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.



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