Just Completed Inland SAR Planner Course!

[ProdigalJim]

Woo-hoo!

The National SAR School team brought the five-day Inland SAR Planner Course up north to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling this week, and it was a really great course. I would highly recommend it to anyone getting ready to "step up" to planning/branch director/IC-type roles. The course does a superb job of using math to remove emotion from your decision-making. Yes, it's only a tool and you need to subject the results to a "smell test," but if you use the tools thoroughly and honestly you can see clearly how sometimes planners and ICs can be misled by the Golden Gut.

The course made me realize a couple of things:

1) We need, badly, to revamp the CAP Form 122 to incorporate POS and PSR adjustments

2) Mission bases can never have enough staff

3) Why in the heck can't someone come up with software to overlay CAP grids on whatever map you choose, and then run the SAR Search Manager as a kind of "plug-in" so it's all integrated seamlessly?

4) When a lot of the data-crunching was done for the key studies underpinning Search Theory, computing resources were miniscule. Today, Cloud Computing and Hadoop-type stuff mean we could be ingesting and analyzing EVERY crash and incident, not just a "representative sample," and we could be crowdsourcing new incidents collectively from any participating search agency. I'm not an IT guy, so I'd be interested in what the IT-types here on CT think of that.

5) The AFRCC instructors are extremely good teachers (at least ours were).

6) In a mixed class of military, other agencies and CAP, we need to do our best to look good and not be goobers.

[SarDragon]

3) Why in the heck can't someone come up with software to overlay CAP grids on whatever map you choose, and then run the SAR Search Manager as a kind of "plug-in" so it's all integrated seamlessly?

Different maps use different conic projections, so a one-program-fits-all approach won't work.

[sardak]

Maps don't all use conic projections, but it doesn't matter. As long as the software knows what projection a map is "drawn" in, and in what measurement system the user wants the grid to be in (CAP, which is nothing more than lat/lon, UTM, MGRS, X-Y, etc.), the software can overlay, project, draw, create or whatever term one wants to use, the grid onto the base map. I have several GIS/mapping programs in which I can create a map and grid in one projection, then tell the software to reproject into another, and the grid is exactly where it should be in the new projection. Or, more along the lines discussed here, I can create the grid in one projection and bring it into a map created in a different projection, and the software will correctly project the grid into the map's projection.

A couple of programs which integrate mission management tools and mapping are (that come to mind, there are others):
MapSAR plug-in for ArcGIS (the plug-in is free, ArcGIS is $$$ with high learning curve) http://www.mapsar.net/
Mission Manager by RadishWorks, which also does alerting and a lot more (free) http://www.radishworks.com/MissionManager.php

Although not integrated with maps, WinCasie III is a very useful, free mission management program: http://www.wcasie.com/index.html  On this page is a link to more free "SAR Software" written by the same authors. These can be used as stand-alone programs or integrated into WinCasie. WinCasie was originally written in the days of DOS and has been updated over the years. The DOS version is still available.

All of the above programs were written by SAR practitioners.

An online "make-your-own-map" tool created by a SAR person with SAR uses in mind, but not with direct mission management capability is http://www.caltopo.com  Despite the name, it covers the whole country. The program was originally created just for SAR in California, but the author has expanded nationwide.

For reference: http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/MapProjections/projections.html  A projection not shown here is WebMercator which is what Google, Bing, MapQuest, etc. use for their online maps.

Mike

[sardak]

I would highly recommend it to anyone getting ready to "step up" to planning/branch director/IC-type roles.

As would I and other CAP Talkers who have taken it, some of us multiple times over the years to keep fresh. Unfortunately, since this class, the two-day basic course or any class on search management and theory isn't required, many members who should take one haven't or won't. The road to OSC, PSC and CAP IC 3-2-1 requires no real knowledge of any of what these classes present or real mission experience. This is one reason for some of the problems other agencies have with CAP.

1) We need, badly, to revamp the CAP Form 122 to incorporate POS and PSR adjustments

Not many members know what a 122 is, and even fewer know what POS and PSR are. Look at the training sequence to become an IC, all the way up to IC1. Where does one learn what a 122 is and how to complete it? An ICS-209 Incident Summary is the closest ICS form to a 122 and its completion is the responsibility of the PSC. At what point in CAP is a PSC introduced to the 122?

As for POS and PSR, search the mission base task guide for any search theory and planning terms. You'll find probability and POD on the task for completion of 104s, which says to use the table on the back (which of course isn't on the e104s, leading to many e104s without PODs). That is it. There are a few PowerPoint presentations on the  NESA site in the Incident Command and Aircrew school sections that cover the NTAM and John Desmarais' analysis of it. However, there is no requirement to use these presentations, nor is there direct reference to them from the SQTRs, task guide or CAPR 60-3. The CAP NHQ website under ES training, if someone were to look there, does have links to NESA and its materials, but again, no requirement to use them.

Of course, to find POS, PSR and other needed parameters, one also has to calculate POA/POC, POD and other items. POA, POD and POS do appear in the seven slides that cover search planning in the search management PowerPoint. On how many searches or exercises does the planning staff determine POAs or POCs? How many 104s and 109s even show a POD? And how much of any of this is applied to ELT searches? Where is staff taught how to interpret and use radar and cellphone forensic data? The incident planning staff should not just be using the information, even after talking directly with the radar and cellphone team members, without analysis of their own.

If POS and PSR were recorded on the 122, what would be done with the information and by whom? Not theoretically, but in actuality. BITD, AFRCC would take PODs from the 122s, analyze them, compute cumulative PODs for grids and provide feedback to the incident staff. I was at a presentation a couple of months ago on factors to consider for suspending a search. Where does CAP present that?

Sorry for the rant, but worrying about the 122 is low on the list of items needed to improve CAP incident planning and management. I'm glad that you took the course and liked it, and hope you are able to use and share your new knowledge.

Mike

[ProdigalJim]

If POS and PSR were recorded on the 122, what would be done with the information and by whom? Not theoretically, but in actuality. BITD, AFRCC would take PODs from the 122s, analyze them, compute cumulative PODs for grids and provide feedback to the incident staff. I was at a presentation a couple of months ago on factors to consider for suspending a search. Where does CAP present that?

Sorry for the rant, but worrying about the 122 is low on the list of items needed to improve CAP incident planning and management. I'm glad that you took the course and liked it, and hope you are able to use and share your new knowledge.

Why are you sorry, it was a good rant! 

I guess I would only counter that I was using redesigning the form as a jumping-off point for the entire discussion that would raise all the points that you did. I'm not arguing that redesigning a form is The Answer (TM), only that it would begin the process of incorporating that thinking into the conversation. Right now, the average OSC, PSC, IC 3-2-1, as you point out, doesn't even necessarily know what they don't know.

Overall, it's clear to me...more now after the class than ever...that we need to raise the professionalism of the approach and methodology. If the tools are there and the class is offered, why not take advantage? I know the advanced class is hard to get into (although they'll take it to Camp Atterbury this summer), we could at least make it highly desirable to take the class once you reach a certain level. Maybe tell folks they're certified for OSC, PSC or whatever, but can't renew the qual when the time comes without having had the class? That would give folks a couple of years to catch the class when they're able.

[Eclipse]

Right now, the average OSC, PSC, IC 3-2-1, as you point out, doesn't even necessarily know what they don't know.

Too true. Far too many "decide" where the person / place / thing is and spend the mission fighting the math, instruments, and people
circling the same place.