[BC] White House Just Evacuated

[Bill Croghan]

>I dunno... how difficult is it, really, to make and file one? (Tom O? Any
>other pilots here?)
>
>If I were a pilot, I think I'd want to file one, just for safety's sake...
>God Forbid, what if you went down in some forest and couldn't give your
>location. (GPS not working, let's say) If you had filed a Flight Plan,
>they'd at least
>know which course you took, and could look along that path for your plane.
	A great many pilots do not file any form of flight plan, nor do they
notify someone where they are going or when they expect to return.  These
are sometimes the hardest for those of us involved in Civil Air Patrol
Search and Rescue, to find.  Many purely local flights are totally
undocumented.  As part of our procedures we interview gas attendants, Rental
agents etc. to see if the pilot(s) may have let someone know or at least
given a hint.  One of my most frustrating searches took over a week to find
a Pitts 2 that we learned was missing when the pilot failed to pick his wife
up from work.  We found him a week later in the burned out wreckage less
than 2 miles from the airport.  This was a former USAF A-10 Pilot and
commercial airline pilot who could have done something to help relieve the
strain he put on his family.

Bill Croghan CPBE WB?KSW
Lt. Col Civil Air Patrol
Chief Engineer, 
KOMP/KXPT/KENO/KBAD
Lotus Broadcasting
Las Vegas, NV
Email to loteng (at) lvradio.com
Phone 702-315-3030
Fax      702-876-6685