flyguy_17
Pre-Flight
I fly as a volunteer pilot for my local Search And Rescue organization that is ran through the sherrif's office. I got called out yesterday for a search for a missing person and was able to locate the subject within 20 minutes of wheels up! The start of the search area was only about 10 miles from the airport. It was imparitive to find this guy as quick as possible given he had been missing since midnight last night, was intoxicated at the time he went missing, was not reported by his "friends" till 9 hours later (11 hours till the time I was paged), and it was 105 degrees and he was without water...not a good combination and had the potential to turn deadly...but this story had a good ending due to locating him quickly, and after losing count of how many circles I flew around him to maintain visual for about 40 minutes, guided in ground troops to his rescue. Really made me wish I had a helo at that point to pick him up, of which I've been trying to persuade the sherriff to fund lol , or at least a bush plane with some tundra tires, but since that is highly unlikely I am going over the idea of being able to drop a rescue package from the plane (bottle of water, protein bar, 2 way radio, Written instructions, smoke flare, ect.) Soooo...anyone have any experience/pointers with dropping objects in a controlled manner? I'm thinking some type of padded box with a small parachute like that of a large model rocket. I have lots of open area here to make practice drops so I guess what I really need to do is just get out and do it and learn what techniques work best and figure out the timing of it all.
Anyone else on here get the oportunity to fly SAR Missions? It is some of my favorite flying and has been such a huge asset to our SAR Team! So far I have a great success record, in fact every mission that has actually had said missing person in the search area, I have located, usually within the first 30 minutes on scene. Such a great feeling to have the oportunity to help out!
Anyone else on here get the oportunity to fly SAR Missions? It is some of my favorite flying and has been such a huge asset to our SAR Team! So far I have a great success record, in fact every mission that has actually had said missing person in the search area, I have located, usually within the first 30 minutes on scene. Such a great feeling to have the oportunity to help out!