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| Livermore Airport Terminal, Tower and the 40' CAP antenna |
We were short one aircraft on Sunday, so my task was to drive up to Gnoss Field Airport (DVO) and fly Squadron 23's Cessna-206, callsign CAP 450 down to LVK, fly the sorties and then return to DVO. There were several sorties scheduled for the Sunday and the
deteriorating weather was becoming a factor. Rain was forecasted for 2:00 PM and I wanted
to be airborne back to DVO no later than 1:00 PM.
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| 3 of 5 CAP airplanes at the SAREX |
The preflight and weather briefing took a little longer than
expected and I was wheels up by 8:30. My 20 minute flight from DVO to LVK was a
short flight eastward along the shore of San Pablo Bay followed by a turn
southward through the San Ramon Valley and on towards the Livermore airport.
After landing I quickly secured CAP 450 and hustled into
the terminal building and checked in. The crew briefings were underway and soon
found out my crew assignment and search scenario. My squadron commander was
going to be my Mentor Pilot, and 1st Lt Dave Montgomery and Paul Barrett were going to
be the Mission Scanners.
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| In Grid |
The mission for my SAREX scenario was to search in grid SFO
210D (Discovery Bay) for a Cessna 150 which had not arrived at his destination after a flight from San Carlos to Sacramento Executive. We
performed the necessary preflight procedures such as direction of flight;
identify any hazards to flight, risk assessments and the weight and
balance. Believe it or not the preflight
procedures easily take an hour and sometimes longer. This time it took longer,
but we were wheels up shortly before noon.
The skies were overcast and there was light rain as we
crossed over the hills north-eastward into the central valley. The central valley is a great place to
practice, the terrain is flat and level, and the roads run in a north/south and
east/west direction. This makes it easy for the pilot to identify key roads and
use them as landmarks and boundaries. We
first flew our search grid at 2000 feet to identify the corners, and then I
descended to 1000 feet and flew a parallel search (think rows) from west to east.
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| Byron Airport |
After our search grid, we headed direct to Byron Airport and landed. We had been directed to land there by the Incident Commander and to not check in with base as required. The
purpose of this was to test the base staff trainees and see if they would
notice that CAP450 had failed to check in and was missing. Aircrews are required to check in (OPS
Normal) at the top and bottom of the hour, we did neither. I am happy to report
we weren't on the ground 10 minutes before our cell phones were ringing.
I answered my cell phone and the person on the other end was
none too happy with us. He wasn’t rude but he was perturbed. I quickly passed
the phone to my Commander and let him deal with it. In my eyes the base staff trainees passed the test. We were then ordered to return to base and off
we went.
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| CAP 450 aircrew |
The weather over DVO also precluded me from returning CAP 450 to DVO, rats! This meant I needed to arrange a ride with my good buddies to
drive me the 65 miles in the rain from LVK to DVO. Fortunately this was not a
problem and the CO Capt Jeff Ironfield and the XO Capt Noel Luneau, graciously offered me
the ride.
All in all, I found the Livermore SAREX to be very well
organized, the LVK staff friendly, and the facilities were perfect.
1st Luis Rivas is SQ188's Assistant Public Affairs Officer and is a Mission Pilot trainee
Images Courtesy of Capt Noel Luneau, Capt Gary Cinnamon, and 2d Lt Gabriel Fletcher-Hernandez
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