On Sep 20, 5:29 pm, Newps wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:

In CAP we always have sat triangulation information before we launch.
I assume that the initial report was also sat. In this context I'm not
sure what you mean by a "national organization". Pilots in CAP rarely
are searching more than a couple hundred miles from their home. CAP
planes are located in local GA airports, we don't launch from any
central location.

We are locally run and organized, local being statewide. No silly rules
that I've seen
CAP have. The state is divided up into sectors. Each sector has a
designated boss who gets
the call that a plane is missing.

Yes, we call these "IC"s in CAP and they coordinate the air and ground
crews.

He can be in the air in less than an
hour.

Our goal is similar, we generally try to have crews in the air w/i in
hour of notication unless the information suggests a UDF (ground) crew
would be more effective.

Satellite
info not needed/necessary before planes are flying.

Sat info for us is free so we don't turn it down. It allows us to
brief on the location to head towards. Once airborne our onboard
equipment listens for ELTs on 3 different freq (including 406). We
also have onboard VHF radios to communicate with the IC in real time.

One problem I have seen with CAP
pilots is they are much less experienced than the guys that do the SAR
here.

Maybe that is regional. Many of us are CFIs and we even have some
Vietnam era FAC pilots. Many of us are also flying modern G1000
aircraft that also allow photos to be transmitted in real time to
ground crews.

Our guys
flying SAR have multi thousands of hours flying GA airplanes all over
the state and they know the terrain like the back of their hand.

Our pilots are also regional. As you can imagine California has
arguably the most challenging terrain in the U.S. with a combination
of the Sierra's, high deserts and large bodies of water.

-Robert