Oct 13/12 Lethbridge   (New certified Navigators)

This time we were back in Lethbridge put together another good exercise. We had Larry, Al and Sandy receive Navigator Certifications. Elaine, Lauretta and Marty also got in a Nav training flight each and need just one more day to complete the Nav training. Ed, Lloyd and James a new spotter trainee all had some more spotter flights. 

I am so proud of the Lethbridge team. From our first CASARA flight on June 19, 2011 we have made some excellent progress. 

Lethbridge now has 15 members with two more coming on the team in November. We have 13 certified Spotters, 9 certified Military Spotters and 3 certified Navigators. We are searching for pilots and we hope to have a couple within the year. 

We thank Calgary for the training support with three pilots, Gary, Dwight and Dennis , a navigator, Ed and a search coordinator, Orin . Thank you Dwight for laying out the targets for us. You did a great job.

Sept 15/12 Vulcan 

Several of the CASARA Lethbridge crew met CASARA Calgary in Vulcan for the second Nav training exercise. We had a great day and got Brian, Larry and Marty up for Nav training and Lauretta, Elaine, Dave and Stephanie up on Spotter flights. It was a good day and excellent progress was made on training. Thanks again for Calgary and the three planes, pilots and support crews. 

It's been a busy year and it's time for an update.

Training Aug 18, 2012

Lauretta, Stephaine and Marty had an opportunity to attend the Western Canada Sarex in Cranbrook, BC. We left on the Friday and had a great flight over the mountains from Lethbridge. Dwight had flown down on Thursday evening attending a company event and was our very capable pilot. We stayed  at a very comfortable hotel and after a evening where we friends from CASARA Calgary and met many new CASARA crews from Manitoba, Sask and northern Alberta,  breakfast at 7:00 am and off to the Cranbrook AP via a shuttle bus. The nine crews met at CASARA HQ and where soon busy plotting the search pattern for the day. It consisted of 10 targets and an ELT target separate from the main track. Our flight managed to find 6 of the 10. We also had a ground search exercise and found the target ELT. After the SAREX exercise we had a great supper and then back to the hotel. Sunday up early and off to the AP again.
After some maintenance on the plane we were off to Lethbridge. This had been the first flight over the mountains in a small plane for all of us from Lethbridge. It was a great experience as was the Sarex exercise. I think we all learned a lot.