I often see SAREXes begin on Friday evening, go all day Saturday and most of
the day on Sunday. The staff members generally stay for the whole SAREX,
but not all mission crews do. Between work, wife and weather, I have not
been to many SAREXes this summer. I hope to go to one next weekend, but one
of the Ws will probably limit my participation to one day. Turnout is
typically higher on Saturdays than Sundays, and Sunday SAREXes are likely to
start later and end earlier than Saturday SAREXes. You are less likely to
have down time waiting for sorties on Sunday, because the staff is fully up
to speed by then and with fewer aircraft and aircrews, dispatching moves
more quickly.

I've mostly flown sorties as Mission Pilot, at first for my own training,
but now often to train Mission Pilots, Observers and Scanners. I've also
worked staff positions for Air Operations and Planning. In Air Ops I
briefed, dispatched and debriefed aircrews. In Planning, I took clues, used
resources like aviation charts, airport directories, and the internet to try
figure out where the missing aircraft might be and plan sorties. Then I
worked with Air Ops to dispatch sorties to look at the suspected areas.
Eventually, I intend to work up to Incident Commander, but I want to get
more experience before doing that. At this stage of my life, I'd rather fly
than work staff positions, but I understand that I should do what is needed
rather than what I want to make the system work better.

You will need to take a Form 91 checkride to become a Mission Pilot. The
Form 5 is like a PTS for a private pilot. The Form 91 is more mission
specific to CAP and includes more low level flying, use of the SAR GPS,
DFing, flying search patterns, and ground reference manouvers.

The tone of a SAREX is very different from an actual SAR. Things are much
more easy going at a SAREX than when you are actually looking for a missing
aircraft. Kevin Dunlevy


"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks! I noticed that the one in Redding next weekend is two days. Is
that common. I'm not sure I can give up both weekend days. Can you just
go for one day?

-Robert