Chris,<br><br>I asked a good friend, Steve White, to write up a summary of how CAP prosecutes a search. Steve has about a zillion times more experience than me, has done about everything in the AZ Wing. Here's his summary with a few comments from me in brackets:<br><br>Doug has asked me to describe the SAR methods for aerial search used in CAP, and I'll do so based on my experience in Arizona. Different Wings (state level organization) modify their procedures considering terrain, weather, and inter-agency relationships, so there may be important differences in other states.<br><br>For a missing aircraft search, we (Arizona) might have the departure point, the point of intended landing, or be in the anticipated route of flight. Last know position might be the departure point, a position report with air traffic control or another agency, or an intermediate fuel stop. Because aircraft have a wide range of possible paths, and can travel hundreds of miles in an hour, our deployment of assets will depend greatly on the type and quality of information we have about the intended flight. The pilot's known skills, proficiency, habits, and educated guesses play a part in where we'll look first.<br><br>(A specialist or two are assigned to gather information, interview family members, etc. to find out as much intelligence as possible about the pilot and his habits or their expectations, the plane, etc. <br><br>Typically, a chaplain is assigned to work with family members offering comfort and assistance during the long and difficult wait for news and they are also generally the one charged with keeping the family in the loop. A very difficult job.)<br><br>We typically conduct electronic and visual searches simultaneously, using DF gear and observers. (Typical crew is a pilot and two observers, one in the right seat and one in the rear left seat. CAP "corporate" (meaning owned by CAP) aircraft in the West are usually Cessna 182s, in flatter terrain usually Cessna 172. Private aircraft belonging to CAP members are also used in many searches.)<br><br>One or more aircraft will search the route of flight, listening for an emergency radio beacon and looking for gross signs<br>of the missing aircraft (smoke, a wide swath of broken tree tops, active distress signaling) and check airports near the route. Additional units will be assigned a specific area to search, usually a 15-minute latitude/longitude square (roughly 15 miles on a side) in the lower 48, a full degree square in Alaska. <br><br>(In areas where communications are difficult, such as many mountainous areas of the West, a high cap aircraft circling at higher altitude may be used to maintain communications with aircraft searching at lower altitudes. ) <br><br>Depending on visibility, weather, vegetation, snow cover, and the steepness of the terrain, in fairly flat land we fly parallel tracks between 1/2 and two miles apart, at altitudes of 500 to 1000 feet above the ground. In mountainous terrain we use a contour search pattern, starting at the highest elevation and flying at a given altitude around the mountain, then descending a few hundred feet and flying at that<br>contour level, and repeating the process on down the mountain. If there are significant canyons or drainages we can't get to on the contour paths, we climb to the top of the terrain and fly down the canyon. Sometimes we have to do that a lot. In our experience, the expanding square and creeping line search patterns are less generally useful here.<br><br>The incident commander will evaluate the quality of the search, based on the objective factors (visibility, weather, vegetation, snow cover, terrain, track spacing, search altitude) and the crew's own evaluation of their performance (turbulence, airsickness, and low contrast light are performance reducers) to assign a "probability of detection" for that area for that search. If the POD is low, additional searches of the same area can be made until the POD rises to an acceptable level.<br><br>Hopefully this will give you some idea of how we look for missing aircraft. The techniques for missing vehicles and persons are similar, with appropriate adjustments.<br><br><br><br>Doug Ritter<br>Editor<br>Equipped To Survive