The 2011-2012 Wing Emergency Services School (WESS) begins in October 2011. This will begin out 14th cycle of our training program for senior members and cadets based on the National Emergency Services Curriculum, a task-based program that stresses practical skills.

The activity dates are: 
14-16 Oct 
11-13 Nov 
20-22 Jan 
17-19 Feb 
23-25 Mar 
20-22 Apr 

The full activity announcement and further information can be found on the activity website wess.alwg.us. 

The course dates and locations for the FY12 offerings of the National Search & Rescue School's Inland SAR Planning Course have been posted. The 5-day Inland SAR Planning course is a comprehensive,“graduate-level” look at inland search theory and its application to land and air searches for missing persons and aircraft with a focus on wilderness, not urban, searches.

The course consists of classroom lessons and practical, tabletop exercises.  This course does not incorporate field training.  Emphasis is on the planning necessary for effective area-type searching during an extended search using Probability of Success (POS), rather than just a few elements of POC (POA) or POD, to predictively allocate limited resources to their best effect.  In essence, what to do after the rapid (hasty) search and specialty resources have not found the missing person.  Additional topics include pre-plan development, legal aspects, NIMS/ICS applied to SAR, the federal role in SAR, and related subjects. The course does not teach search tactics or technical procedures, as those are well covered from other readily available sources.