Mounted search and rescue

["Paul Fleming" <pfleming@nwlink.com>]

Allen,

You are correct training is the key and its fairly simple. Take your horses 
to the local (small aircraft) airport. Ride around  on the approach and 
departure ends. Start half a mile out then work in. In is not necessary to 
get really close. 100 feet over your head is sufficient. Each time you hear 
a plane turn the horse to face it. Generally if you don't make a big deal 
out of it he won't either.

When your ground teams train with helicopters take your horses too. Just 
hang around a couple hundred feet away and let the horses watch. If your 
horse is real skittish let him watch from the safety of his trailer at 
first. It shouldn't take too many outings till the horses react to aircraft 
like just like a truck, no big deal.

That being said we also require horses to be held not tied when a 
helicopters are in the vicinity.

Mostly on searches the only times aircraft noise will cause a problem is 
when the helicopters is flying at high speed right on the tree tops. The low 
altitude tends to reduce the amount of noise broadcast forward and you 
really won't here it coming until till its right over you. You and the horse 
can be startled. Its part of the job. Not much we can do about that. Guess 
that's why we wear helmets

Paul
PMSAR




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ALLEN SNYDER" <allendana1@sbcglobal.net>
To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Air Support


> [Deleted included prior post and HTML duplicate.  -Una]
>
>
> Is it realistic for air support to be aware there are horses or dogs 
> searching and to give us warning so we can prepare, move out of the way or 
> dismount if needed to be safe such as with radio communication?  There are 
> few horses who would not react a little to loud or close aircraft even if 
> they had been desensitized or exposed.  I expect much of this will be 
> reviewed in MSAR training, but it seems a specially-trained horse/rider 
> team is essential.
>
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