Guidance debrief

Ok, so I'm back from Field Training finally, and ready to update everyone on the Guidance mission from way back when. As this was the first operation I ever planned, and the fact that there was some interagency work, it was tricky, but went pretty well I'd say. I was only able to get an IC at the last minute to get a mission number. They put the GT on one mission number, and the aircrew on another because the aircrew was funded, and the GT was not. Crazy. Anyway, the GT from Phoneix met up at my house, and we all discussed some saftey around helicopters. We then went to mission base and were breifed by the IC on the mission, and talked to the chopper crew about the length of the mission, bad weather plan, etc. Remember that later.

After the brief, the chopper crew took off, and I began the paperwork for the GT. Be mindful new leaders, there is a lot of paperwork, more than you think. Getting the two types of sign in sheet done, the gear check, and the vehicle check took about an hour. 40 minutes longer than I expected, but my team was very supportive of my inexperiance. This is why we train, to learn stuff like this BEFORE a REDCAP comes up.

We departed the mission base about the same time as the aircraft. The plane immediatley picked up the ELT northwest of the airport. We proceeded into Chino Valley, pretty much following the plane to the search area. The plane found the target about 20 minutes after liftoff (great job on them, we hid this helicopter pretty good). The plane led us into the general area, but we couldn't get close to the chopper because we were blocked by private property. Capt Fields (another GLT trainee on the mission) and I went door to door trying to get permission to cross property and get to the helicopter. Nobody in that area seems to be home on Saturday mornings. On our 5th attempt, we got permission from one of the ranch owners (very nice lady) and unloaded. During this time, the aircraft had to RTB due to fuelload. They were relaying all our radio to mission base, so we pretty much lost comms at that point. We did a quick gear check, DFed the target, and began to head toward the signal. About a third of the way there, we saw the helicopter take off, circle us, and leave.

Yeah, we were confused. I (miraculously) was able to get a txt out to my friend who works at Guidance, and she told me that the copilot (who was a student) had to get to work, and didn't know the mission was going to go that long, so they flew her back. That was frustrating. Remember earlier when we discussed that at the briefing? Me too, apparently she wasn't listening. It's too bad too, we could of used the training on securing the crash site, and we were planning on littering out the pilot. Oh well, I guess this simulates the sheriff's dept getting there first, right?

So we all packed up, RTBd, and debriefed at base. All in all it was a good training day. We trainind in staging, prepping to go, land nav on streets, land nav on terrain, communications, working with an aircraft (a core competency of CAP), dealing with prvate property laws, and debriefing. The only things we missed out on were crash site security, and medical treatment of victims.

My thanks to the GT from Group IV, hooah, Don Timmerman IC, Bill Brinkman CUL, Kevin Holbrook MRO, the Prescott Composite aircrew (who also flew me to the wing comms meeting later that day), and Guidance Helicopter for thei participation.

So, take these lessons, and go plan a practice operation for your team! It's invaluable to practice everything from start to finish!