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Happened in my neck of the woods (oh, OK, swamp). In the absence of flares, use a fire extinguisher to signal the rescue helicopter. Nice end result.
by cyberferret 8y ago
Happened in my neck of the woods (oh, OK, swamp). In the absence of flares, use a fire extinguisher to signal the rescue helicopter. Nice end result.
- achow 8y agoMakes me think that there is potential of repurposing military smokescreen technology for emergency gear.
- ThePadawan 8y agoIn a very 2019 move, military smokescreen has in fact been repurposed for the civilian market... for social media use: https://www.google.com/search?q=photorealistic+smoke+effect https://www.google.com/search?q=photorealistic+smoke+effect
- gotocake 8y agoThey’re also heavily used in paintball and airsoft, and some other quasi-combat games. The best ones I’ve used are sold by a company called Enola Gay, and they advertise simultaneously to photographers (as you said) and paintball/airsoft users. They’re really fun, ring-pull devices and produce a truly impressive amount of smoke for minutes at a time. The first time I used one I giggled like a kid.
- chrisseaton 8y agoThey’ve always been available to civilians as smoke markers.
- saiya-jin 8y agoSingle-use flares/smoke generators are nice if you are sure you will be spotted during that specific fly-through by rescue team. If not, you need to pack some amount with you. You need to be sure they don't 'expire' and don't get wet. What about some emergency signal mirrors with pinhole? It can be plastic so nearly indestructible, weights few grams, basically credit-card size, cost nothing, due to pinhole you can point the sun reflection pretty precisely towards rescuers and it doesn't run out. Drawback is obviously inefficiency without direct sunlight, but this is something I carry on every camping trip and I don't even think about it anymore.
- cyberferret 8y agoThat is cool if you are in fairly open high country. But these guys had climbed into the canopy of a tree, so both the sunlight, and the reflected light from the mirror could have been blocked by foliage. Smoke (or a flare) was about the only thing that could move above the treeline and be visible to an aircraft.
- cm2187 8y agoSeems simpler to have some sort of radio beacon.
- supermatt 8y agoWhich would you recommend? Id happily carry a credit card sized radio beacon in addition to my emergency reflector.
- dlgeek 8y agoNot OP, but I know the Spot products are pretty popular (https://www.findmespot.com/en/ https://www.findmespot.com/en/). Though, the Gen3 is quite a bit thicker than a credit card and they do run $20/month for service. But, they're designed for exactly this.
- supermatt 8y agoI have a Fastfind PLB as my primary (doesnt need a subscription, but one-time use), but I'm interested in this CC-sized device OP mentioned as an every-day carry.
- justinclift 8y agoWhen going on remote motorbike road trips (eg outback Australia), the general thing we take is a satellite phone. They're fairly cheap to hire.