I'm our squadrons cadet emergency services officer and i need help on getting some ideas as to what I should train on and how best to go about it. Any suggestions are welcome!
Thanks,
G.I. Jane
Talk to your senior counterpart. Whatever training you do should be furthering the squadron operations training plan. If your squadron doesn't have one, that's probably the place to start with your senior counterpart. In my opinion, there's no point in training without a plan for where you're going.
Thanks I'll talk to him at our next meeting.
What are some fun ES training things that you might have done?
Quote from: G.I. Jane on January 05, 2011, 02:38:35 PM
Thanks I'll talk to him at our next meeting.
What are some fun ES training things that you might have done?
My personal favorite, is for a weekend exercise. On a two day exercise I would know where I am taking everyone, but they "get lost" (stay with them of course), take everyone's maps and compasses. When you get there give them their maps and compasses back, and make them all work together to take care of what needs to get done, priorities of work, and actions on lost. Have them do it all together. Don't do anything to help them unless they are going in the totally wrong direction, then just give them hints. Have them setup shelter, and the next day tell them it is time for them to move, and watch them try to get back to base camp.
Many cadets like this because it is out of the norm of what is done in ES training. Normally ES training starts and stops with missing persons search and ELT search, ELT being the most used. Get out of the box. Not only is getting lost a fun action for your people, it is a valuable thing to know.
Quote from: manfredvonrichthofen on January 05, 2011, 03:13:24 PM
Quote from: G.I. Jane on January 05, 2011, 02:38:35 PM
Thanks I'll talk to him at our next meeting.
What are some fun ES training things that you might have done?
My personal favorite, is for a weekend exercise. On a two day exercise I would know where I am taking everyone, but they "get lost" (stay with them of course), take everyone's maps and compasses. When you get there give them their maps and compasses back, and make them all work together to take care of what needs to get done, priorities of work, and actions on lost. Have them do it all together. Don't do anything to help them unless they are going in the totally wrong direction, then just give them hints. Have them setup shelter, and the next day tell them it is time for them to move, and watch them try to get back to base camp.
Many cadets like this because it is out of the norm of what is done in ES training. Normally ES training starts and stops with missing persons search and ELT search, ELT being the most used. Get out of the box. Not only is getting lost a fun action for your people, it is a valuable thing to know.
Hm, I like this. I might use it...
Similar to training with a goal in mind, train with tasks in mind too. For example, one of the tasks for GTM3 is to move as part of a search line. If your goal is for participants to complete that task, make sure your training scenario involves a line search at some point. Playing cards work well for setting these up. Don't forget that line searches aren't the only kind of search pattern. Hasty, route, and wedge searches are just as important to know as they are used in different scenarios.
Whatever you do, in my opinion, it shouldn't just be a bunch of trivial scenarios cobbled together. Try running several scenarios focusing on specific tasks, then have a capstone scenario which puts everything together (for example, I might task a team to practice triangulation, search patterns, and attraction techniques on Day 1, then put that together with an injured hiker who has activated a PLB (you can simulate this with an ELT trainer) on Day 2.
I think when training you should pick a scenario and stick with it. If you are to do an ELT search scenario you should start at the very beginning of what happens on a mission, call up. Start from the beginning, go through every step including Receive the mission, op order, and everything between, and end the whole thing with an AAR.
The best thing to do, in my eyes, is to make your training as real as possible. As the Army says, train how you fight. To us train how you save.
My scenarios usually consist of pretty much that. "this aircraft was last heard from by SoCal Approach, and may have been heard on the CTAF at Palomar Airport, but never landed, and never contacted SoCal again", we have an ELT being heard from 11,000 ft over San Diego downtown, from about a 083 heading. Additional reports from a ground team on Mount Whitney are plotting a line of 280 degrees.
Here's the charts, what are you going to do next, I'm your driver, here's the equipment. Tell me where to go.
In order to work towards getting members qualified, I would pick a SQTR and see how many tasks you can train people for during the activity. Find as many members you can to do portions of the training -- especially cadets. Anyone can do the training. It is the sign-offs that you need the qualified Ground Team/Air Crew/Mission Base staff for.
Make it fun, interactive and hands-on!
All of these are excellent suggestions and I'm going to us many if not all of you suggestions at some point! Thanks so much it make the planning of the next five months a lot easier. I really like the one where you start with a call up and then it's kind of like a real mission from there. Along with the getting lost.
Thanks,
G.I. Jane :D
Keep an eye out here for the ES materials that I'm going to post at some point. I've been working on it in my spare time (which has been lacking recently) and it's moving pretty slow because I'm spending all night at the office sometimes, but I'm going to try getting some of it out in the next few weeks.