Pinellas Senior Squadron P. O. Box 11164 St.

Petersburg, FL 33733

PROPWASH

PINELLAS SENIOR SQUADRON Civil Air Patrol - Florida Wing Albert Whitted Airport, www.stpetecap.org St. Petersburg Phone (727) 821-8354

MARCH & APRIL 2007

Vol.XXVII,No.2

Our recent exercise was a great success, thanks to the Carlsons. And it was fun. How often do you get to fly low and slow over open Florida countryside, beautiful water, in great weather? How often do you get to search for a castle with a pirate ship in its moat? And everyone worked together at the squadron level while seeming to really enjoy the training. This exercise marked the end of my command of Pinellas Sr. Sq. I cannot think of a better way to end it. It has been a great pleasure working with every one of you. Thank you for bearing with me the last few years, through the good and the bad. Pete Crawford, Cpt, outgoing sq commander.

Group 8 Runs 16-Day SAREX 07T4177

Run by LtCol Diana Carlson and LtCol David Carlson 24-Feb-07 thru 11-Mar-07
The St Petersburg Composite Squadron (formerly Pinellas Senior Squadron) had a very intensive 16-day Search and Rescue Exercise (SAREX) to train its members as aircrew, mission staff and ground teams. The mission started with a Planning Meeting on 21-Feb-07 and proceeded to have as many as three air sorties a day for the next 16 days in order to train as many members as possible. This was the first opportunity for this group to train using IMU2 (Incident Management Utilities) software, which will be the standard for computerized SAR software in Florida Wing. The FL Wing State Director, John Figure 1 2Lt Kathy Valentino and Capt Pete Crawford being briefed by LtCol David Carlson while 1Lt Sal Valentino acts as MSA

The following is a list of the members who participated and their duties. Starred underlined ratings are newly earned or recurrent (remember, MPs still need their CAPF91): Col Jerry Angley, USAF(ret), Florida Wing State Director LtCol Diana Carlson, IC, GTL, MP, and just about every other staff hat, primary staff trainer. LtCol David Carlson, IC, MSO, MP, MO, primary aircrew trainer, specializes in GPS training. Capt Pete Crawford, MP, MS, *MO*, AOBD trainee, primary aircrew trainer. LtCol Larry Tellier, MP, MO, primary aircrew trainer. Capt Larry Gray, GTL, UDF, primary Urban Direction Finding trainer. Maj Crist Fellman, MSO on call, *UDF* 2Lt Kathy Valentino, MS, *MO*, mission scanner trainer 1Lt Sal Valentino, MS, *MO*, mission scanner trainer LtCol Larry McConnell, MS, *MP*, lecturer specializing in GPS training Maj Eugene Olson, GTM, *MRO*, *MSA*, *UDF*, GBD trainee, Trusted Agent 1Lt James Angello, MRO, *CUL*, *MSA* SM Adrian Cuarta, *MS* 1Lt Alma W. Deese, recurrent as *MS* Capt Robert Downing, MS, *MP* SM Martin Hickey, *MSA*, *MRO*, *UDF* SM Craig Johnson, *MS* LtCol Rick Mangione, Trusted Agent SM Frank Munn, *MS* Capt John Posey, MRO, *CUL*, *MSA*

Page 2

Page 7

Angley USAF, attended the mission on February 25 to observe how the new software was being used and was suitably impressed .

Figure 3 New SM Benny Butler acts as MSA

Figure 5 Ground team members: TFO Mikell Admire, 2Lt Shepherd, Cadet Shepherd, Maj Crist Fellman

Sunday March 4th had an interesting event. As LtCol Diana Carlson was acting as Incident Commander for the air sortie just launched, a telephone call from NH Wing came in: We need an IC and cant find one he re. Can you act as IC for our mission? So LtCol Carlson was acting as IC for both FLWG and NHWG simultaneously for about 30 minutes, until NHWG located a local IC for their SAREX! Three night ELT missions were launched (on March 6, 8, and 9) to provide the newly minted MPs and MOs with their night flight. Two different areas were used for the visual searches: an orange tarp signal in a H configuration to mean found some survivors (signal out of the Airman Information Manual) was located in grid MIA 27A. And in grid MIA 53A, a pirate ship next to a Jewish castle was the second visual target. One of the scanners asked the pilot (on the second target), Ok, but what color are the tarps? Were not looking for tarps, were looking for a pirate ship and castle.Ok, but really, what color are the tarps?!?

Most of the mission was run by LtCol David Carlson and LtColDiana Carlson, two NorthEast Region snowbirds, who volunteered to act as Incident Commanders and provide the training to the members. These two, along with a few other qualified members, trained a vast array of members as Mission Pilots, Mission Observers , Mission Scanners, Mission Radio Operators , Mission Figure 2 LtCol Larry Tellier preflights aircraft with LtCol David Carlson and 1Lt Sal Valentino Staff Assistants, a few mission staff and Urban Direction Finding ground teams. Page 3

Page 6

The mission got off to a poor start on Saturday February 24, teams and were each given the task of locating an ELT on the Whitted airport with the Lil Elper. The first airplane that was to be used had a quick drain fuel leak. Rather than cancelling for the day, a ground vehicle transported the aircrew to Vandenburg airport to use their airplane. That airplane was returned on Sunday February 25th ; it had a minor oil leak around the prop seal. Pete flew down to Opalocka to pick up a 3rd airplane, which had a vacuum pump failure on the return trip; he returned for maintenance, had the pump replaced and again launched for St Petersburg, where we continued the mission with this aircraft. Two days were rained out: Friday March 2nd sortie was just ready to launch when the fog rolled in. The next morning Saturday sortie was cancelled due to rain, but later an afternoon air sortie was launched successfully.

Saturday March 3rd was also the day when the majority of the ground team training occurred. Maj Larry Gray held class in the morning then in the afternoon brought about 20 UDF trainees to participate in our SAREX. The group was split into about 4 smaller teams and were each given the task of locating an ELT on the Whitted airport with the Lil Elper. Others members who participated: Capt Terry Power, *MS* Maj Robert Scott, recurrent as *MRO*, *MO*, *MS*, new *MSA* Capt David Tucker, MS, *MP*, UDF trainee SM Robert Weisbruch, *MSA*, *MS*, *MRO*, Trusted Agent Maj Jack Wholley, *MS* UDF trainees: Cadets: David Cherryholmes, Kevin Chism, Joshua Cook, Joshua Davidson, Taylor Ann Foltz, John-Warren Hendricks, Tyler Mayer, Joshua Niquette, Shawn Shepherd, Samuel Smith, Krysa Ternes, Adam Trapp, Autumn Wilson, Ethan Wright. Senior Members :Lt Raya Vezina, Lt Raymond Vezina, TFO Mikell Admire, 1Lt Thomas Shepherd, SM Jim Chism, SM Rana Troub. FROM THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER We as members had a unique experience, training for a job that we hope is never necessary, which was looking for downed airplanes. However, we are perfecting our skills and are ready to help. I went on a sortie to renew my skills as a mission scanner with Lt. Col. Larry Tellier and Major Olson. We thank the Carlsons who provided the expertise and our Commander, Pete Crawford, for his guidance towards this event. For Diane Carlson for writing this article to record our experiences. 1Lt. A. Wynelle Deese, PAO Page 5

Figure 4 Capt Pete Crawford showing LtCol Larry McConnell how to create encoded Lat/Longs

Page 4