Civil Air Patrol unit finishes search, rescue exercise

Published May 22, 2007

MOUNTAIN HOME, Idaho -- Mountain Home's Civil Air Patrol cadet squadron tested its ability to locate missing aircraft and people during a recent search and rescue training exercise.

During the day, the Mountain Home-based squadron trained with its counterparts from the Boise Composite Squadron to find the location of simulated airplane crashes within a 25 square mile area.

Using the Nampa Municipal Airport as its mission base, the cadets paired up into two, seven-person ground search teams. Both ground teams then left Nampa and drove to Homedale, Idaho, near the Oregon border.

Using specialized search gear and an airborne CAP aircraft, each ground team was tasked to find the other during the exercise. To make things more challenging, each team hid from plain sight and used an emergency locator transmitter, or ELT, to help the searchers find them. Cadets in the air and on the ground used radios to relay information between the aircraft, mission base and the other ground team.

"We took our CAP van and found a small street in a residential area," said Cadet Staff Sgt. John E. Ritschard, Mountain Home Civil Air Patrol cadet, as he recalled attempts searchers used to find his "lost" group. "We parked at the end of the street, turned on our ELT and waited for the plane and the other ground team to find us."

CAP aircraft have specialized receivers in the bottom of the fuselage searching for signals from the emergency locators. The pilot then follows the signal to the transmitter.

Meanwhile, the ground team used a different piece of equipment to locate the ELT -- a large antenna that measures the speed of the radio waves, the cadet said. The receiver makes different sounds depending on the direction of the locator transmitter's signal. The antenna's speaker emits a loud, high-pitched noise when pointed in the transmitter's direction. The team used triangulation to pinpoint the other team.

"Because we had parked next to a large metal fence and under power lines, the signal from the ELT confused the other team when they got within a mile of us," Cadet Ritschard said. "In the end, we drove out to the end of the road to meet them and found out they had been very close."

The teams then switched roles and the missing team became the search party.

"We went through the same drill," the cadet said. "We learned how to triangulate using a compass and a map and how to use the locator antenna. These important skills will help us in the case of a real crash."

In addition to being a lot of fun for both squadrons, the exercise taught the cadets valuable skills they will use when tasked to perform actual search and rescue missions, Cadet Ritschard said.
"The event also built teamwork between our squadron here in Mountain Home and the one in Boise," he added. "I'm looking forward to using my newly learned skills to help find a real crash some day."

The Mountain Home squadron joins cadets from across Idaho and surrounding states for the annual basic cadet encampment this summer at Gowen Field in Boise. For more information about the detachment or the Civil Air Patrol, call Master Sgt. Monica Pemberton at 828-4143.