D7 Training Meeting (aka Conference) to start in Orlando, FL

Arrived today at the Florida Hotel, where the annual District 7 Training Meeting is to be held this weekend.

There will be business meetings of the District's leadership in the form of the Executive Committee, the District Board, and the District Aviation Board and the Flight Examining Board.  Among other items on the District Board agenda, there are elections for the three District Captain positions.  The Commodore and Chief of Staff do not stand for election this year, as those elections were held at last year's meeting and they are 2-year positions.

Sadly, there will be significantly fewer members (active duty as well as Auxiliary) attending this year's meeting, reflecting the austere budgetary environment we find ourselves in.  I trust that the members who do come will get as much out of it as we ordinarily do.  Despite the advent and ubiquity of electronic technology with which to conduct business, there is still nothing that can substitute for seeing someone in person, shaking their hand, looking them in the eyes while they are talking, and getting (and giving) a direct impression of what that person is like.  I lament how much that technology already denies us that personal contact and will exert what influence I can to encourage maintaining as much as we can.

Fort Pierce Coast Guardsman Promoted to Chief Petty Officer

Picture: Retired Senior Chief Joe Yurillo (left) pins rank insignia on newly-promoted Chief Electrician's Mate Raymundo Santillan as Sector Miami Command Master Chief Mark Mello (right) looks on.

FORT PIERCE, FLA - Electrician's Mate First Class Raymundo Santillan, 35, of Burbank, California was promoted to Chief Petty Officer today.  This important career milestone was marked with a time-honored military promotion ceremony at US Coast Guard Station Fort Pierce, Florida.  Presiding at the ceremony was the station's commanding officer, Chief Warrant Officer Randy Ryan.  Santillan's wife, Mysha was also present, along with the Station's company, several retired Chief Petty Officers, members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Coast Guard's partner agencies such as Customs & Border Patrol, and various state and local law enforcement and emergency response agencies.

Chief Santillan, who will complete 15 years in the Coast Guard in June, is nearing the end of his tour at Station Fort Pierce as the station's chief electrician.  During his 4 years there, Chief Santillan also has served as the station's Liaison Officer to the 4 Flotillas of the Coast Guard Auxiliary which are under the supervision of the station.  In that capacity, he contributed to the leadership of 228 Auxiliarists in their many activities in support of Recreational Boating Safety, Search & Rescue, and many other missions of the Coast Guard.  Santillan was also active in the Fort Pierce community, spearheading the station's work in the Partners in Education program, supporting the Weatherbee Elementary School.

Chief Santillan will transfer this summer to the 210-foot Coast Guard Cutter Alert, home ported in Astoria, Oregon, where he will be the Chief Electrician's Mate in the Engineering Department.

Congratulations, Shipmate!

Helicopter Crewmember Injured by Laser

Here is a post from Aviation Today's Rotor-Wing Department, courtesy of the Coast Guard Aviation Association.

It deserves wide dissemination and thought, as it documents the inevitable next step in the laser hazard issue - that of a laser encounter generating physical damage to its target.  And this one was a blue laser which, as I understand it, is significantly less powerful than its green counterpart.

This is a REAL hazard with REAL consequences and that does REAL damage to people.


http://www.aviationtoday.com/rw/issue/departments/rotorcraftreport/Helicopter-Crewmember-Injured-By-Laser_78626.html

Friday, March 1, 2013

Helicopter Crewmember Injured By Laser

By Ernie Stephens, Editor-at-Large

A member of a police helicopter crew suffered an eye injury after a hand-held laser was shined in his face. The incident, which occurred on the evening of Jan. 8, 2013, left a Prince George’s County (Md.) police officer with scar tissue in his left eye.

“As we came over a high-rise building at about 800 feet, I noticed a blue laser shining into the woods,” said Cpl. Chris Elrod, the agency’s senior tactical flight officer. “Next thing I knew, the inside of the canopy was filled with blue light.” Cpl. Todd Dolihite, the pilot, exited the area, conducted a briefing among the crew, and elected to make another pass in a manner that would allow Elrod and fellow crewmember Cpl. Edward Martin to pinpoint the source for ground units, while protecting Dolihite’s vision. “We wanted to get this individual and bring him to justice,” explained Martin.

The crew guided ground officers to the apartment of 40-year-old Jules G. Labonte of College Park, Md., who said he was demonstrating the laser to his nephew. Officers seized a Wicked Lasers-brand “Arctic” hand-held laser. (Its Class IV power is three times greater than pointers generally used in an office or classroom setting.) Thirty minutes later, Elrod experienced pain and redness in his left eye. An ophthalmologist later connected his symptoms to the laser beam, which had caused temporary scarring, even from that distance.

According Wicked Laser’s website, the energy from the device’s 1,000 mW beam can burst balloons from several feet away. It sells to the general public for $299 and comes with safety glasses.

Labonte was charged under Maryland law with three counts of assault, three counts of reckless endangerment, and one of count of misuse of a laser device. He is currently awaiting trial.


http://www.aviationtoday.com/rw/issue/columns/lawenforcement/Law-Enforcement-Notebook-Watch-Out-for-This-Laser!_78647.html

Law Enforcement Notebook: Watch Out for This Laser!

By Ernie Stephens

If you flipped though the previous pages of this issue without reading the Rotorcraft Report entitled “Laser Attack Injures Helo Crewmember,” I’m flattered that you landed here first. But what I’m about to tell you is a continuation of that piece written just for the law enforcement community. So, if you haven’t seen that short item, please check it out now, then return here.

Chris Elrod, a friend and top-drawer tactical flight officer (TFO), said that when the blue laser beam swept through the cockpit of the MD520N that he, TFO trainee Eddie Martin, and pilot Todd Dolihite were flying, they were a good 800 feet away from the knucklehead who was aiming it at them. But they managed to see which balcony of the high-rise apartment building it was coming from, and were able to guide ground units to the culprit, later identified as 40-year old Jules Labonte.

Labonte admitted to patrol officers on the scene that he was showing off his new, $299 Wicked-brand Arctic laser to his nephew. Of course, the ASP baton-size device was seized as evidence. But before sending it to the property room, officers and detectives experimented with its capabilities. Between what they witnessed at the station, what they found on Wicked’s website, and what they saw in amateur videos posted on the Internet, it was clear that the Arctic laser could be a serious threat to any law enforcement officer, and not just those who fly. When I learned of the incident, I went to the company’s website myself. I was barely through half of their marketing video when my jaw dropped. Here was a shaft of energy that was popping more than a dozen balloons lined up one behind the other. I had never seen a hand-held laser, outside of the ones in laboratories, do that before! But what made me more nervous was watching the other videos I found. Just plugging the words “Arctic laser” in my search engine revealed video after video of teenagers etching letters into stuff, popping kernels of popcorn, and (of course) recreating the company’s balloon stunt.

What I’m trying to wrap my head around are three simple things. First, how is it that a light device that can drill through material, cook food, and burn a man’s eyes from 800 feet be made available to the general public, including people I wouldn’t trust with a regular flashlight? Second, what is the attraction people have for laser pointers—outside of a learning environment, or course—that makes them the hottest selling item at beaches, carnivals and sporting events, especially among juveniles? And third, how long is it going to be before someone’s vision is seriously and permanently impaired while holding 4,000 lbs. of helicopter and crew in the air?

Elrod was very lucky. The ophthalmologist said his injury was minor, and probably wouldn’t have any lasting effects. But this thing changes the game for aviators. The first time I was hit by a laser was before the handheld kind sold at office supply stores had become popular. Laser sighting systems for firearms, however, were readily available, which is why I snatched the collective up into my armpit, and got us out of Dodge as soon as I saw that red dot ricochet through my ship. Now, there doesn’t even have to be a bullet on the other end of that beam of light in order to be a big problem. The beam itself can now be the problem! And folks, that sucker is powerful enough to reach out and touch you from over two miles away; far enough to make it difficult to identify where its coming from, particularly if your first order of business is to avoid looking directly into it.

Once word gets out about how nasty these devices are, will the bad guys begin using them to shoo police helicopters away, because they know the pilot will want to avoid the possibility of taking a hit? Elrod took the time to search for the “shooter,” but that was before he and his partners knew they had been illuminated by a laboratory-grade laser cannon that could burn their eyes.

For now, we here at Rotor & Wing are asking all pilots to be very careful when they see any shaft or dot of light that looks to be coming from a laser device. Yes, the relatively safe, low-power ones are all over the place. But according to Elrod and his partners, the tipoff that a Class IV beam is on you will be its exceptional brilliance, compared to what you’ve probably seen in the past.

By the way, the FBI and FAA were notified of the attack. Sources say that both agencies are waiting for Labonte’s trial to conclude before they take any action at their levels. And even though the FAA and the FBI have already publically announced a zero-tolerance policy toward laser attacks, I hope they kick regulatory and enforcement action up a notch with Class IV laser assaults.

Meanwhile, I’m working on an air-to-ground weapon that can lock onto the source of a laser, and use that beam to target the Jedi standing behind it with a barrage of florescent pink paintballs. Financial backers are welcome.

Be careful, ladies and gentlemen. These lasers are dangerous!

Memorial to the Crew of Coast Guard 6535

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the loss of a Coast Guard HH-65 and her four crewmen on 28 February 2012, let us remember them.  Let us each take this opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the flight discipline and the discipline in judgement that our profession demands of us each day we fly.  It is only when we do that their sacrifice is not in vain.

I wrote the piece below on the way home from the crew's memorial service last year.  I share it herewith in hope that it will have meaning for all who read it.

_______________________

08 March 2012

OVER THE NORTHEAST GULF OF MEXICO - As I sit in my seat at 17,000 feet, cruising along serenely in the sunlight, I reflect on events of earlier in the day wistfully and with gratitude for the privilege of having been there.  I am returning, along with my shipmates from CG Air Station Miami, from the memorial service for the crew of CG 6535 - the helicopter that was lost this past week in Mobile Bay. It was a magnificent service.  Upwards of 3,000 Coast Guard members and their families were there, along with members of many of our partner agencies.  They sky was overcast and gray, with a hint of chill and a threat of rain the air - most fitting for such a somber occasion.  The Commandant of the Coast Guard was there, along with an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, several other Admirals, air station commanding officers, and others.

This was a most moving experience for many reasons.  For many of these same reasons, this event has shaken Coast Guard Aviation to its very core.  This accident happened in a relatively controlled training environment.  The instructor was one of the Coast Guard's most experienced and highly regarded instructors and evaluators.  It was the trainee's final flight before certification - a trainee who had been a star officer and a star student. It happened in a training program that, despite the dangers and complexities of the missions for which they train, had not had a fatal mishap since 1981 - before many current CG pilots were even born - and even that accident had been caused by a mechanical failure.  Thus the usual suspects for causal factors regarding skill, or knowledge, or performance, or even of discipline seem not to be present.  Such would make much easier the task of contemplating this horrific event.

No... None of these easy answers seems readily available.  We are left, then, to contemplate the significance of this event for those of us left behind.  It is a demonstration that it can happen to any of us.  Each of us thinks we are at minimum good, competent, skilled aviators who exercise sound judgment in decision-making when we fly.  So did they.  We each strive to learn something from every time we take one of these amazing contraptions into the air.  So did they.  Those of us who instruct and/or evaluate endeavor to look at these factors when we fly with our aviators and attempt to impart some of that knowledge to them.  So did LCDR Taylor.

But... despite all of the good and wonderful things we heard today about these men, their supreme competence, knowledge, and skill, their mission last Tuesday night somehow ended in tragedy - and we're still here.  As for the specific reasons, a team of experts is already hard at work to figure that out.  Their painstaking work will take months.  We must give them the room to do that job.  They will figure it out, and then we will know.

But what are we to do in the meantime?  How do we go out tomorrow to do that same job - knowing that we are not any better, more competent or skilled, than they?  More importantly, how do we do so and have an expectation of a different outcome?

I submit that we begin by recognizing that we are not any better.  We are not immune.  We are as vulnerable and flawed as any who have gone before - including the crew of 6535.  We then resolve to renew our commitment to personal self-accountability.  Accountability in decision-making, accountability in performance, accountability in how we deal with those around us - our crewmates, our shipmates, and our families.  We acknowledge that every time we strap ourselves into one of those machines, we're all-in.  We're playing for all the marbles.

The men of 6535 did not know this was their last flight - or their last day on Earth, for that matter.  Yet, from what we learned about them today, it seems that they conducted their lives as if they did.  They quietly, without a lot of fuss, went about living lives of excellence and commitment on a daily basis.  Their example can be a lesson for the rest of us if we are open to learning and personal growth.  Let it be so for those of us in Auxiliary Aviation.  Let it be so for those of us in the entire Coast Guard family.  Let this be our way of honoring the memory of our fallen shipmates.

I know that it shall be so for me.

God be with you, my shipmates - until we meet again.