Getting people interested in the ground side

[Star-Maker]

I'm my squadron's Assistant ES Training Officer.  The commander appointed me with the idea that I could move the squadron's ground program along, since our ES Training Officer is a pilot who focuses primarily on the air side of things.

The thing is, at least on the senior side (we're a composite squadron, and have separate meetings for seniors and cadets since our meeting place isn't big enough to hold everybody), most folks in the squadron are pilots/aircrew.  We've got two planes and an aero club on the base where we meet, so we attract a lot of air types, and most of them have never done ground stuff.  Our wing had a really nice GTM3/UDF training program, led by people who have taught GSAR at NESA, over a series of weekends in the last several months, but only three seniors from the squadron besides me participated in the training program at all, and I was the only one who participated in more than one session.

I'm pretty new to CAP - I've only been in for six months.  Do people here have any suggestions as to what I can do to promote ground team/UDF work within the squadron, particularly amongst the seniors?  I certainly don't expect everyone to be interested in it.  I just want to get folks who might never have considered it before but might find it fun, or who might be undecided about it.  I'd love for us to get to the point where between seniors and cadets we can field our own ground team.

[MIKE]

It's hard to do when there are no missions.  The ops tempo in MAWG has tapered off pretty significantly over the years.

[N Harmon]

Wow, you got three senior members to attend the GSAR training, not including yourself?   :clap:

Perhaps we should be asking YOU how to get people interested in ground ES. 

I think folks work GSAR for two primary reasons, with plenty of overlap between them. First are those who like to camp, hike and do things in the wilderness; Second are those who want to volunteer in ES but can't or don't want to go air. Anybody who doesn't fit into either of those two probably won't enjoy ground ES enough to be effective at it and this is plainly obvious when you have someone who is punching a card to get to PSC.

So my suggestion would be to find out who enjoys camping or hiking or thinks they might, and invite them to your training.

Good luck!

P.S. I think I know some of those GSAR folks who teach at NESA and if they are who I think they are, you have some of the most knowledgable people in CAP right there. Learn everything you can from them!

[Eclipse]

The missions are there, but you have to have the capabilities to market yourselves to local agencies.

Take a look around at the last year as to what and where the DA / DR has meant to your town or facility host and train
to be prepared for those missions.

Then, once you have a team that will respond, you can start selling your services.

With the way governments are strapped for resources these days, once you get a rep for answering the phone
and providing professionalized volunteers with their own insurance for the price of gas and lunch, you'll have plenty to do.

[Star-Maker]

Nathan: Well, one of the other people who went is the other Assistant ES Training Officer.  I can't take any credit for his attending, much as I would like to. 

That's a good point that people with preexisting love of camping and hiking are more likely to be interested.  And perhaps I can make the point to the pilots that it'll help their coordination with ground teams if they have some ground team knowledge.

We (MAWG, not the squadron specifically) do get missions, if not a huge number of them.  There have been seven or eight that I've heard about and/or seen alerts for since I started.  We're working on trying to get more - I went through the Ambassador training, a new MAWG program that teaches members to initiate relationships with their local agencies, and, if possible, try to get MOUs.

According to a presentation at the MAWG conference, we have 120-something qualified ground team members and...I think it was 18 qualified ground team leaders?  So, as a wing, we have teams that we can offer on the ground side.  It's just that my squadron doesn't have its own.

[RiverAux]

I've spent a lot of time trying to think up ways to recruit new senior members to participate in CAP GSAR activities.  I don't see existing senior members as a "market".  If they wanted to GT work, they'd already be doing it. 

There are two significant barriers that I see to recruiting new adults for GSAR:
1.  Almost all senior squadrons and just about all composite squadron senior sections spend almost all of their meeting time focused on flying and air SAR issues.  People that are interested in GSAR are not going to want to attend regular meetings that maybe talk about ground issues once a year.  It just don't think it possible to have vigorous ground and air programs in the same unit.  Too much time is needed to meet all the requirements of the air program.  Air people don't want to do ground training and ground people don't want to do air stuff at meetings.  Ideally you would have people wanting to do both, but in the real world, that just doesn't happen as much as we need. 

2.  CAP units that do GSAR seriously are either cadet squadrons or are the senior members that work with the cadet portions of composite squadrons.  People that just want to do GSAR are not necesssarily interested in having to do the very hard work of helping to run a cadet program just so that they can do GSAR. 

My conclusion is that the only way to get new senior members that are really interested in doing GSAR is to have a senior squadron that is GSAR focused and does minimum, if any, training for air operations.  This would allow them to spend all their meeting and training time on ground topics, which are as extensive as are the requirements for air ops, if you're doing them right. 

However, even if you start a GSAR CAP senior squadron, I have a hard time coming up with ideas on ways to recruit people to participate. 

[NC Hokie]

That's a good point that people with preexisting love of camping and hiking are more likely to be interested.  And perhaps I can make the point to the pilots that it'll help their coordination with ground teams if they have some ground team knowledge.

Another angle would be to remind aircrews that they can land and silence ELTs at airports (or elsewhere if local ground transportation is available) once they're UDF qualified.

[Al Sayre]

In our wing the policy is that you must complete UDF before you complete any aircrew qual's.  The reason is two-fold. 

First is so you can land and do a ramp search & secure an ELT if needed. 

The second came from a realization we had during/after an actual search mission for a missing aircraft back in Jan'09. 

The aircraft (a crop duster) disappeared at the beginning of about 5 days of pretty nasty weather.  Low ceilings, fog and thunderstorms pretty much prevented us from launching search aircraft (we got about 2 sorties out IIRC).  Had about 40-50 pilots, observers and scanners calling in from their home bases telling us they were sitting there ready to go, waiting for the weather to clear.  In the meantime, we managed to field about 3 GT's with Cadets making up the majority of the members.  They did what they could, including ramp checks at around 20 small unattended airfields and duster strips. 

Meantime at mission base we are fielding dozens of phone calls from potential witnesses that need to be checked etc., and just didn't have the teams/people to do it.  We realized that if those 40-odd people were UDF qualified then we could send them out in 2 man teams in COV's and POV's to run the roads, conduct ramp checks, and do interviews. 

The aircraft was finally located by one of the witnesses who had called in on day 1 of the search.  We had sent one of the teams to his location, but by the time they arrived to interview him, he had left. We couldn't re-establish contact for 2 days.

Unfortunately, the pilot was lost in the crash, and the timing wouldn't have made any difference, but it did drive home the fact that aircrew that are only aircrew qualified are useless if the weather prohibits an air search. 

By getting them all at least UDF qualified, they can be a big asset to the search when you can't fly.  If we had been able to use those aircrew as 20 or so 2-man UDF teams out on the road, doing the ramp checks, talking to witnesses and just talking to people in the area, there is a good chance that we would have found the aircraft the first day.

How's that for a good reason to get ground qualified?

[nesagsar]

Look around for organizations that can help you like ESDA or whatever equivilant is in your area. If you can sign an MOU with your county ESDA unit to provide additional search manpower when called than you will have much better success in motivating training.

[RADIOMAN015]

Very few senior members overall are interested in the ground side of CAP SAR.  First off there's a lot of training and equipment requirements and at least in our wing there's very little of a ground team callout because missing person searches are handled by the State Police and that would be the primary reason for a ground team call out.

Even for a UDT team at this point, the callouts are so few that it would be difficult BUT not impossible to get seniors interested in this.  I do like the idea of having aircrews qualified in ground DF capabilities and our former operations officer did emphasize to the flight crews that it was to their advantage (e.g. weather won't allow flying) to get certified in UDF, so they could still participate.

I even have a challenge getting enough senior members interested in ground support roles, e.g. mission radio operator, and this really doesn't involve the purchase of any additional equipment or uniforms and training requirements isn't that intensive.  Also for EVERY air mission there's a requirement for ground radio station operation, so there actually is a higher probability of being utilized. 

In our wing we do have some dedicated ground team trainers and I salute their efforts in training primarily cadets and the limited senior members who have an interest. :clap:
RM   

[MIKE]

MAWG has UDT teams now?  Hardcore!  What do they do, silence ELTs from planes that ditch on the water by diving down and placing demo charges? 

[RADIOMAN015]

MAWG has UDT teams now?  Hardcore!  What do they do, silence ELTs from planes that ditch on the water by diving down and placing demo charges? 

Mike, you may be on to something, the wing commander is working on trying to get more missions for CAP, never thought of this one but for the record UDF teams :angel:
RM

[wuzafuzz]

A few thoughts:

A lot of senior members may be under the impression that ground team is "just a cadet thing."  It often turns out that way but it doesn't have to.  Keep in mind there are senior members who avoid cadets like crazy, for a variety of reasons.

Make sure that training opportunities market to senior members.  Sometimes only cadets are informed.  Maybe even consider some GTM seniors-only classes.  Scheduling concerns can be a bit different for adults who sometimes disappear on business trips or have to work overtime, etc.  It took me a long time to wrap up GTM3 for those reasons.

Building a senior member-only team might even have merit, for those of us that no longer move at teenage speed.  ;-)  Downside is the planning people at a REDCAP or SAREX may not take to the idea of separate whippersnapper and geezer teams.  You takes your chances, but my wing is pretty good about keeping teams together.

I hope this doesn't sound like an anti-cadet post.  Just yesterday I spent 12 hours in the field with cadets hunting a real ELT followed by a practice beacon search.  We had a great time and some of those "kids" are DF animals! 

[Rotorhead]

Very few senior members overall are interested in the ground side of CAP SAR.  First off there's a lot of training and equipment requirements and at least in our wing there's very little of a ground team callout because missing person searches are handled by the State Police and that would be the primary reason for a ground team call out.

Maybe in your Wing.

In ours, the SOs call us out for missing person searches.

[Rotorhead]

Building a senior member-only team might even have merit, for those of us that no longer move at teenage speed.  ;-)  Downside is the planning people at a REDCAP or SAREX may not take to the idea of separate whippersnapper and geezer teams.  You takes your chances, but my wing is pretty good about keeping teams together.

Black Sheep is a senior sqdn and has a GT. In fact, it is at the SAREX this weekend.

See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlHmEHVVC9g

[billford1]

In our Squadron we have a decent rapport between GTMs and Pilots. Some of our Pilots have worked to get their GT quals. The learning process for us is refining how well GTs and Air Crews coordinate together. We've been fortunate to have some Air Crew members join us when needed to form a Ground Team. We like to have the Cadets train and get qualified but when we get a real mission very few Cadets will come out for a mission where we're located. Many SMs can't come out either. When it comes to older SMs I want to get as many as I can get to come out on a Ground Team. When missions happen at inconvenient times many older SMs will come out and join the team. Many regular qualified GTMs can't get away from work or school. I've even conferred with ES Leaders about flying Ground Team Members in to augment a GT even if you can only get one or two people given our limited means to fly them there.

[mynetdude]

I've been in CAP for 4 years now, done a little of a few things, would like to do more for the learning experience mostly but not for the actual as I have quite a bit of limitations.

some poster up here made a point that some ground ops stuff misconception is that its for cadets only which doesn't make all that sense as I was a bit bewildered as to how cadets would get qualified without adults? Turns out like that misconception, I was wrong as always

I quit qualifying for air crew due to my vision limitations, I'm not good at being able to do a lot of things including MRO due to my hearing so I've recently been re-qualying for UDF so I hope to be called for UDF searches in the near future although my unit does not have DF equipment and UDF requires a 2nd person (all I need is a trainee, unless the wing specifically forbids it which mine does not).

My wing also does not prohibit aircrews from silencing an ELT only on the ramp/field once they go off airport they have to be UDF qualified so we don't require UDF qualified aircrews.

I have been working on my FLM with goals to be FLS qualifications but I can't get that in my wing as I have to travel outside of my wing and even FLM/FLS is a vision challenge for me as well (I have no problem seeing aircraft/propellers, lights, etc) I can't see the pilot behind that windscreen unless they are facing the sun (if there is any sun and it isn't overcast).

I would like to do GT but my orthopedic needs prohibit me from doing so, I will always keep my MSA qualifications as I regularly support IT at mission base in a variety of ways.

I like to camp... in my RV!!! but anyways, maybe I'll come play in somebody's backyard if they'll let me (or invite and don't worry I do play in my own too).

Anyway, IMHO when you get new members get them into the easy stuff then work them into UDF then show them what GT is all about try this with younger folks who can and are able.

[billford1]

I've been in CAP for 4 years now, done a little of a few things, would like to do more for the learning experience mostly but not for the actual as I have quite a bit of limitations.

some poster up here made a point that some ground ops stuff misconception is that its for cadets only which doesn't make all that sense as I was a bit bewildered as to how cadets would get qualified without adults? Turns out like that misconception, I was wrong as always

I quit qualifying for air crew due to my vision limitations, I'm not good at being able to do a lot of things including MRO due to my hearing so I've recently been re-qualying for UDF so I hope to be called for UDF searches in the near future although my unit does not have DF equipment and UDF requires a 2nd person (all I need is a trainee, unless the wing specifically forbids it which mine does not).

My wing also does not prohibit aircrews from silencing an ELT only on the ramp/field once they go off airport they have to be UDF qualified so we don't require UDF qualified aircrews.

I have been working on my FLM with goals to be FLS qualifications but I can't get that in my wing as I have to travel outside of my wing and even FLM/FLS is a vision challenge for me as well (I have no problem seeing aircraft/propellers, lights, etc) I can't see the pilot behind that windscreen unless they are facing the sun (if there is any sun and it isn't overcast).

I would like to do GT but my orthopedic needs prohibit me from doing so, I will always keep my MSA qualifications as I regularly support IT at mission base in a variety of ways.

I like to camp... in my RV!!! but anyways, maybe I'll come play in somebody's backyard if they'll let me (or invite and don't worry I do play in my own too).

Anyway, IMHO when you get new members get them into the easy stuff then work them into UDF then show them what GT is all about try this with younger folks who can and are able.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. I too have orthopedic and sight challenges. There are remedies if you pursue them vigorously enough. RV is the way to go on a Sarex. On real SAR I look for real shelter as needed.  As a GTL if I have a marginal GTM who will listen and cooperate I'm glad because he shows up.

[mynetdude]

I've been in CAP for 4 years now, done a little of a few things, would like to do more for the learning experience mostly but not for the actual as I have quite a bit of limitations.

some poster up here made a point that some ground ops stuff misconception is that its for cadets only which doesn't make all that sense as I was a bit bewildered as to how cadets would get qualified without adults? Turns out like that misconception, I was wrong as always

I quit qualifying for air crew due to my vision limitations, I'm not good at being able to do a lot of things including MRO due to my hearing so I've recently been re-qualying for UDF so I hope to be called for UDF searches in the near future although my unit does not have DF equipment and UDF requires a 2nd person (all I need is a trainee, unless the wing specifically forbids it which mine does not).

My wing also does not prohibit aircrews from silencing an ELT only on the ramp/field once they go off airport they have to be UDF qualified so we don't require UDF qualified aircrews.

I have been working on my FLM with goals to be FLS qualifications but I can't get that in my wing as I have to travel outside of my wing and even FLM/FLS is a vision challenge for me as well (I have no problem seeing aircraft/propellers, lights, etc) I can't see the pilot behind that windscreen unless they are facing the sun (if there is any sun and it isn't overcast).

I would like to do GT but my orthopedic needs prohibit me from doing so, I will always keep my MSA qualifications as I regularly support IT at mission base in a variety of ways.

I like to camp... in my RV!!! but anyways, maybe I'll come play in somebody's backyard if they'll let me (or invite and don't worry I do play in my own too).

Anyway, IMHO when you get new members get them into the easy stuff then work them into UDF then show them what GT is all about try this with younger folks who can and are able.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. I too have orthopedic and sight challenges. There are remedies if you pursue them vigorously enough. RV is the way to go on a Sarex. On real SAR I look for real shelter as needed.  As a GTL if I have a marginal GTM who will listen and cooperate I'm glad because he shows up.

I'm thinking that having GT skills not necessarily to go with a group of GTM but say the SAR happens in a fairly remote location and if the area is suitable I can actually bring a self contained RV which has a toybox in the back to haul equipment, water by the case, medical supplies, folded cots, tents, and the RV can be used as a light cooking area, keeping meds cold and a place to take a break or do briefings.

I'm not referring to parking a rig somewhere near a mobile ICP I mean much closer to the action if it were possible so that the team does not always have to go back to the ICP area immediately.

Ground stuff seems to be hard to get anybody to do in any wing it seems, dunno what it is everybody likes about flying you're stuck in a tin can with a propeller in front of you and you're sitting on your duff looking out the window what's the thrill in that?

I'm always hard on myself because I don't want to be put in a position that I screw up and everybody hates me for it and then I have to realize its not something I can do at the same time I do not want to create a problem for them.

[billford1]

I like the Hybrid RV/supply vehicle concept. As for the other concern I've been on a lot of Sarex's and some missions with GTs.
I've seen people screw up but I don't hear people complain. The only thing from my perspective that should get negative attention
would be disruptive behavior or carelessness that results in someone getting hurt. Otherwise people's human foibles should be
forgotten. When you keep showing up to help now that's the good part.