Using Symbols as Distress Signal

Video Transcript

Hi this is Eric Sterns with Expert Village and we are talking about visual ground air signaling for emergency situations. Right now we are getting ready to cut some miniature symbols out for the ground air signaling to give you an idea of what those look like. We are going to be using a knife to cut the tarp instead of scissors and the reason is in that kind of situation most likely you will not have scissors. When you are cutting you want to maintain equal tension on both sides of the material and cut as cleanly as you can at an angle. This insures that you are probably going to have a better chance of maintaining a straight edge. A straight edge is really important in this kind of a situation because you want the material to be obviously man made in origin. This separates it from the environment so that people know that they are not just seeing some kind of phenomenon or a natural anomaly that they might tend to ignore. It is especially helpful if it is bright orange or yellow or blue like this to contrast against snow. I am going to move this tarp aside here so that it is not in the way. Basically the first signal that you are looking at is the V and the V is simply a statement from the ground that you require assistance and it doesn't specify anything else. The next symbol that we are going to be discussing is the X. The X is actually very important especially if you are injured as an indication that you require medial assistance so by taking the two pieces of material that we just cut out we can simply cross them, make an X, and our attentions are plain from the air which is that not only are we in a stressful situation and require assistance that we also need medical assistance and it just lets someone know whoever is flying by that there is an injury.

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