What's gonna happen to CAP?

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:38:21 -0700, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:

On Sep 19, 9:57 am, Newps wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I was in CAP as a teenager, due to my interests in aviation and lack of
money to pursue it other ways. Although there was too much marching to
suit me, I agree that it is a worthy organization with an important
mission.

The question at hand is whether the new transponders will really reduce
the need for S&R?

Here in Montana we've reduced the need for CAP to zero. We handle SAR
ourselves.

Do you also do the Aerospace education and the ROTC training?

"ROTC"? Wash your mouth out with soap. Back when I was a cadet, we had a
pretty low opinion of the JROTC kids....

Ron Wanttaja, ex-C/Col, CAP

In article .com,
Jay Honeck wrote:

Anyway, with no one listening to 121.5,

huh? we aren't supposed to monitor 121.5?

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

Matt Barrow wrote:

Here in Montana we've reduced the need for CAP to zero. We handle SAR
ourselves.


Who is "ourselves"?


Montana Aeronautics.

Larry Dighera wrote:

I also thought these things were being touted as all-but-eliminating
false signals?

How would that be accomplished? An improved inertia switch???

I think I see the sematics you were getting at there (false signal vs
unconfirmed situation), but for the record, the 406's are registered
into a database with contact information. So when an activation is
detected somebody can get on the phone and (try to) contact the
registered operator to determing if the aircraft is actually in
trouble.

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:16:19 -0000, James Sleeman
wrote in
.com:


Larry Dighera wrote:

I also thought these things were being touted as all-but-eliminating
false signals?

How would that be accomplished? An improved inertia switch???

I think I see the sematics you were getting at there (false signal vs
unconfirmed situation), but for the record, the 406's are registered
into a database with contact information. So when an activation is
detected somebody can get on the phone and (try to) contact the
registered operator to determing if the aircraft is actually in
trouble.

Right. And the satellites are able to pinpoint the location of the
ELT signal an order of magnitude better than the 121.5 MHz ELTs. But
if there isn't some improvement in the triggering mechanism, I fail to
understand how there might be less false alarms; they will remain at
99% of the total ELT signals reported I would think.

Jay Honeck wrote:

The question at hand is whether the new transponders will really reduce
the need for S&R? It may reduce the search time somewhat, but it won't do
much to eliminate the rescue operations.

It may be all hype, but I thought the new 406 mhz ELTs were designed
to report your position in Lat/Lon, like a GPS? If that's the case,
the "Search" part of a SAR mission has been entirely eliminated.

Only if GPS-enabled. Look into PLB and you will find those with and
without integral GPS reporting.

I also thought these things were being touted as all-but-eliminating
false signals? Sadly, false alarms made up the vast majority of our
CAP SAR missions, so a huge percentage of CAP SAR will be eliminated
if this feature is truly functional.

Who knows if false alarms will be reduced. Why do we have so many
with 121.5 MHz ELTs?

Ron Lee

"Dan Luke" wrote:

"Ron Lee" wrote:

...there is NO (zip, nada) mandate for GA to transition to 406 MHz
ELTs.

True, but:

http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/phaseout.html

If I'm down, I want a satellite to pick up the beacon, pronto.

I have a GPS equipped 406 MHz PLB that I can activate and is far
better than my ELT (121.5 MHz). Plus I can take it hiking, driving,
boating, etc.

Ron Lee

On Sep 19, 6:41 pm, Ron Wanttaja wrote:
On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:38:21 -0700, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:

On Sep 19, 9:57 am, Newps wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I was in CAP as a teenager, due to my interests in aviation and lack of
money to pursue it other ways. Although there was too much marching to
suit me, I agree that it is a worthy organization with an important
mission.

The question at hand is whether the new transponders will really reduce
the need for S&R?

Here in Montana we've reduced the need for CAP to zero. We handle SAR
ourselves.

Do you also do the Aerospace education and the ROTC training?

"ROTC"? Wash your mouth out with soap. Back when I was a cadet, we had a
pretty low opinion of the JROTC kids....

Not JROTC, ROTC from University of California Davis and California
State University of Sacramento. Some of these guys already have their
commissions.

-Robert

Larry Dighera wrote:



Right. And the satellites are able to pinpoint the location of the
ELT signal an order of magnitude better than the 121.5 MHz ELTs. But
if there isn't some improvement in the triggering mechanism, I fail to
understand how there might be less false alarms; they will remain at
99% of the total ELT signals reported I would think.

1) more than a few of the false ELT signals are not from ELTS at all,
but from defective consumer electronics. The frequency migration is
meant to mitigate this somewhat.

2) by being registered, the owner of the device can be contacted or
attempted to be contacted, and this is one of the first steps in the
rescue chain. While search teams are still in the call out and
activation stage, if they get ahold of the owner and he says "no, i just
parked the plane in the hangar, I'm fine!" they can instruct the owner
to go disable/reset his ELT and stop the search process then. Even with
equipment being resold and perhaps not re-registered, this will be a
smaller percentage of devices than having 100% unregistered devices on
121.5.

3) by being stronger, the signals are easier to track. Unfortunately, by
being a burst transmitter, normal carrier wave tracking procedures will
be difficult to implement. The new 406 recievers I've seen sell for 20k.

4) by having location encoded with the signal, "search" becomes "get to
the scene". If off airport this may still require air and ground teams.

Dave

Jay,

Are you only thinking about Search part of SAR and not Rescue part? We will
still need the ground teams to go rescue and render aid to the crash victims. We
can still look lost children. There is also Drug enforcement and wild fire
missions. Last year, we put on a lot of hours in on wild fire missions.

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:15:40 -0700, Jay Honeck wrote:

My son and I were active in Civil Air Patrol a couple of years ago.
The primary training mission was Search and Rescue, utilizing radio
direction finders that allowed us to find transponders that were going
off.

With the impending transition to 406 mhz transponders that will give
far more accurate location information upon activation, we will no
longer need fatigue-clad cadets trudging through the woods on SAR
missions.

CAP is a good organization for kids, basically "Boy Scouts With a
Mission". Given that Search and Rescue is their primary mission, I
wonder what's gonna happen to CAP?

GeorgeC