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When I'm not trying to make a living in
a tight economy with everyone else, I am a volunteer pilot for the
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. It's
better known for chasing off unfriendly German subs sinking our
ships in World War II and for doing 85 percent of the
search-and-rescue in the United States since then (saving thousands
over the years), but it also performs emergency services. None of us
get paid, but all of us who join are screened by the FBI before we
can become a member of CAP.
Late Tuesday I got a call from my
squadron commander. He said that my name was on the standby aircrew
on the next day (which means you need to be ready to fly if an
emergency comes up on that day). It wasn't an emergency, but the
feds and state were conducting some big test and our aircrew would
make the first test run. He said I needed to cancel my plans and
arrive on Wednesday (Feb. 18) for a briefing. I did.
Our assignment was to fly two aircraft
-- one equipped with a camera to shoot videos of potential hurricane
evaluation routes, nuclear event, etc. The second plane would circle
high as a retransmission platform, relaying both images and
communications from the photo plane to an Emergency Operations
Center, located in Austin. It was a first-ever multi-state,
multi-agency coordinated test of new technology, and our job was to
prove it worked before the governor showed up for the ribbon-cutting
photo op the next day.
It was a clear blue day, perfect for a
test. One aspect of its use that got my attention was the photo of
an oil fire burning madly in the middle of nowhere, turning the blue
skies into a nasty white haze. The photo plane relayed back GPS
coordinates so that state, federal or local authorities would know
immediately of the problem -- and where it is located.
As a terrorism analyst I saw its
potential and requested that our missions should be updated and our
planes should be equipped with modern nuclear radiation detection
equipment -- so that if a suitcase nuke or a mini-nuke gets loose
within our borders, we have a quick way of detecting it.
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column in this commentary]
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In one test in the Northeast recently,
one of our squadrons was challenged to find a radiation device
hidden in a truck somewhere in hundreds of square miles. It launched
a plane with a detector onboard
-- and pinpointed a radiation source from a moving truck within 15
minutes of taking off. Imagine the difference of detecting one of
these before it can be detonated instead of waiting for the
aftermath.
But right now no Civil Air Patrol plane
has this equipment. Every one should. Nuclear terrorism is a real
possibility, and it would make the anthrax and ricin attacks minor
events. We also need the faster satellite video equipment. With the
"SLOW Scan" technology we tested, it took three minutes to transmit
one photo -- and the planes had to fly parallel courses during those
three minutes or lose the transmission. The satellite system is on
only one test plane. It works at the speed of the Internet, which we
use via satellite hookup in the air.
The biggest advantage of our aircraft
and crew is cost. The pilots are all volunteers (we get no pay, and
I had to reschedule meeting a potential new client to make this
flight), and to operate a Cessna 172 or 182 costs under $80 an hour
-- versus $500 per hour to operate turbine helicopters and $4,000
per hour for military aircraft to do the same job. In a time of a
half-trillion budget deficit, saving costs should be a top priority.
CAP has the nation's largest air fleet -- nearly 500 aircraft, if I
recall correctly.
A couple
photos on that day can be found at an online journal I wrote on that
date:
http://journals.aol.com/fjet2020/GlobalAmerican.
[Michael Fjetland,
www.INTLEGALGROUP.com,
The Global American series]
Reprints allowed with author credit and
website reference.
Michael Fjetland (pronounced "Fetland")
is an international negotiator who has been in over 55 countries
over a quarter century, is a volunteer pilot with the U.S. Air Force
Auxiliary and is a TV terrorism analyst in Houston. People
interested can sign up for the Global American column at the above
website.
He is also a candidate for Congress in
2004. [www.FFFE.US] |
