O-2006 requires a night time sortie for performing "Wing null to a non-reflected signal (one during the day and one at night)."
See excerpt below.
Are we doing this?
Evaluation Preparation
Setup: Provide the student with an aircraft and pilot, a sectional and/or map of the local area. Place a practice beacon in a suitable location for each type of ELT search.
Brief Student: You are a Mission Pilot trainee asked to perform ELT searches.
NOTE: The performance measures are designed for the L-Tronics DF; adjust as necessary for your aircraft.
Evaluation
Performance measures Results
1. Locate a practice beacon using the following search methods:
a. Homing to a non-reflected signal. P F
b. Homing to a non-reflected signal at night (combine with 1.d, if possible). P F
c. Homing to a reflected signal. P F
d. Wing null to a non-reflected signal (one during the day and one at night). P F
Student must receive a pass on all performance measures to qualify in this task. If the individual fails any measure, show what was done wrong and how to do it correctly.
I have, but I have also known MP's who were never taught to wing null, or at least have no idea how. I did it in the 206 I fly at work once. I was coming back from a surveillance flight and heard an ELT. Ended up being an R-22 that had crashed the day before in Chowchilla CA and nobody bothered to turn off the ELT. My Observer (or Flight Officer in my world) was pretty impressed.
Ill be honest with you...when I was assigned as the pilot for work, we had no formal training program to be a Dept pilot. So I pretty much took the Form 5 and Form 91, airplane questionaires, etc. whited out "Civil Air Patrol" and wrote in "Fresno County Sheriff". Why reinvent the wheel?
Interesting. Since I don't evaluate MPs, I totally missed the night requirement. I have also never done a night ELT search, in the local area or at NESA. I am unaware of anyone doing a night ELT search in our wing. More comments???
Quote from: Short Field on March 02, 2010, 06:13:00 PM
Interesting. Since I don't evaluate MPs, I totally missed the night requirement. I have also never done a night ELT search, in the local area or at NESA. I am unaware of anyone doing a night ELT search in our wing. More comments???
It's been a while...but I know that we have sortied on night ELT searches in the past.
I will also say that AFAK we have NEVER done any night training in the last 3-4 years.....so I suspect that this one may have been penciled whipped.
On a side note.......is doing a wing null at night different then doing one during the day? Does the night conditions change the way it nulls? Are there any thing you do different (beyond normal night vs day flying) when doing a night wing null? What I am getting at.....is this requirement even valid in the first place?
Washington Wing as part of it's MP training program does require students to complete a night sortie to complete the tasks outlined above.
I've been on lots of night ELT missions (on the ground), and several had aircraft launches.
Can't speak to the MP eval aspect, however.
As to whether we're doing it, I would hope so.
I don't like how they've set up this particular task since it combines activities that have to be done during the day and during the night into a single task that can't realistically be done in a single sortie.
They need to separate it into separate day and night tasks so that you can do the day tasks during a day sortie (and get them signed off) and do the night tasks during a night sortie (and get them signed off).
What? You mean if we are required to perform at night we should train at night? Dont interject common sense into this.
IIRC the tasks with an "O" prefix are observer tasks. All he pilot has to do is follow the observer's instructions and the guy in the right seat does the rest. Since when do pilots DF? All they have to know is how to make level turns either to the right or left. Simple. The observer notes the null, converts the bearing, and moves to a second location to get the cut, the third position to get a fix. Heck, the pilot can't fly and draw on a map at the same time.
One of my finds was a night DF. Pretty low illumination but was able to find the ELT with no sweat and direct the ground team to the target. If the on board ELT would have gone down, we could have done it, but of course it's not as accurate. When we did wing null or aural searches, the pilot would fly what I told them.
When does a pilot DF? My brutha....the pilot needs to know how to do everything. I have flown searches with observers who hadnt been in a plane in months, if not a year +, not to mention actually flying a search.
That's the problem with CAP - actual training is by exception. Point taken. Sad, but true.
Quote from: Gunner C on March 02, 2010, 09:47:04 PM
IIRC the tasks with an "O" prefix are observer tasks.
The "O" stands for "Operations Tasks".
Quote from: Mustang on March 13, 2010, 10:59:25 AM
Quote from: Gunner C on March 02, 2010, 09:47:04 PM
IIRC the tasks with an "O" prefix are observer tasks.
The "O" stands for "Operations Tasks".
Yep. They have O tasks in the GT book too.