by Dale Brown
Patrick drove to the older western side of the flight line, parked in front of a large cube-shaped hangar, and he and Brad retrieved their gear and headed inside. The hangar was shared with several nonmilitary organizations, everyone from the Lander County Sheriff’s Department to the Nevada Department of Wildlife, so there was an assortment of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft parked inside. They found two men at a large table inside the hangar, looking over topographic charts. One was wearing an Air Force — style green Nomex flight suit, similar to Patrick’s; the other was wearing a camouflaged battle-dress utility uniform with an orange vest over the jacket. They looked up when Patrick and Brad came over to them.
“The McLanahans: first to arrive, as usual,” the man in the flight suit, Civil Air Patrol Lieutenant Colonel Rob Spara, said. Spara was a retired Army Kiowa Scout helicopter pilot and commanded an Army helicopter training squadron before retiring; he held a variety of helicopter-related jobs now, doing everything from flying skiers to fresh powder on mountaintops, to air ambulance, to maintenance and repair. He shook hands with Patrick, then handed him a clipboard with a sign-in roster. “You’re the first pilot to arrive, sir.” Even though rank in the squadron was rarely observed, everyone called Patrick “General” or “sir.” “Feel like flying the 182 today?”
“Absolutely,” Patrick said immediately. He completed the sign-in, then had Brad sign in.
“Good,” the other man, CAP Captain David Bellville, said. Bellville was the vice commander of the squadron and the commander of cadets, a ten-year veteran of the Civil Air Patrol, a twenty-two-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and a physician’s assistant. “I’ll be your flight release officer. I’ll enter you into the ICU and give your crew a face-to-face when you’re done preflighting.” The ICU, or incident commander utility, was the computerized data-input system for the Civil Air Patrol, which did away with a lot of the paperwork required by the Air Force.
“I’d like to fly as scanner, sir,” Brad said.
“You know you’re not old enough, Brad,” Spara said.
“But I finished all the training, and—”
“And you know how I feel about father and son flying together: if there was an accident, it would be an even greater tragedy,” Spara interrupted.
“Then can I be on the DF on the ground team, sir?”
Spara had turned back to his incident planning and looked a little peeved at the question. “The initial mass briefing will be in thirty minutes, Brad.”
“I can start inspecting the L-Per.” Spara looked as if he hadn’t heard him. “I’m here early, and I did navigation on the last exercise. I can—”
“Brad, we’re trying to work here,” Spara said. He paused, then nodded. “We’ll put you on DF. Go start preflighting it. Briefing in thirty.” He gave Patrick a short glance, and Patrick nodded and followed Brad to the equipment room.
As Brad unlocked the door, Patrick said, “I know you’re anxious, big guy, but you shouldn’t badger the squadron commander like that. He’ll give out everyone’s assignment in the mass briefing. He doesn’t have time to address each individual in the unit.”
“He gave out your assignment,” Brad said.
“I think that was a courtesy, Brad,” Patrick said. “I didn’t ask him if I could fly as mission pilot.”
“Courtesy because you’re a retired general?”
“Probably.” Patrick detected a slightly angry expression. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Spill it.” Still silent. “You still don’t like that I joined the Civil Air Patrol, do you?” Patrick asked. Brad glared at him. “I told you, I didn’t do it just to keep an eye on you.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m a flier, and I was Air Force, and when we got sent to Battle Mountain and you transferred to this squadron from the Henderson squadron, I thought it would be fun, and it is. Plus, I give back to the community by volunteering.”
“It was my hobby, not yours.”
“So I can’t have the same hobby as you?”
“It’s not just that you’re a general, it’s because you’re a flier,” Brad said. “The CO looks down his nose at cadets and ground ops.”
“That’s not true,” Patrick said. “He’s a pilot, but he’s also retired Army — he’s been supporting ground troops his whole career. But that’s not what’s eating you either, is it?” Silence. “Wish I wasn’t part of Civil Air Patrol? Get used to it — I’m not going to quit unless work really picks up, which seems unlikely for a while.” Still silent. Patrick scowled, then asked directly, “What’s eating you, Brad?”
Brad looked up, then around, then took a deep breath and said, “Nothing.”
“C’mon, Brad, what’s up?”
“It’s nothing, Dad,” Brad said. He retrieved the L-Per direction-finding device and turned. “I gotta go.”
“Okay,” Patrick said dejectedly. It wasn’t the first time they’d tried to have this conversation, he thought, and it ended the same way every time.
Brad finished checking the direction-finding device, then brought it and his equipment over near the four-wheel-drive van to get ready for inspection and boarding. More squadron members had arrived, and he had time to visit with his friends and watch the local news for any information while they waited for the mass briefing. There weren’t that many members yet in the hangar — folks who lived in Battle Mountain usually escaped on weekends, to Elko, Jackpot, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City, or to remote desert campsites scattered throughout the area. If they were available, more would show up later for follow-on or backup missions.
Ron Spivey was a bit younger than Brad and was going to be a senior in high school, like Brad. “Hey, Ron,” Brad greeted him when they saw each other. “Where were you when the call came in?”
“Just bought Marina a cone at the DQ and were on our way out to do some off-roading,” Ron said. He was the quarterback and captain of the football team with Brad, taller but not as beefy as Brad, with big hands, a thin face that looked even thinner because of a thick football player’s neck, and narrow eyes.
“Was she pissed?” Brad asked.
His initial expression told Brad that she was, but Ron shrugged it off. “Who cares?” he replied. “If she wanted to nag on me, she could do it in my rearview mirror. She knew better. I dropped her off and geared up. What do you know?”
“Plane went down northwest of here,” Brad said. “I’ll bet they’ll put us on a Hasty team.”
“Maybe we’ll get to see victims.”
“You’re a sicko.”
“Beats those stuffed scarecrow things they put out on SAREXs.”
A few moments later, another young boy came up to them, stood in front of Brad, and saluted. “Cadet Sergeant Markham reporting, sir,” he said. He was fifteen years old but looked about ten, with a round face and body, a nose way too small for his freckly face, and big green eyes.
Brad returned the salute. “You don’t have to salute indoors, Ralph,” he said, “and you don’t have to report to me — you report to the IC or whoever’s signing us in.”
“Sorry, sir,” Markham said.
“Don’t apologize either. Did you sign in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you don’t have to ‘sir’ me unless we’re in formation,” Brad said. But he knew that Ralph Markham liked the military formalities and wasn’t going to stop. “They’ll probably put us together on a Hasty team. Got all your Seventy-Two gear?”
“Yes, s — Brad,” Ralph said. “Out by the van ready for inspection.”
“Who’s closer to level one?” Brad asked the others. He turned to Ron. “Did you get your advanced first aid at the last SAREX?”
“No, I came in late, so they put me at the base on the radio.”
“Then make sure you ask Bellville or Fitzgerald to be lead medic so you can get a sign-off and take the practical exam,” Brad said. “That okay with you, Ralph?”
“I’ve already got
my advanced done, sir,” he said proudly.
“Excellent,” Brad said. “The practical too?”
“Mr. Fitzgerald gave it to me last week.”
“So what do you need for your level one?”
“Tracking and DF, sir.”
“They said they’re getting an ELT signal,” Brad said, “so they put me on DF, and I’d like to stay on it to help out if they need me. But if we’re on foot, I’ll have you organize a line search and take us through some tracking procedures. Remember, verbalize what you see to the rest of the strike team and take lots of pictures or drawings. If you get a sign-off, we’ll do some tracking practice on our own and get you ready for your practical exam. The DF sign-off will have to wait for another actual or SAREX next month, unless you can go to the California Wing’s summer camp in two weeks.”
“I can’t,” Ralph said. “I have summer school.”
“Bummer,” Brad said. Ralph was an enthusiastic cadet and loved the challenges of the Civil Air Patrol, but his reading was several grade levels lower than his classmates’, and he needed a lot of extra time to do the simplest reading assignments. “No problem. You know your stuff — we just gotta get you some practice and a senior to observe you. You’ll get your first class before you know it, and I think you’ll skate through Urban DF too. You could be up for officer promotion.” Ralph looked as if he was going to explode with pride. Brad turned to Ron. “You gotta get busy on getting some sign-offs, Cap. You’ve been a second class for, what? A year?”
“Hey, BJ, I’m busy, okay?” Ron spat back irritably. Brad’s face turned stony. Ron Spivey was probably the only person who could get away with using that pejorative nickname, and only if he used it very sparingly. “I got two lousy part-time jobs that don’t pay shit—”
“Watch the language around the younger cadets and the seniors, bro.”
“—football practice twice a day,” Ron went on, ignoring Brad’s remark, “and a girlfriend who thinks I’m her personal chauffeur and cash machine. I’ll do the stuff when I can get the time.”
“I’ll help you, Ron, but you gotta make the time,” Brad said. “When this is over we’ll go online, I’ll take a look at your SQTR progress record, and we’ll figure out—”
“I said, I’ll do the stuff when I get the time, McLanahan,” Ron said, and turned on a heel and walked away.
A few minutes later, all of the senior and cadet members who had arrived took places around the conference table. “Thanks for coming so quickly, everyone,” Rob Spara began. He gave a time hack, then began: “This is an actual search-and-rescue mission. Approximately forty minutes ago, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center was notified by Salt Lake Air Traffic Control Center that a Cessna 182 with three souls aboard was lost on radar and presumed crashed in heavy thunderstorms. A commercial airliner flying in the vicinity picked up an emergency locator transmitter beacon on VHF GUARD frequency about fifty-five miles northwest of here. The Air Force notified the Civil Air Patrol National Operations Center, who called Nevada Wing headquarters, and the colonel made me the incident commander.
“The storm system has blown through and clear skies with gusty winds are expected in the recovery area,” Spara went on. “Several airliners have picked up the ELT, and air traffic control actually put together a pretty good triangulation based on signal fade. The plan is to launch the 182 and begin a search grid at the approximate location given by the airliner. Unfortunately, the ELT is an old-style transmitter and isn’t picked up by satellite or doesn’t transmit its position, so we do a search the old-fashioned way. General McLanahan will be mission pilot, with de Carteret as observer and Slotnik as scanner.
“Because we got an ELT signal and we might have a mostly intact plane with survivors, I’m going to deploy a Hasty team immediately,” Spara went on. “Bellville will be the ground-team leader, with Fitzgerald as deputy team leader, driver, and comm, McLanahan as DF, and Spivey and Markham as medics. Repeater setup will be Romeo-17.” Everyone wrote that designation on their briefing cards. The repeater network — a series of FM radio towers on several mountain peaks throughout remote areas of Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah — would allow the incident commander to communicate with air and ground units simultaneously, even if in a remote area or not in line of sight. “Be sure to carry medical equipment and supplies for three victims.
“Unfortunately the GA-8 ARCHER is undergoing its one-hundred-hour inspection, so it’s not available until Tuesday, but I’m hoping to find this objective before then.” ARCHER, which stood for airborne real-time cueing hyperspectral reconnaissance, was the most sophisticated nonmilitary airborne ground sensor in the world, capable of detecting fifty different wavelengths of electromagnetic energy in a single pass. It could detect tiny pieces of metal, disturbed earth, or even spilled fuel. ARCHER could not be operated at night and had difficulties seeing through dense trees or deep snow, but in the deserts of the western United States, it was an ideal sensor to help locate downed planes. Because of its capabilities, ARCHER, mounted aboard an Australian-made Gippsland GA-8 Airvan single-engine plane, was borrowed quite often by other CAP wings; it flew so often that it underwent a hundred-hour inspection about once every three months.
“Our Cessna 206 is on its way back from Las Vegas,” Spara went on, “and it should be available tomorrow if necessary. Elko and Reno squadrons are issuing alert notifications but I haven’t heard if they have backup planes available yet, so for right now, we’re it. Cell-phone signal forensics hasn’t picked up anything yet.” The Civil Air Patrol had the capability to triangulate a person’s cell-phone signals to help locate that person, even if the phone wasn’t in use — depending on the number of cell towers activated, the position could be determined within a few miles. “Questions?” He waited a few moments, then said, “Conduct your task-force and team briefings, then head on out. Good luck, good hunting.”
The air and ground teams got together for a joint briefing. “Based on approximate positions of aircraft flying overhead and relayed to us from air traffic control, the IC picked grid SFO 448 to search,” Bellville began, pointing to a topographic chart that had been overlaid with hundreds of numbered rectangles. “I suggest we start on the southwest corner of the grid. We’ll plan on driving west on the interstate to Exit 234, north on Grayson Highway, north on Andorsen Road, and go off-road at Andorsen ranch. Hopefully the 182 will have spotted the objective by the time we get there. Fid?”
“The Andorsen family has already given us permission to access their land at any time,” Michael Fitzgerald, the deputy team leader but a much more experienced Nevada high-desert outdoorsman, said. Fitzgerald, a Nevada Department of Wildlife field agent and firefighter, was a tall, imposing guy, with long hair and whiskers, definitely not military-looking — and he delighted in that. “I have my charts marked pretty well with gate locations. We’ve lucked out because the grid is relatively flat, with the east face of Adam Peak in the northwest corner the only high terrain to worry about. I just hope the ground isn’t too soggy.”
Patrick made some notes and checked his sectional chart, which had been marked with the same grid lines as on the topographic briefing chart, then nodded. “Sounds good, Fid,” he said. “We’ll enter the grid on the southwest and try to steer to the ELT — if we’re lucky, it’ll still be emitting. If not, we’ll contour-search Adam Peak, then do a parallel search course in the grid, half-mile tracks, at one thousand feet AGL. Based on sun angles, I’ll do a north-south track and hope we can pick up some good contrasting shadows. I know our target is a Cessna 182—any details about the three passengers?”
“The fixed base operator at Elko said it was two adults and one young boy on board that plane,” Bellville said. Patrick couldn’t help but look over at his own son, and Brad looked back at him with sorrow on his face. They had flown together for many years — Patrick was a flight instructor, but in these tough economic times, Brad was usually his only studen
t — but the thought of losing Brad in a plane crash was almost too awful to think about.
“If the ELT is still on,” Patrick said, swallowing hard and shaking off the thought of Brad being in that situation, “they may have survived the crash, and they may be trying to signal us. I feel good about this one, gang.”
“Same here, sir,” Bellville said. He and Patrick exchanged more information, double-checking radio repeater channels and charts so they could communicate and have common references in case anything was spotted, then shook hands. “Good luck, sir.”
“Same to you, Dave,” Patrick said, and the air and ground teams broke up to do their own team briefings.
“A few more thoughts, and then we’ll mount up,” Fitzgerald said to the ground-team members. “Looking at the objective area, we might be able to stay on the wash, but the thunderstorms that moved through the area might make it impassable. Hopefully the ground will have had a chance to dry out by the time we get there. It’s fairly flat, but we might have a few deep gullies to traverse. In any case, our job is to move fast to help any survivors. We’ll try to drive in as far as we can, but be prepared to do some quick hiking.”
Bellville referenced a data card given to him by Spara. “We’re on the lookout for a Cessna 182, the same type of plane as Three-Double-Echo, which I know you’ve all flown on, white with blue stripes,” he went on. “Three souls on board. The flight originated from Elko en route to Carson City, so it might have lots of fuel still in its tanks, so be careful of spilled fuel and fire.”
Bellville paused, then looked at Spivey and Markham, the two youngest members of the ground team — Spivey was seventeen and a bit younger than Brad, and Markham was fifteen. “Guys, let me and Fid approach the scene first, okay? I know you guys have been on actual missions, but you’ve never seen accident victims before, right?” Both cadets shook their heads, their eyes wide. “I know you guys are fully qualified in emergency services, first aid, and field operations, but encountering victims of a plane crash is a whole ’nuther world. You’ve got to ready yourself for some pretty awful sights. I’m not going to push you away from the scene or keep you from doing your assignments, but I’m not going to shove that horror on you either. Let us seniors check out the scene first, okay?” Both of the younger cadets nodded silently; Brad did not. “Good. Get your packs ready for inspection outside the van and let’s move out.”