What's gonna happen to CAP?

Robert

It sounds to me to be a regional problem. I deliberately baited him just to
see the response.

He is saying nothing that we in PA do not do routinely in CAP. We all know
our terrain and our pilots as you said are CFI' to ATP's in fact last year I
worked with a WV pilot who was also a former Alaskan bush pilot. Maybe they
are well organized and the local CAP is not, National should be aware of
this and better be making corrections, but then there is a tone that would
indicate there is more of a personal attitude possibly.

Washington State also, well seems to me I've seen something recently about
searches by CAP in WA, guess someone hasn't told them.

Bottom line, As both a CAP member and a former vol. firefighter, you need
all the help you can get when lives are at stake. And to put out this kind
of statement makes me question, are they doing the best they can for the
people they serve. In those mountains if they don't use the help maybe not.
Then again if there is validity to the statements then the CAP members on
here from those states mentioned better ask why and make corrections to
their training we do not need this kind of sentiment.

Ron Gardner
PA CAP


"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
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