Dear Doug and forum readers,It occured to me that a discussion of basic air/sea/land search methods would help us understand what rescuers are doing.This would harmonise our actions to those of our benefactors.My own experience was to see if a floatplan was filed, estimate a general position by elapsed time and then launch a standard search pattern.The truly great SAR people always went further.We call this 'a hunch',but I learned it was that near intangible quality of experience,knowledge of local conditions and profiling the missing party.<br><br>