Vid Clip: Avy Recovery Practice in Utah

Utah is developing the use of a helicopter to detect avy beacons from about 1,000 yards.  I can't imagine that this would be terribly useful in finding a live victim (but maybe I am wrong).  But, I think it would make it safer and easier to conduct recovery operations.  In the vid, they show some pretty massive debris fields that would take a very long time to search on the ground:

www.lawrencetrotter.com/MiscPIcs/Avystuff2.wmv

I can appreciate the technological effort that it took to develop the direction finding ability from a helicopter.   Reminds me of my Navy days when I worked with Heli-dipping sonar to find submarines.

Edit: I meant 1,000 feet, not yards. Yea, there is a difference. - larry

Hey, those are my old cronies from Alta and Snowbird.

This is actually quite cool because they have two choppers in Little Cottonwood canyon at all times, doing backcountry helli skiing. They can be on scene within just a couple of minutes following an avalanche. I have seen those guys land and get out of the chopper to assist before people on the ground could reach the debris pile. That is about the only think I liked about the wasatch helli ski operation though.

The Air Med choppers can also be on scene within about ten to fifteen minutes. That could be simply a recovery mission at that point, but still seems like a worthwile venture.

I saw some of the most amazing avalanches in the Wasatch. I BC skiid there for 22 years and saw just about every good avi path go at some point. There is not nearly the stability in the snowpack because of the fluffy nature of the snow there.

I don't know if this is a great program for an area that doesn't already have a strong helli presence, but it is always good to see the old crew up to good things.

Bryan C

Well, 150 meters not 1000 yards at least per this xthread: www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php...3fcb22842c53a7ca1cea but that's still noteworthy technologically.

Interesting, but as with all things that include the words "Little Cottonwood Canyon" and "helicopter" in the same document, there seems to be some controversy about just what the motives for these things are: good PR for WPG? Actually useful for anyone other than the paying WPG clients?