For the most part CAP has distributed its aircraft in proportion to where its membership and where most of its SAR missions take place. I'm sure there is a secret formula out there, but in practice, the Wings with the most missions have the most aircraft.
While we have talked about what it will mean to have fewer ELT missions in terms of the overall impact on CAP ES programs, we haven't really talked about how it will impact where we put our aircraft.
In the "old" days, states like CA, FL, and TX probably needed to have a lot more aircraft than other states because they were getting tons and tons of ELT missions and needed those resources to handle the overwhelming workload.
In the new reality, they will continue to have the most missions, since those states have more private aircraft and will probably still have the most ELT missions. However, the overall number of flight hours flown to prosecute those missions will be much lower even if a single mission may require more resources than an ELT mission did in the past.
So, what is going to happen is that theSAR hours flown by those wings is going to drop which will mean that the overall number of hours being put on their planes is going to be lower and much closer to that seen in states that won't really be changed much by having their ELT missions reduced.
What I see happening is that the low-mission wings will now be more competitive in terms of flight hours with the big boys which will give them the opportunity to "steal" planes from them by proving that they're actuallly using their airplanes more.
Yes, I realize that the little guys will also be losing ELT hours, but those were never a big part of their flight program.
Say you've got a small state that does 500 flight hours a year, but only 50 were associated with ELT missions. If they lose half their ELT missions, they're only going to drop from 500 to 475 hours. Hardly a dent.
Compare that to a big state that has 2000 flight hours, but with 500 ELT mission hours. If that gets cut in half, they "lose" 250 flight hours -- what we expect a single plane to use in a whole year.
But, let me be realistic in that this change won't be massive or quick. But over time, I could see up to 10-20% of the aircraft in the big states being moved elsewhere as mission needs in the new reality are observed.
There is no connection between "missions" and aircraft assignment.
Its based on number of hours flown and where the pilots are.
Neither is going to be changed because of fewer ELT searches, which account for a very small percentage
of hours flown. If anything the "hours per mission" is increasing because we now put up at least one plane for every beacon.
California is having problems getting Crews for the planes they have
No recruiting AT ALL.
10 aircraft grounded because the State cannot pay for Maintenance.
Squadrons are being told they must pay for their own 50 hours and if Wing maintenance depot repair becomes a reality the Squadrons will have to pay for the aircraft to be flown there and back to squadron (I assume they will pay for the crew to fly back and forth too)
What?
That's not how it works. There's way more to the story.
Quote from: Eclipse on May 16, 2009, 03:48:09 PM
There is no connection between "missions" and aircraft assignment.
Its based on number of hours flown and where the pilots are.
Don't you think there is a connection between the number of missions and the number of hours flown? I am by no means saying that missions themselves are the number that folks look at when distributing aircraft, but that certainly plays a fairly important role in how many flying hours you have.
Quote from: RiverAux on May 17, 2009, 12:58:07 AMbut that certainly plays a fairly important role in how many flying hours you have.
No, they really don't.
The average actual mission is going to be 1-2 hours per airframe, tops. A good SAREx day might be 5-10 hours per plane total, including transport (highbirds would skew a little higher).
Considering that we need what? 400 hours per airframe per year
actual (not average per state as it used to be), actual and training mission hours
maybe account for 25-30% of total flown in a really active ES state. The training won't change, so the only variable is the actuals, and as I said, in my state
the flight hours are increasing per mission (because at least one aircraft is always launched), though I'd guess the number of missions themselves is decreasing. Probably close to a wash.
Fudging a WAG, there's probably 20 hours or less actuals flown in my state a year. Even double that would be insignificant across the whole fleet (my state needs ~3200 hours a year for the minimums).
A factor, yes. An issue with less ELT's? No. I've never heard a single discussion regarding anyone auditing the
why we're flying, only that the aircraft are being used for
something. And at the same time our use of the birds for photo recon and other searches is increasing.
And bear in mind you have no idea where the actuals will be, so moving them around is a waste - you have to leave the aircraft where the pilots are, which won't change because SARSAT isn't monitoring 121.5 anymore.
At one time CAP used a formula to determine the distribution of aircraft. It heavily weighted the number of mission pilots and observers along with infrastructure critical assets and geography. Of course planes assigned still had to eet the 200 hour minimum flight time per year requirement.
I agree that any redution in ELT missions and flight time could result in aircraft reassignments.
QuoteFudging a WAG, there's probably 20 hours or less actuals flown in my state a year. Even double that would be insignificant across the whole fleet (my state needs ~3200 hours a year for the minimums).
I think you missed the point. A state with almost no missions is likely to be positively effected, if anything. It is the states that are getting large amounts of mission hours that could potentially lose some.
QuoteAnd bear in mind you have no idea where the actuals will be, so moving them around is a waste - you have to leave the aircraft where the pilots are, which won't change because SARSAT isn't monitoring 121.5 anymore.
And the reason we put the planes where the pilots are was partly becuase where you have more GA pilots, you're likely to have more missions. More GA pilots = more GA planes = More ELT missions. I'm not sure that the popluation-missing aircraft relationship is nearly as strong.
I'm not saying that this is going to change everything. AFRCC missions are not the major part of our flying hours. All I'm saying is that over time, the extra flying hours in states that had a lot of ELT missions is going to decline and make it harder for them to meet their minimum hour requirements, making it more likely that they will see some of their planes moved.
Quote from: RiverAux on May 16, 2009, 02:55:39 PM
In the "old" days, states like CA, FL, and TX probably needed to have a lot more aircraft than other states because they were getting tons and tons of ELT missions and needed those resources to handle the overwhelming workload.
In the new reality, they will continue to have the most missions, since those states have more private aircraft and will probably still have the most ELT missions. However, the overall number of flight hours flown to prosecute those missions will be much lower even if a single mission may require more resources than an ELT mission did in the past.
So far that does not seem to be the case in FL since we have to launch an aircraft for essentially every 121.5 ELT. Missions that would never have seen an aircraft launch now require one, so if anything, I think we will have MORE flying hours.
Case in point - the ELT mission I wrote about in another thread where the ELT was found at an airport: If we'd have gotten merges from SARSAT, we'd have checked that airport and never called for an aircraft at all.
Joe, I agree with you on ths matter. It is not fiesable to send GTM out without having a defined area to search. It is a better use of time to launch an aircraft and locate it even if the beacon is found to be on your normal airport I have seen this over and over. AFRCC calls the beacon 20-30 miles out you launch an aircraft and its on the airport or within a 1/2 mile.
We had teams converging on the original point and they were 35 miles off course. Aircraft usage will remain the same or grow