RESCUE - Police, or anyone?
You are a police Air Support Unit working in a coastal area which has miles of beaches, and mudflats, which are prone to rapid descent of fog.
From time to time, people get caught out by this when they are out walking, fishing, or whatever. Worst of all is the tide, which when it comes in, comes in quick.
You, the aircraft commander, haven't got the job by being middle of the road. You have thousands of hours experience in all weather conditions, maybe at sea. You are adept at flying in zero visibility.
Your observers are top of their trade. You trust them and they trust you.
Your helo is a light twin, state of the art, and FLIR equipped. No winch of course, but nice big deep skids .
The person stuck in the fog is in real trouble. The tide is coming in and they are hopelessly lost. They are on a mobile phone. They are told to stand still.
Bearing in mind the flatness of the terrain, if you were able to get yourself into a position where you could take a GPS fix in clean airspace - do you think you could go looking for them on instruments, utilising the FLIR and your observers talking you onto - hopefully - a heat source.
The workload would be massive, and lets leave out what we are legally allowed and not allowed to do. Keep it hypothetical. Someone is down there and is likely to drown if someone doesn't do something.
I believe the lifeboat service is now doing something with hovercrafts in some areas, but would be interested to know what you think.
Dangerous, yes. Daft, maybe. Would you be able to track back in on the GPS backbearing? or is it a no brainer from start to finish?