Heat Camera

Here's some photos from the search exercise the other night. Wet windy and dark, and slippy underfoot made this a tricky exercise.

The casualty was 'hiding' in a valley near Tilly Whim caves. After about 20 minutes of searching the first team managed to get a small 'contact' of reflective fabric using a high powered LED torch. A slight movement allowed the team to decide to investigate further. Given the topography a second team were called down to the far side of the valley and conned onto the contact position.

At night, at a distance it was hard to see what was going on.

Reflective Jackets (what you can't see is how close they are to a rocky drop off)

The first search team had the heat camera which is far more effective than an infrared night sight.

Dee used this to film the action.

It's hard to convey in photos how useful the heat camera is! You can pick up a rabbit in the dark at 250m., it's that sensitive.

In this search it allowed us to cover a hours worth of ground in under 10 minutes. On a cold night that could be the difference between a successful recovery, or a fatality.

...sadly its only on test and has been passed back to the manufacturer. It's £6k of equipment, which in the current economic climate, means we will have to do without.