aardwolf,<br><br>I like the scenario you are working up. My one comment concerns the Speed of Walking estimates you are going to use. For a 6 year old child in a forested area these estimates of speed seem too high to me. You may not actually care because this is a simulation, but I think estimates for even downhill in a forest would not exceed 3 MPH for a child or even an adult if this is a NW forest with lots of underbrush etc.<br><br>I usually do not calculate my speed when walking in a forest, but I do not think I could do 4MPH when I was younger and far less fat <br><br>I will be interested to hear how the cadets do on this. I am glad you found the secret info on the BC SAR site to explain some of the information in their cheat sheets.<br><br>

Schwert;<br><br>Good point. I was intending to go back to the website and get more data on how fast children are likely to travel - I believe they have compiled some pretty detailed statistics covering the speed of different categories of people in different types of terrain. From the point of view of the simulation, you're right of course, mathematically it doesn't matter what numbers I choose (I could have the kids doing 100 mph on foot and still make the numbers come out right) but since that's the case, I might as well choose values that are close to reality.<br><br>Another number that I will have to consider will be the speed of the search team in covering the ground - I believe the paper I found estimated 3.5 mph for that, I'll have to check and see if they qualify that for different types of terrain.<br><br>Once I have the scenario compiled, I'll post it here - anyone who wants to try running this as a group exercise with Scouts or other youth groups is more than welcome to steal any of my ideas, just in case anyone was wondering. :-)<br><br>Of course, I'll definitely let you all know how it goes over with the cadets.

Aard,<br><br>Always happy to help when I can. I wondered when I first saw your request if you had already hit that site, but when I checked the one that you posted it appeared to be different enough to post the reference. <br><br>Good thinking about adding the other reference words to the search. I found a couple of those sites about 2 months back and had a good time reading through it. <br><br>My thought were kicked into action after looking at postings that referenced family geared "what if, action plans scenarios".<br><br>Regards,<br>Comanche7

we have found that on the average 1-2 mph is a good travel rate in forested areas.<br><br>This value will also keep your areas small enough to work on the problem.<br><br>and...with 4 to 5 trained searchers and 100 untrained you will be able to do some realistic POD calculations in grid search patterns.<br><br>Thanks<br>Ted Fisher<br>Vermilion County Search and Rescue

I also ran across this web site several months ago that has some intresting info and links about the bayesian formulas used in Search and Rescue. It may or may not help your need.<br><br>http://sarbayes.org/<br><br>Thanks<br>Ted Fisher<br>Vermilion County Search and Rescue

Ted: Thanks very much for your input. I think I'll use 1 mph for uphill, 3 mph for downhill, and see what sort of calculations I can come up with. <br><br>Thanks also for the site you posted. It took me a while to reach it - I kept getting error messages - but I have it up now and I'll take a closer look at what it has to offer.<br><br>Again, thanks for the feedback.

Wow - that site even has a bibliography. I'll be able to buy books on the subject. Kewl!

Once again, thanks to all who assisted me in this quest. I will be presenting my first lesson on Search & Rescue techniques to our cadets on Tuesday. It's based on several books I purchased online from www.nasar.org, including William Syrotuck's "Mathematics of Search and Rescue".

Fwiw, this is the scenario I intend to present to the cadets:
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Scenario:

Randy Walker, an 8-year old boy, has gone missing from the Hummingbird Lake Campground. (I will provide a rough map) He was last seen by his family shortly after breakfast, about 10:00 a.m. When last seen, Randy was wearing blue & white running shoes, blue jeans, a red flannel shirt, a beige jacket, and a red ball cap.

According to interviews with Randy’s family, he has no wilderness survival training. Like most children these days, he has been told never to talk to strangers; as a result, it must be assumed that he may not respond to searchers who are looking for him, and may even hide from them.

It is now 4:00 p.m. Local sunset will be at 8:17 p.m.

There is a paved road running North-South past the campground. Hummingbird Lake is approximately 1.5 miles to the West of the campground; the eastern shore of Hummingbird Lake also runs North-South. The road is marked on the map with a solid line; the lake is marked as the shaded area.

There are two footpaths leaving the campground. One of these runs East from the campground; the other runs South. There is a third footpath which runs southeast from the shore of Hummingbird Lake, across the paved road, and joins up with the North-South footpath approximately three miles south of the campground. The footpaths are marked on the map with a dotted line.

The terrain in the area is mostly flat, consisting of fairly thick woods.

You are the Incident Command Team Leaders. You have approximately 100 volunteer searchers from the campground, camp staff, and citizens of the Town of Hummingbird Lake, 5 miles to the North. These include four members of the camp staff who are experienced trail runners, and a dog and handler from the Hummingbird Lake RCMP Detachment canine unit.

Your task is to develop a plan of action. As it is getting late in the day, time is of the essence – if the search does not start soon, we will be unable to start searching until tomorrow morning. You have 45 minutes to decide which areas will be searched first, what types of search you will conduct, etc.
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Hopefully, the cadets will have fun working in groups on this problem. I'm very interested to see what they come up with.

Anyone who wants more information on this, please feel free to e me @yahoo.com (first name aardwolfe).

Again, thanks.

aardwolfe,


I find this interesting, please keep us posted on how things turn out.

Can the cadets get more info if they ask for it specifically? There are a couple of details I´d try to get from the family if I had to plan the search (e. g. size, weight, favorite playgrounds). How do you give the info (sheet, briefing, role game)?