KEGELMAN AIRFIELD, OK-- Members of the Edmond and Oklahoma City Composite Squadrons of the Civil Air Patrol battled triple-digit heat for a 3 day search and rescue field training exercise on the grounds of the United States Air Force's Kegelman Auxiliary Air Field near Jet, Oklahoma. More than half of the members who participated in the exercise have multitudes of experience in search and rescue missions, specifically for downed aircraft. These exercises are conducted quarterly by the Oklahoma Wing of the Civil Air Patrol to maintain mission readiness and operational abilities. The exercise coordinator, Civil Air Patrol Capt. Dan Healy said, "This is one of our organization's top missions and it's vital that we maintain a training regimen in all weather and terrain conditions. And this weekend, we definitely experienced the extreme heat that Oklahoma throws at us every summer." The weather forecast prior to the exercise called for high temps near 100 degrees for both Friday and Saturday, "But we have to be prepared at a moment’s notice day or night, sun or rain, heat or cold; We have to be ready no matter what. This weekend reinforced our knowledge that we are prepared for virtually any search and rescue mission we're called upon to do."  Some of the activities covered by the teams included ground navigation, Emergency Locator Transmitter triangulation, classroom academics over search and rescue techniques and victim evacuation. In addition, with the excessively high temperatures, the teams also covered heat safety and techniques on how to identify heat related injuries.

Working side by side with the United States Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol is a volunteer organization of almost 60,000 men, women and cadets from all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, DC who conduct 95% of aviation related inland search and rescue missions in the US. As well as, urban search and rescue, disaster assessment and disaster relief. There are squadrons from the Oklahoma Wing located in all corners of our state, with 4 squadrons alone in metro Oklahoma City. Captain Healy continued, "While we don't hope for anything bad to happen to any aviator, we want them to know we're prepared, just in case something goes wrong."

The Edmond Composite Squadron of Civil Air Patrol meets every Thursday night at 6:30 at the Edmond National Guard Armory located in the 600 block of South Bryant Avenue, adjacent to EC Hafer Park's North Gate. All meetings are open to visitors interested in the program and you can read more about them at www.EdmondCAP.org.