Search and Rescue Flight Patterns

[Bolonsky Adam]

Now that more and more reasonably-priced VHFs come equipped with internal GPS that use DSC to transmit our lat and long during maydays, it's probably worth having a look at how the Coast Guard runs search and rescue patterns.

If you don't know what DSC is, it's channel 70 - installed on every radio, by law, since 1999.

DSC is part of the Coast Guard's plan to digitize maydays. It's pretty amazing.

To use DSC on your radio you need an MMSI, free and administered by Boat US and SeaTow.

Meanwhile I have on Sea Kayaking Dot Net a 4-part series on the Coast Guard's search for Lady Luck, which sank while enroute to Gloucester. Lady Luck's EPRIB was found and tracked, but not her crew.