Internet Safety for a Safety Briefing...?

[JeffDG]

If anyone is looking for absolutely first-rate material for an Internet Safety program:

http://www.packet-level.com/kids/

If you ever get the chance to see/hear Laura present this material, take it...she's a first rate security expert who spends a ton of free time doing the stuff for parents and kids.

[Critical AOA]

I agree it is a good subject for cadets if it is aimed at avoiding meeting bad actors. Anything we can do to keep kids safe is good.  I am less enthused if it is aimed at how not to get a virus on your PC.  That really isn't a safety issue. 

Most of the monthly safety briefings that I have attended had nothing to do with aviation safety.  Some of the topics were avoiding heat injuries in the summer, flood water safety, how not to get hit by lightning and the like.  All worthwhile subjects indeed but I would like to see more aviation related topics. 

[Private Investigator]

CAP safety has reached such a ridiculous level.  The regs require a 15 minute briefing each month. 

That is because some Squadrons in the past never had safety briefings, EVER. If you remember back just five years ago when the Unit did quarterly Safety Reports to document what they did? I was inspecting one Unit that obviously just pencil whipped that report because they did such a bad job at fudging on the report. I doubt they had a safety briefing on Memorial Day, I doubt they had a safety briefing on a Sunday (no activity that day), I doubt they had a safety briefing on a Tuesday, they meet on Mondays.

Safety is common sense but occassionally you have to remind people to use common sense. 

[AirDX]

Most of the monthly safety briefings that I have attended had nothing to do with aviation safety.  Some of the topics were avoiding heat injuries in the summer, flood water safety, how not to get hit by lightning and the like.  All worthwhile subjects indeed but I would like to see more aviation related topics.

That's because most of our members aren't pilots.  I've been doing safety briefings for three different organizations in CAP for about 3 years.  At each the percentage of active pilots ranges from 0 to 10%.  I try really hard to give relevant, interesting safety briefs.  If I got up in front of 30 cadets and 10 senior members, not a single one a pilot, and started lecturing on the the dangers of hydroplaning ("blah, blah, 9 times the square root of the tire pressure, blah, blah") they'd all be snoozing in 30 seconds.  I can talk about stuff like thunderstorm avoidance to group like that, but only in very general terms; it becomes more of an AE presentation at that point.

Too, you have to look at where the risks are.  We have a problem with hangar rash.  We don't break a lot of airplanes otherwise.  We do injure people in falls, in heat injuries, and during PT.  We do have people with medical conditions, in some cases unreported, keeling over at CAP activities.  That just covers the risks during CAP activities.  Outside of CAP, we face all the same threats everyone else does: fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  I hear people (here on CT anyway, not so much in the real world) complain about getting safety briefings about those types of things, "they have nothing to do with CAP".  Guess what, Bubba, if you are killed in a tornado, or falling off a ladder, or by a downed power line, or whatever, you are not around to do your CAP job, so your behavior outside of CAP affects mission readiness inside of CAP.

Therein lies my bottom line with safety briefings: if "it", whatever "it" is, will injure you, and/or prevent you from performing for CAP in some fashion, or cause CAP material loss, "it" is a good topic for a safety briefing.

The challenge is to come up with a topic and make it relevant every month.  It's not easy.  Some of you complainers should try it.  If you are not happy with your safety officer's product, come up with a briefing and volunteer to give it at your next monthly safety education session.

Some of the topics are gimmes - June is the start of hurricane season here in the central Pacific, so guess what I talk about every May?  October is fire safety month.  Last October I talked about smoke detectors, spurred by testing mine and my neighbor's, and finding a 40% failure rate.  Did you know that smoke detectors have expiration dates?  10 years in service for most of the common ones, and they are supposed to be replaced.  The manufacture date is stamped inside.  I did not know that until I started working on my 15 minutes of fame for October '11.

I do talk about aviation stuff, but again, it needs to be relevant to the observers, scanners or laymen in the group.  Getting too technical excludes people and leaves them feeling confused and unhappy, too.

As a FAASTeam representative, I encourage pilots to participate in the WINGS program.  There are a load of online safety training modules, and taking them through the FAASTeam website will auto-populate them in CAP e-Services, giving you safety credit for the month.  Attending a local FAA safety meeting does the same thing (if you've registered your CAP ID on the WINGS website).  So there's an outlet for the pilot that wants more flight-oriented safety stuff, and it counts for CAP.  Your Form 5 plus one single online training module is enough to get you the Basic WINGS award.  It's a good deal.

There are lots of ways to skin the cat, and lots of different ways to look at safety.  Keep an open mind and a positive attitude.   

[Woodsy]

Most of the monthly safety briefings that I have attended had nothing to do with aviation safety.  Some of the topics were avoiding heat injuries in the summer, flood water safety, how not to get hit by lightning and the like.  All worthwhile subjects indeed but I would like to see more aviation related topics.

As a FAASTeam representative,

Ahh, you must know Obie! 

[Private Investigator]

AirDX was spot on.

Thank you sir