Mission response times

[Walkman]

What's an acceptable amount of time to go from an UDF mission alert call to reporting at base, ready to deploy? We've been building a new ES program over the past two years in my unit and have had been called for three UDF missions in the past 6 months.

The first was a mess. We took so long to get a team ready and assembled that the aircrew who was also UDF qual'd landed, got a car and found the ELT themselves.

Second mission, we had a team ready in about 1.5 hours assembled at the squadron building and then it took another hour to travel to the grid. We found the ELT within 45 minutes.

Third mission we had a team called, assembled and in the car starting to DF in an hour. Unfortunately for us this time the aircrew was ahead of us. They landed and DF'd the ELT shortly after the UDF team got on the road.

We're getting more opportunities to do missions now and that's great. I'd like to keep honing our response as much as possible. 

[Spaceman3750]

In my area, UDF teams deploy direct to the field, usually meeting at a member's home. The last ELT I responded to I had gathered my second person and called the IC within 30 minutes of the alert.

[Eclipse]

^ +1

Response time to the AO depends on where it is, but I would say 1 hour is a reasonable goal.   Anything less then that will be very hard to manage.

But an hour from the call to wheels up is reasonable.

[vento]

^ +1

Response time to the AO depends on where it is, but I would say 1 hour is a reasonable goal.   Anything less then that will be very hard to manage.

But an hour from the call to wheels up is reasonable.

You guys do UDF in an airplane over there at ILWG??   
j/k

[Walkman]

In my area, UDF teams deploy direct to the field, usually meeting at a member's home. The last ELT I responded to I had gathered my second person and called the IC within 30 minutes of the alert.

We keep our LPER at the sqdn building (Army Reserve Center) and it's centrally located for most of the people to meet there. We've only got 2 SMs that are UDF at the moment. I wonder if it would be a good idea to get another LPER and have each of us have one so we could meet closer to the AO.

When do you get the call? The last three missions have all been called once the aircrews have been deployed. I wonder if we could be more efficient if we got the call the same time as the the air crews so that we're ready to go the minute they get a decent ping on the signal?

[Spaceman3750]

My wing has an alerting system, it usually goes out once an IC is assigned and is ready to start spinning resources. Depending on the weather and scenario, he may deploy UDF teams immediately or wait until an aircrew has isolated the area. Because I don't have access to the squadron office outside of meeting nights (easily) I keep the L-Per at my house.

[RiverAux]

Well, for this sort of basic mission I think that an hour to get a basic ground team underway (from wherever the start point) is a good goal.  I like to see an airplane in the air in about 1.5 hours. 

[PHall]

^ +1

Response time to the AO depends on where it is, but I would say 1 hour is a reasonable goal.   Anything less then that will be very hard to manage.

But an hour from the call to wheels up is reasonable.

You guys do UDF in an airplane over there at ILWG??   
j/k

We do in CAWG!!!  There have been more then a few ELT "finds" made by an aircrew who isolated the target to an airport, landed and using the aircraft DF and either a handheld airband transceiver or an E-Per located and secured the ELT long before the UDF team could get there.