Skater,

There are references in several places (Doug's review of signaling devices, on a couple of emergency signaling mirror websites and other places on the web) that state that there was one rather well known rescue of several folks on an icy / rocky elevation somewhere. It could be folklore, however, I recall reading several war diaries in high school where people were rescued via mirror flash. That said, I never felt the need to verify the veracity of the claims. My gut feeling is that if the mirrors weren't really worthwhile, that the military would not include them in their kits. I can personally vouch for the fact that pieces of glass & plastic can really reflect a lot of sunlight from my flying over water and watching the reflection on the horizon (30-50 miles away) turn into a boat that was reflecting and flashing sunlight from the spray shield as it cruised the ocean blue, and from cars lined up in traffic alongside the airport while on approach to landing. The bigger the reflector, the brighter (and more annoying the flash). I also feel that many pilots would take a second look at a flashing light from a location where it would not be expected from, particularily if it kept flashing after the aircraft had moved a substantial amount of distance that normally would have taken it away from a stationary nuisance flash. Please keep in mind that just because a plane is close or overhead, that the pilot and passengers may not see the flash due to being below the window line of the aircraft. Generally when a pilot flies, they do not normally look very closely below the aircraft, but rather more in the front for a distance ranging from a mile or so on landing to 15+ miles in level flight. Yes, we try to keep our head on a swivel and look around, but generally in front and to each side in front is where we look for aircraft traffic on a collision course. The exact scan area for each pilot will vary (sometimes to extremes) and is also dependent upon the type of aircraft being operated.

HTH in some small measure, I know that it did not directly answer your question. Perhaps it is time for a web search???

Regards,
Comanche7