Looking for Survival Exercises

[AirCon]

I_Reason

I think you missed MY point of the excercise. My little list of tips was intended to provide insight on what you COULD have with you at all times so you DON'T have to forage/waste energy while trying to live to fly another day.

Cheers

A

PS.....I DO have a survival kit in my truck with above (plus more) said items

[Rudy]

Good idea endless. Lot's of good info here. This reminds me of my favourite class with Brian Stewart. I'll give it a shot.

Cigarette lighter (without fluid) - Fire is priority one. This will make sparks.
A ball of steel wool - A spark on this will burn hot.
20 x 20 ft. piece of heavy-duty canvas - Shelter is priority two. If it's a good color it's good for a signal.
Can of Crisco shortening - Screw the crisco, I want the can for melting snow for water.
Extra shirt and pants for each survivor - This too goes to shelter and warmth. A must to have if you get wet.
A small ax - Eventually I'll run out of wood within reach and might have to fell a tree. I can make a nicer shelter.
Newspapers (one per person) - If my fire goes out and I'm outta steel wool. Might be fun to do the crossword (kidding).
One quart of 100-proof whiskey - Good for cuts. Might burn too.
A loaded .45-caliber pistol - Good fire starter if you take the bullets out of the cartridge and fire it at kindling. The sound might signal someone.
A compass - I'm not going anywhere but there might be alchohol or kerosene inside that will burn.
A sectional air map made of plastic - I'm not going anywhere but I might be able to figure out if there's a running river nearby. But at these temps it's probably frozen. It will burn.
Family-size chocolate bars (one per person) - I can go a long time without food. Shiny wrappers might make a crappy signal.

[oldtimer]

Everone quickly forgets one very important factor in an off airport landing. You most likely will break your ankles in the crash landing, unless you are lucky enough to be forced down in a single engined airplane,(lower landing speed). I believe any off airport landing in a high performance twin is not survivable unless you can land on a frozen lake. A force landing in the mountains at night in a King Air is usually not survivable. At least in my humble opinion.
As a sidenote, if you had no choice (double engine flame-out) and were on the prairies, and are flying , say a Metro or King Air, would you attempt a forced landing in a farmers field landing gear up or down? How about a snow covered wilderness lake in winter? A country road or a farmers field?
Just a thought.

[. .]

gear up 100 % of the time. Having the gear down isn't going to help anything in my mind. I can't for the life of me think of a situation that would be improved by the gear being down.

[. .]

rudy: i had never thought about the liquid inside the compass. good call.

[Spinner]

Rate these in order of importance. The answers and why I will post later.


AM/FM PORTABLE RADIO

50 FT. OF ¼ NYLON ROPE

SHOTGUN WITH 4 BIRD SHOT CARTRIDGES

CASE OF EVAPORATED MILK

COPY OF THE LATESTEST ISSUE OF MACLEANS

MECHANICS TOOL POUCH WITH HAMMER, WRENCHES
SIDE CUTTERS, SOCKET SET, VICE GRIPS AND SCREWDRIVER

BOX OF MATCHES

MAGNETIC COMPASS

A DAMAGED AIRCRAFT FLOAT WITH 1 OF 7 COMPARTMENTS HOLED

AN AREA SECTIONAL AIR MAP

A ROLL OF .041 LOCKWIRE FIFTY FEET

A 15’ BY 15’ LIGHTWEIGHT ORANGE TARP

AN AIRCRAFT SURVIVAL AXE

A BOX OF 10 HEAVY DUTY GARBAGE BAGS

A SHAVING KIT WITH A 5” ROUND MIRROR

Rate these in order of priority from 1 to 15. This is a survival exercise in the TC human factors training manual. The answers are given by 442 squadron as to their priorities.

[Rudy]

Can we get the answers to the first one before starting another.

[Apollo]

I should've got a copy of the SAR video they showed us during our CRM training - the CF guys actually said that a hatchet could be used to hunt bears/caribou for food, we all got a good laugh at that, I'd suggest going after the smallest bear in a pack first with the hatchet...

The steel wool would make an excellent fire starter - especially if you have batteries.

[I_Drive_Planes]

I would start by looking up your local SAR group. They can often help.

I happen to be a member of my local SAR groups (both land and air), a former backpacking guide, former forester, and a lifelong outdoorsman so I have a little insight to share.

AirCon's post is very good, and covers the major points.

After first aid priority number one is FIRE, fire fire fire fire fire, remember that. It could possibly be shelter depending on the weather, but as a rule FIRE. Fire provides warmth, light, and as mentioned the psychological effects are very important. The greatest barriers to survival are psychological, not physical. Get firewood, lots of it, get as much as you think you'll need, then triple it.

Shelter. Shelter comes next, keep it small, keep it simple. The smaller your shelter, the warmer it will be. The simpler it is the less likely it will fall and the less energy it will consume for you to make.

Signals. Who ever made up the "three fires" idea should be shot. On a search any fire will be investigated (we aren't going to fly over and say, "hey this guy waving at us only has one fire, he must not be in trouble"). Making three fires is a waste of energy and firewood. Sometime go out in the bush where you are likely to see a light aircraft flying overhead, build three fires, light one (as you would a campfire) wait until you hear an aircraft, light the other two, and see if you can get them both lit, and making enough smoke to be seen before the aircraft passes. I have tried many times, nowhere near being successful. You are best off to have a supply of green boughs, and light dry kindling, aircraft oil and tires make great smoke, and if you have some gas left over to really get it going even better. Signals tromped out in the snow in a meadow, or frozen lake are quite effective (even more so if lined with boughs) but expend far too much energy for my liking (conserving your energy is one of the most important things in survival). Colours catch attention (a blue tarp for a shelter is great), so do shiny things (emergency blanket, aircraft aluminum, and signal mirrors). When it comes to signals make it big and bold, fires are best.

Tools. Forget axes, bitchslap anyone who tries to sell you a hatchet. In a survival situation you need to be extremely careful not to get hurt or sick (more on this later). As mentioned before axes take a lot of energy to use, they aren't very versatile, and are very unsafe for a tired possibly hurt or dazed person to be using. Hatchets are the most useless item in any survival kit, they are too small to actually be of any use, so people wind up whaling on things with them and hurting themselves. A pruning saw (sierra saw at cambodian tire, less than $10, its great) is a godsend, quite safe, light, very quick cutting (they cut on both strokes), cheap and extremely useful. I carry one in my truck, in my flightbag and in the bush, always. Also carry a deck of cards, it may sound silly, but once you have your shelter, fire and signals built there is suprisingly little to do (and energy conservation demands that you do as little as possible) and boredom becomes your worst enemy, it gives you time to think, and to lose hope. A simple diversion like a game of solitaire will keep you sane (and besides every one knows that as soon as you start a game of solitaire someone will come along to tell you what move to make ) Try to find tools that multitask (a multitool rather than a knife, or my blue tarp that can be used for shelter and signals).

Safety and health. Wash your hands, make a bathroom a fair distance away from your camp, and especially from any water source. Be extremely careful not to hurt yourself. A minor injury or stomach bug, becomes very serious in a survival situation, a stomach bug could dehydrate you, you may not be able to do simple tasks that are imperative to your survival. I have a friend who is a retired hunting guide, he lost a finger when a got a really small nick on his knuckle splitting firewood a weeks ride back in the bush. It became infected, and by the time he was able to get out the finger had to be amputated and he was was completely incapacitated. The doctor said a little longer and he would've been dead. So be especially careful! Don't take stupid risks.

DO NOT EVER TRY TO WALK OUT. Are we clear? Stay with the plane, hug a tree, whatever floats your boat, but do not ever leave the spot where you became lost (if on foot) or the airplane. Airplanes are much easier to spot than people (not that airplanes are easy to spot) next time you fly over a park where you know there are hikers see how many you can spot on foot in the bush at 90kts, 1000' agl, and up to 1nm away, think how much easier it would be if they were near a nice white crumpled cessna with a fire going. Also from a ground SAR perspective, if you are lost and you try to find your way out you will only make yourself more lost, and it will take longer for us to find you. Stop, think, make camp, and hang out until the cavalry arrives, do things to make yourself more easily found. The other factor with trying to walk out is the safety factor, now you are travelling, possibly across rough terrain, huge potential for injury. You are also wasting energy! If you try to walk out, what will happen (barring injury) is you will walk around until dark sets in, now you are in rough terrain, you can't see, you have no fire, you have no shelter, no one knows where you are because you have now left off from where you told someone you were going (and I know you told someone where you were going, or filed a flight plan, a good one, with precise routing). That energy that you wasted could have much better been used to set up camp, build a fire and stay warm.

Stop (sit down if you have to), think through every single action you take, and keep your spirits up, the wheels are turning to get you out.

Planes

Wow, that was longer than I intended, but survival is bloody important to anyone who flies across uncivilized terrain, and I much prefer finding warm ones to finding cold ones so I hope you read that closely.

[mellow_pilot]

I_D_P,

Nice post.

What are your thoughts on the "rate in order of importance" deals?

I always figured that it doesn't matter what order you put them in, as long as you actually have a use for it. (I always get mad when they say to ditch the booze, like I was going to drink the stuff, sheesh! Make fire! Fire pretty...)

[I_Drive_Planes]

I_D_P,

What are your thoughts on the "rate in order of importance" deals?

The only order of importance that actually matters is the survival pattern.

First Aid
Fire
Shelter
Signals
Water
Food

(fire and shelter can be interchangeable depending on the situation)

As far a rating gear on the order of importance, it's a really good exercise for survival courses. I've done that exercise and similar ones that say "here are 20 items, you can have 10 in your kit, which ones do you want?". They get people discussing the items, and force them to be creative with the uses of different items, you have to be creative to survive. It can actually be quite entertaining, when people really get into it they actually get into shouting matches over a hypothetical situation. When you get people putting that kind of energy into the course they learn a lot more, and think about the material more than just listening to some guy blab about it at the front of the room.

"Rate on the order of importance" exercises can be a fun and entertaining way to get people thinking about survival.

Planes