Books, Patches and Wings

Oct. 27, 2011

At the Lethbridge Sport Flyers Annual General meeting, I was please to be able to hand out the log books, patches, wings and pins to Larry, Elaine, Al, Sandy, Lauretta and Ed, six of the newly certified nine, CASARA Lethbridge Spotters. I have received my log book already. These members are also members of the LSF and I was proud to be able the present the certification in front of our fellow members and I believe everyone is happy to see a CASARA presence in Lethbridge once more. Brian and Emery are also certified spotters and will receive their wings, books and patches ASAP.

We still have some work to do, Nader and Stephaine will need classroom training. Dwight needs two more flights and Jason and Dave need the final flight. Hopefully we can do the classroom ASAP and get a plane do so everyone can be certified. Once this is done we can start to look at navigation and hopefully pilots. First Aid training is being looked into. I am also looking at some general public awareness by getting our group in local print.

On another note, you will have noted the CASARA cap, I made a link to CASARA merchandise on the upper right side of the blog. New caps are being looked into as these have the button and may be uncomfortable with a headset when flying. All merchandise can be ordered directly by CASARA members. As for the possible new caps I'll keep you posted.

Please also feel free to post to this blog, just send me the article and I'll post it. I will set this blog so you can post directly very soon.

Marty CZCLC CASARA Zone Commander Lethbridge / Calgary

Welcome to CASARA Lethbridge

Welcome to CASARA Lethbridge

CASARA Lethbridge Sector is new to the CASARA Calgary Zone family.

CASARA stands for Civil Air Search And Rescue Association. CASARA consists of provincial links in BC, AB, SK, MB, ONT, QC and Nova Scotia. Many provinces are divided into sectors and Alberta is no exception. Alberta has several zones and Lethbridge is at the start of one day establishing itself as a zone once more.

This all began with contact being made at a Fly In breakfast in Medicine Hat. Larry and I flew from Coaldale and met the reps from CASARA that were in for the day to promote CASARA. I also serve on the executive of the Lethbridge Sport Flyers a local flying club and suggested we invite CASARA to speak to the club at a monthly meeting. The invite was sent and CASARA Calgary responded with an excellent presentation of what they do. Next was to send out an email to the membership of the LSF's and see who may be interested in becoming active members of CASARA.

The result was that 12 individuals directly connected to the LSF's decided to take the training to become spotters for CASARA. Two more individuals also signed on and the stage was set to get the show on the road.

-mn

Training Day

On Friday evening June 18,  the first training event was held for the new Lethbridge CASARA trainees. Dwight and Dave from CASARA Calgary held a three hour informational class and introduced many of us to CASARA for the first time. Thirteen individuals went through the class with the plan to do two hours of flight training the next day.

Our thanks to Excel Flight School (Roland) for donating the use of his classroom for the training evening.

Saturday ..  Flight Training

The day started at 9:45 am with three teams of two "spotters in training", a navigator and pilot soon in the air and off to the various targets and ELTs . In this two hour flight the new spotters put into practice the lessons of the previous evening and did their best to locate the ground targets. There were three target areas and two ELTs to find. The ELTs or Emergency Locator Transmitter is a radio beacon carried aboard all certified aircraft in Canada.

The training day also consisted of ground location training as well. Two vehicles with the remaining trainees were dispatched from the Lethbridge Airport with equipment used to locate the target ELT's. The morning teams located both ELT targets and all includiing the flights returned to the Air West hangar for lunch and debriefing. In the afternoon the ground teams took the air training and the Air team took the ground training.

Twelve individuals were put through the training exercise and are well on their way to becoming fully certified CASARA spotters. The next step is to arrange for one more flight training day where we one more hour of spotter training. Soon stay tuned.

Thanks again to Excel Flight School for the use of their classroom on Saturday and also to Air West Flight Services who cared for the needs of the CASARA team of pilots.
Thanks also to the CASARA training team, Pilots; (Gary, Dwight, and Denis)  Navigators; (Norm, Fred and Warren) and ground trainer;  (Dave) from CASARA Calgary.



mn

Training Day Photo

What were we looking for ?

Assisting CASARA Calgary with targeting

CASARA Lethbridge assisted the Calgary CASARA team with training on Sept. 10, 2011 by placing a target and ELT. Thanks to Fletcher aerodrome for allowing the placement and aiding in the training. Apparently only one team found the target but that is the way things happen. It is very hard to spot things from the air. In the training plane you are about 500 ft. up and are moving along at about 150 mph based on the ground.

mn

The Training Continues

We jump ahead to Oct 1, 2011 and the final step of training for many of the CASARA spotters from Lethbridge and the surrounding area. Arrangements were made to have two aircraft fly down from Calgary for this final day of spotter training. Part of the ops side of training was to place two targets in the surrounding area and to hunt out these by flying search patterns in the ares where the target were located. After arranging the crew tasking the training was ready to go. Gary and Dennis and two navigators arrived in Lethbridge about 9 am on the Saturday, Oct 1 and the first and second of five flights were in the air by 10:15. Dwight, Larry, Brian and Elaine were on the first flights. After lunch Ed, Sandra, Lauretta and Al were airborne for flights three and four. The day ended with Emery and myself, Martin on flight number five.

Congratulations to Larry, Brian, Elaine, Ed, Sandra, Lauretta, Al, Emery and to me also for achieving the positions of active CASARA Spotters. We have successfully joined a group of about 2650 volunteers who carry out search and rescue missions across Canada.

CASARA Lethbridge wishes to thank Excel Flight Training for their classroom facilities and also Air West for looking after our pilots needs.

mn

More Trainees

Dec. 3, 2011

Today two more individual received Spotter Training. Nader and Stephaine sat in on the three hour course of information, knowledge and practical lessons of the CASARA training. The next step is to have the flight training which is the real hands on application of what is learned in the classroom.

Thanks once again to Roland of Excel Flight Training for the use of the classroom at the Air West Building.