You have a duty of care for yourself and others that you go on a trip with, it is externally important to inform someone of every trip you make. Doing this you have started you rescue process before you have even left on your trip, if you have not reported your return at a prearranged time the authorities can be informed that you have not returned and have some idea of the area you are in.

The fact is any S&R assets used in locating you will investigate anything that is unnatural or unusual that stands out from the environment.

The major problem for air to ground search operations is for the air asset to see the casualty. Many people think that it is easy to see someone on the ground from the air but this is not the case, even with a casualty in an orange survival bag and the air asset can find it very hard to spot the target even if they have grid coordinates for the casualty.

Any ground to air markers need to be large and stand out from there environment, these are V, X, N, Y and arrow. There is an international legal requirement that every seaman and airman know these signals and that they have a copy of these signals in their on-board manuals. The problem is that some people that see these signals but are not aware of an incident do not make a mental connection that it is a distress signal and often just think that’s unusual” and think nothing more of it. This is a problem with many written regulation, people know them but don’t recognise them in real life unless they have had prior experience or been told to look out for them.

I have experienced this whilst walking in the mountains, I heard a whistle being blown whilst walking on a well used footpath, other walkers on the path must have heard the whistle but I was the only person to respond until I mentioned to a group following me that someone was blowing a whistle. I have also read and I think it was on here, of someone lighting three fires as a signal which was ignored until a passenger plane reported to ATC.

If you plan to use passive ground to air signals its best practice to combine them with active signals too.

Thanks for the tip re having a young lady along with you, I often walk with a very attractive friend and I am a big fan of multi use survival items but I wont be telling her of her secondary use she will never have anything else to do with me!