sense, we need to establish it carefully, and part of the training needs to emphasize to these most basic level ICs the ability to recognize when the mission complexity has expanded to the point that a more experienced ("higher ;level", simply meaning more fully trained) IC is required.

[RiverAux]

You don't need to be an expert in the field to run a mission; Search, Disaster, Fire, etc.  You just need leadership skills, a little common sense, a knowledge of the required paperwork, and most importantly know how to get in touch with those that are the experts.

Actually, you do.  Remember, it is the IC's job to sign off on everything that is done in the mission.  How in the world do you expect an IC that knows nothing about a particular type of emergency to know if the plan being presented to him by mission staff makes sense or not? 

A police department, according to NIMS doctrine, actually does "activate" ICS on a house alarm response or any other minor event....however, it does notexpand the ICS staff structure -- that is, the "IC" would be the LE officer responding to the initial call, who would handle the situation and close it out.

Exactly.  I have been the official agency Incident Commander for a wildfire -- that "fire" consisted of nothing more than a smoking snag that had been hit by lightening and I was the only guy on scene waiting for the pumper truck to come up and put some water on it. 

"Incident Commander" is a very generic term that means different things in different situations and the training to hold that position has to be different depending on what the incident is.  Some people are trying to turn a system designed for maximum flexibility into a rigid structure that can't ever be alterered no matter what situation is in front of them.

[NavLT]

You don't need to be an expert in the field to run a mission; Search, Disaster, Fire, etc.  You just need leadership skills, a little common sense, a knowledge of the required paperwork, and most importantly know how to get in touch with those that are the experts.

Actually, you do.  Remember, it is the IC's job to sign off on everything that is done in the mission.  How in the world do you expect an IC that knows nothing about a particular type of emergency to know if the plan being presented to him by mission staff makes sense or not? 

Actually you do not need to be an expert in the field, you need to be the one responsible for the incident. It is nice to be both an expert and responsible but not always possible.  The IC for the next volcano explosion is not going to be a vulcanologist from FEMA it is going to be a Level 1 or 2 FEMA IC with command experience with Vulcanologists on his team.  The IC from Mt St Helen's is dead now and not available. The IC from the world trade Center colapse had never handled a 100 story building colapse before and the IC from the pentagon had never dealt with a Kamikaze 737 either.

[RiverAux]

There is a big difference between such once in generation events and routine incidents that can be expected to happen on a regular basis.  But, lets play that game -- the response to a volcano eruption will be quite similar to what happens in other incidents -- mass evacuation, mass casualties, etc.  You just need the volcano experts to tell you when to bug out and where not to go. 

You guys are just insane if you think that every Incident Commander in every agency is going to be interchangable and that they will be treated as such.  I don't care if you send a CAP IC to every training course available, if he hasn't been out cutting fireline at some point in his past, he isn't going to be put in charge of a multi-agency wildfire control operation.  And neither is FEMA going to call that US Forest Service wildfire IC to run the response to a terrorist incident in downtown LA. 

[arajca]

Once you get into the BIG incidents, individuals are not typically dispatched - teams are. Type 1 Overhead Team, for example. A Type 1 team can handle just about any incident. They may on a fire today, a flood next week, and the hurricane that hits New York next month. The underlying principle is the management is the same, just the details are different. You bring in experts and technical specialists and put them under Planning.

The IC doesn't need to be an expert in the type incident, they have to trust those under them to provide good information. If you can't trust your subordinates, you've lost. They also have to be willing to ask questions and seek clarification if something doesn't seem right.

[DNall]

A police department, according to NIMS doctrine, actually does "activate" ICS on a house alarm response or any other minor event....however, it does notexpand the ICS staff structure -- that is, the "IC" would be the LE officer responding to the initial call, who would handle the situation and close it out.

Exactly.  I have been the official agency Incident Commander for a wildfire -- that "fire" consisted of nothing more than a smoking snag that had been hit by lightening and I was the only guy on scene waiting for the pumper truck to come up and put some water on it. 

"Incident Commander" is a very generic term that means different things in different situations and the training to hold that position has to be different depending on what the incident is.  Some people are trying to turn a system designed for maximum flexibility into a rigid structure that can't ever be alterered no matter what situation is in front of them.

Okay, that's a different thing entirely. Yes I understand the ICS thinking and mgmt system can be applied all the time. As I said, ICS is just a tool. The term IC by itself or running a local incident under that system is completely meaningless. With an established chain of command you don't need ICS - it's intuitive. The only reason to even reference it is so the operators better understand what to do in a real incident.

In that multi-agency environment, their local chain of command is meaningless & they have to integrate into a task organized unit with components of several other agencies to respond to a specific incident.

CAP is not yet doing that, and certainly not training our personnel to take up leader/manager positions within that decision-making structure. THAT is the gap that divides us from real work in real disasters.

You guys are just insane if you think that every Incident Commander in every agency is going to be interchangable and that they will be treated as such.  I don't care if you send a CAP IC to every training course available, if he hasn't been out cutting fireline at some point in his past, he isn't going to be put in charge of a multi-agency wildfire control operation.  And neither is FEMA going to call that US Forest Service wildfire IC to run the response to a terrorist incident in downtown LA. 

Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SaR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I do see where you're coming from in use of ICS versus our using the titles for actual qualification levels. I would agree that some rethink might be needed there.

[NavLT]

Just trying to keep the playing field even.

If you say must be an expert it....it implies always.

If you say ICS does not fit large and small the same I would agree that is why they have Identified levels in ICS.

I would also argue that when you have an emergency that encompasses multiple disciplines you are going to have multiple agencies that feel their guy should be in charge.  In those cases you either pick one of the many qualified folks or you have a unified command with a comittee of IC's.

I think the original point of the thread is do you need an IC for an ELT mission. I feel the answer is yes you do need an Incident Commander for the Incident.  The point we all keep dancing around is what do you need to be a Level 5 Incident commander for an ELT mission with one UDFT team and/or One air crew.  That is where the training miniumums need to be looked at.  

The risk managment peice is if you have a very minimally qualifed IC in command what happens when it gets bigger. I am not sure if you can mandate the common sense to take a Level 5 IC and make them call in a Level 3 IC when something crosses wing/state boundries, but to my recollection we never have.  

And as a volunteer agency with limited resources and the New ICS stuff changing the power curve on getting people qualifed, even if they did call for a Level 3 IC would anyone answer the phone?

I truly worry that those questions are not being adequetly addressed in our command level forums.  Maybe they are being discussed but the answers they find are not being seen at my level.  

V/R
LT J.

[RiverAux]

The point we all keep dancing around is what do you need to be a Level 5 Incident commander for an ELT mission with one UDFT team and/or One air crew.  That is where the training miniumums need to be looked at. 

Exactly.  If we still want to have the guy running the ELT mission be called the "IC" (which he should be according to ICS), thats fine by me, but the IC for the ELT mission doesn't need to have jumped through all the hoops we want of our missing aircraft mission ICs. 

The risk managment peice is if you have a very minimally qualifed IC in command what happens when it gets bigger.

You do the same thing the Forest Service might do if that smoking snag I found managed to start a fire I couldn't put out by myself and a crew would have come in with a more qualified IC.  If it got away from them and we needed 5 crews and a airdrop, then a more qualified IC would be called in. 

[NavLT]

Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SAR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I think we should reverse engineer it:

1. Figure out what training that PODunk FD sends their Chief to that gets them to command a multi-agency fire, and make it available to CAP
2. Figure out what amount and type of interagency, multi-wing training needs to occur to get people marginally ready to fit into a larger structure like Katrina and do that training.
3. Work with the National Level NOC and DOS folks to get CAP members qualified at the ICS levels (Section chief and above for General Staff)  into some of these larger missions, so they can build the experience at larger issues to actually be useful at them.
4. Take a Page from the JCS world and work at the national level to have National (nonCadet) Special Activities to grow a more joint trained organization (Middle East Region has a great example in their SAR College, too short but great example).

There is no reason CAP could not grow to become a credible player at the table, except that we choose not to do so.

V/R
Lt J.

[IceNine]

The events that local yocal fire depts deal with even if it involves Multiple dept's, EMS, PD, Red Cross etc.  Are LOCAL Events.  They aren't dealing with multi county, multi-state, searches.  So if you want an accurate comparison to what we do you need to look at FEMA, or California wildfire chiefs, or that type of thing.

I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

It does happen just more for aircraft searches than for missing persons or disasters.  And rightfully so there are agenices that pay people to be the best at those areas. We are one of very few agencies with the equipment or training to track down an elt, and we focus on aircraft searches, most agencies focus on missing persons and disaster relief

[DNall]

Neither is anyone going to call the best IC in all of CAP to run an actual multi-agency SAR mission, or even the air component of that mission, because they are not remotely (on the basis of CAP trng) qualified for that. Hence, I'm saying we don't need to lower the standards.

I think we should reverse engineer it:

1. Figure out what training that PODunk FD sends their Chief to that gets them to command a multi-agency fire, and make it available to CAP
2. Figure out what amount and type of interagency, multi-wing training needs to occur to get people marginally ready to fit into a larger structure like Katrina and do that training.
3. Work with the National Level NOC and DOS folks to get CAP members qualified at the ICS levels (Section chief and above for General Staff)  into some of these larger missions, so they can build the experience at larger issues to actually be useful at them.
4. Take a Page from the JCS world and work at the national level to have National (nonCadet) Special Activities to grow a more joint trained organization (Middle East Region has a great example in their SAR College, too short but great example).

There is no reason CAP could not grow to become a credible player at the table, except that we choose not to do so.

Exactly

[DNall]

I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

[RiverAux]

I think we all need to keep in mind the parameters under which CAP operates.  While we often do missions for local agencies, our primary responsibility is to serve as the Air Force auxiliary and as such, our involvement in any major federal missions is going to continue to be restricted to our traditional missions unless we make a lot of changes to our operational procedures, and then we have to ask:  "Is it in the Air Force's interest for a CAP person to be leading a major multi-agency mission in which CAP has a small overall role?"  Why would the Air Force want a CAP IC running these missions? We all know how paranoid the AF has become about liability and other issues, so why would they want a CAP guy operating so far out of our traditional role in emergencies where they might be on the hook if he screws things up royally?

I don't recall hearing a clamoring from all the professional emergency response agencies for volunteers to take charge of them either. 

So, seeing as how we've got all sorts of issues with our own business, why don't we stick (at least for this thread), to what it takes to manage an ELT mission. 

[DNall]

I'm really trying to do away with the volunteer aspect of the org in all but the most literal sense of not getting a pay check. When a CAP officer shows up to a multi-agency mission, it shouldn't matter that he doesn't get paid any more than it matters how much one professional emergency responder gets paid versus another. It's a complete non-issue, and I promise you the guy waiting to get saved isn't considering our compensation to decide if we belong on the mission or not. That CAP officer still needs to be trained, qualified, and capable to exactly the same levels as paid responders.

That doesn't effect the relationship to the AF or our traditional mission set in any way. In fact, you'll find the 1AF/CC is the designated director of overall air operations for domestic disaster response. You would not be surprised to go to a hurricane response & see an AF officer in charge of air ops. Why then could that person not be a well-qual'd CAP officer (on AFAM orders)? It's a LONG way from where we are to that level. That's the kind of gap I'd like to bridge in our training.

As far as liability, that's also not a factor. It doesn't work that way in disaster response, and to the extent it does, the AF has no issue providing that coverage (ie AFAM). It should not be a corporate mission in federal disaster response. If it's state/local response, then it has to function under a state MOU providing coverage similar to AFAM - and that's already in place most everywhere (org level coverage, not necessarily indiv coverage).

[RiverAux]

The point of this thread is that your people should have the right amount of training for the job in front of them and that we have unduly restricted the number of people who can run our most common missions by requiring more training than is necessary for that job.  "use the right tool for the job".  In other words, no need to go all Tim Taylor on it. 

If you want to discuss training our ICs for other missions, that would be a topic for a different thread. 

[ZigZag911]

Actually the thrust on large, complex missions now is "Unified Command" -- that is to say a number of  ICs, each representing a particular agency or discipline, reaching joint decisions, speaking with one voice through a designated individual among them.

A unique capability CAP brings to these types of situations is not having much of an axe to grind -  state, county, and local first response agencies are often vying for the same budget money; there may be rivalry or even bad blood among the jurisdictions in a 'mutual aid' network; there is legendary frequent  lack of cooperation between federal and local LE.

In a scenario like this, an experienced CAP IC can often help smooth over differences and encourage unity and harmony.

If nothing else, the professionals hopefully won't want to squabble in front of the volunteers!

BTW, technically every AFAM has the AFRCC as IC; the CAP IC is actually the "On Scene Commander" -- but it has been my experience as a CAP IC that AFRCC far prefers the On Scene Commander to work with state and local agencies. AFRCC will support us, vouch for us, but they'd ordinarily rather we handled the details face to face.

[RiverAux]

The AFRCC controller is not an IC in any sense of the word.  They make the call on when to activate CAP and when to withdraw AFAM status.  Other than that, they're pretty much just an information conduit..  They're not involved in making plans, setting strategy, or any of that stuff.  Heck, the President has more input on how the military runs wars than the AFRCC has on how CAP is conducting a specific mission.  I'm reasonably sure I remember the guy from AFRCC in the last SAR Management Class I attended saying that they weren't ICs.   

[ZigZag911]

By policy (I believe AFI, but I'm not certain; I've both read it, and discussed it with a former region DO) AFRCC is in fact the IC for inland SAR.

I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is, nor was I able to find the reference during a brief search just now....but I am nearly certain this is the case.

[sardak]

The National SAR Plan, which is based on international SAR treaties and conventions, assigns the Inland and Aeronautical SAR Coordinator (SC) functions to the USAF, which makes the specific assignment to the 1AF/CC.  This is the general.  There is a Memorandum of Agreement between USAF and all 48 states in the Inland SAR Region which is signed by the 1AF/CC and the governor of each state.  Details are outlined in MOUs which are signed by agencies such as DEM, CAP, etc.

The following are excerpts from a Powerpoint presentation from AFRCC, the National SAR Plan, National SAR Manual and National SAR Supplement, with a few editorial changes.

1AF/CC, as SC, designates AFRCC as the SAR Mission Coordinator (SMC).  The RCC shift supervisor is the SAR Coordinator's duty officer, and is the predesignated SMC for most SAR missions. The RCC supervisor automatically acts as SMC for all SAR missions until relieved, or until another SMC is assigned, which usually happens.  This is the controller that you talk with on an an incident.

The SMC designates an On Scene Commander (OSC) or Incident Commander (IC), in the Incident Command System (ICS), to manage a SAR mission at the scene.  This will not be CAP if CAP is supporting another agency.  However, CAP still designates someone as IC, which causes problems at times. Some staff at AFRCC and the National SAR School have issues with this, too.

An OSC/IC prosecutes the SAR mission on scene using resources made available by the SMC, and should safely carry out the SAR action plan.  If the SMC does not provide a sufficiently detailed SAR action plan (which is normally what happens), the OSC/IC completes SMC duties for on scene operations, notifying the SMC. The unit designated as OSC/IC retains OSC/IC responsibilities from the time of designation until relieved or until the mission is completed.

This is also explained in CAPR 60-3, page 24, paragraph 6-3(b) and figure 6-1.

So AFRCC is the SMC, not IC.  No one should let a controller sitting at Tyndall AFB try to be the IC on an incident.  In rare cases, AFRCC will send controllers to an incident.

Mike

[IceNine]

I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

That's an interesting take, but it's not the truth.  I was the PSC for this particular mission.  When EMA arrived they said and I quote "we are here to support you"  they did things like make sure we had internet, maps, and called up local resources.

The Army Corp showed up and said we have a building we would like to offer you, and you have full use of our rangers for as long as you need them

Local sheriff himself was on site and I asked me what he could do and I set him on a trail.  He promptly called 2 detectives and they got to work following leads for me.

County Sheriff showed up and said I have Side Scan Sonar can you use it? 

All of these folks were called upon by the EMA Chief (also a county dispatcher) and were tasked by CAP's operations.  I know because I was writing the tasking orders.

SO... As I said CAP DOES run multi agency missions it is just a lot less frequently than we would hope.  This mission lasted a little over 3 days and CAP was requested by the locals this was not an ELT activation

[isuhawkeye]

I would recomend that a few on this board research

all hazards Iincident management team (IMT)

it might clarify a few things

[SAR-EMT1]

I haven't been on a mission yet where I didn't at least cross county lines.  And I have been on 2 searches in the past couple years where the CAP IC was THE IC.  One mission included EMA, EMS, PD (county and city), Fire, and Army Corp of Engineers.  Who were all working for us.

Despite appearances, I'm extremely confident that wasn't the case. I can almost guarantee you the SSgt sitting behind a console at AFRCC was actually requesting those agencies & directing their activity.

When EMA arrived they said and I quote "we are here to support you" 

Whoa Captain, if Group 9 has to run a mission in Douglas or Edgar County, expect EMA to show up and say "I am the county ESDA director, give me a brief, I am taking command"
I would say that wherever you were, you were lucky to have humble EMA rep.

[heliodoc]

^

Rightfully so.... The ESDA/ ES/Emergency of the County could be the Sheriff or a LE collocated duty.

Another depends on the level of the EM's leadership and the ability to project him/herself in an emergency or incident situation.. In some cases, expect to be pushed aside.  The real EM's and I do mean REAL, are the ones that are going to make the decisions during the incident and will the ones making the declarations for disaster funding (Stafford)

CAP has to know its function will be that solely of support unless the gods of each squadron or Wing have some awful GOOD to great MOU's and that is where the real rubber will hit the road. 

Nothing wrong with CAP support doing flood relief, handing out sammies, ARCHER and SDIS missions, etc, but unless it get written into the CAP Bylaws, that we are first reponders, people able to make SERIOUS decisions in disasters that require MORE than SAR skills, then we are at best, SUPPORT personnel and IC'sand MC's of our own missions!!

[heliodoc]

^

NOT first responders.......

[DNall]

We've utilized outside resources as well under our direction, but it was minor stuff like you're talking about - a state police helo for instance. That's a CAP mission in which others participated. That's not a giant joint mission in which CAP is one participant of many, but a CAP member may be selected (based on legit quals) to serve at higher levels over the whole joint effort. Two VERY VERY different things.

I'm not going to be able to run a joint mission with USCG (just an example) & have a CAP member be the IC for everyone. The CAP way of doing things is to have a seperate independent HQ running whatever taskings CG would like to hand us. That's bad. What should happen is a complete integration of the two staffs. I'd like to move to a future point where that's possible. The more realistic best case today is we'd put our staff on their section teams (air ops, planning, etc). That actual joint operating system is going to generate a lot more mission than just sitting on the sideline waiting for work.

And, "first responder" has very little meaning. NHQ says we're not for liability purposes. SaR is an emergency, we respond to it & find people that need rescuing, by definition... well, that's the issue is first responder can mean any range of things.

Yes, CAP is going to be a supporting agency in most cases. Part of that support may at some point include providing personnel to run various aspects of the general command staff. We don't just take people from the lead agency anymore, we take the most qualified people from the group and we work together as one team to accomplish the mission - that's ICS.

[SAR-EMT1]

^

Rightfully so.... The ESDA/ ES/Emergency of the County could be the Sheriff or a LE collocated duty.

Another depends on the level of the EM's leadership and the ability to project him/herself in an emergency or incident situation.. In some cases, expect to be pushed aside.  The real EM's and I do mean REAL, are the ones that are going to make the decisions during the incident and will the ones making the declarations for disaster funding (Stafford)

CAP has to know its function will be that solely of support unless the gods of each squadron or Wing have some awful GOOD to great MOU's and that is where the real rubber will hit the road. 

Nothing wrong with CAP support doing flood relief, handing out sammies, ARCHER and SDIS missions, etc, but unless it get written into the CAP Bylaws, that we are first reponders, people able to make SERIOUS decisions in disasters that require MORE than SAR skills, then we are at best, SUPPORT personnel and IC'sand MC's of our own missions!!

Let me make myself clear. The local ESDA folks would take over on a power trip.
I have yet to run into anyone who has a high opinion of the Douglas County director. The second thing he would do is order CAP to leave the area or face arrest.