RWS 36 – Survival and Rescue with John Hudson

John is the UK military’s chief instructor in Land, Sea and Extreme Environment Survival. In this episode he talks about the priorities of survival should you find yourself forced to land in a remote location. How much attention do you pay to what you wear or carry on you when you go flying? For some …

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The post RWS 36 – Survival and Rescue with John Hudson appeared first on The Rotary Wing Show Podcast.

John is the UK military’s chief instructor in Land, Sea and Extreme Environment Survival. In this episode he talks about the priorities of survival should you find yourself forced to land in a remote location.

How much attention do you pay to what you wear or carry on you when you go flying? For some of us our organisation or company might mandate what equipment is carried – and that can start to add up, personal location beacon, knife, pocket flares, first aid kit, mirror, pistol, HEEDs bottle, whistle etc if you are military.

For many of us though it’s a wallet, keys and mobile phone. This episode will challenge you to think about what you will do if you get forced down due to weather or mechanical problem in a remote area and need to wait for rescue or recovery.

[Tweet “Most important thing is to have a good #rescue beacon with you. #helicopter”]

John takes us through the key elements of survival and how that relates to helicopter aircrew. As an ex-Puma pilot and now someone that trains UK military personnel including aircrew on survival John is able to talk about specifics such as using parts of the aircraft to help out.

I probably wouldn’t have thought of using the aircraft battery to help getting a fire going for example. Another key lesson is don’t go anywhere without a 406Mhz beacon.

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[Tweet “Stay with the airframe if you can. Much bigger footprint for search teams.”]

In this week’s episode:

01:43 John Hudson bio

03:20 Sergey Ananov rescue in the Arctic Circle Jul 2015

05:33 RAF helicopter training – Puma

06:40 Full time role as Defence survival instructor

08:35 Overseeing the training of other survival instructors

09:40 SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape)

11:30 Extreme survival environment training – deep snow, jungle

15:14 ‘Dude you’re screwed’ TV series on Discovery channel

18:16 Camera operators on the show while ‘surviving’

21:15 Training around the world for groups

23:00 Mental preparedness is a key factor

25:00 Make a cup of tea, allows time to think, glucose, heat to boil water

26:30 Muscle memory training – fire on start, aircraft evacuation, emergency briefing

29:50 Protection, Location, Water, Food

30:30 Protection – first aid, clothing, shelter, fire (fire first in cold environment)

34:46 Location – 121.5MHz no longer satellite monitored, want a 406MHz beacon, big ground signals, flightplan before you go

39:10 Water – limiting factor in longer survival, must be clean but…. , ‘big bubbles, no troubles’, methods of sterilization

41:30 Food – glucose type sweets don’t require water to process

42:35 Practical equipment to take flying, cutting tool, grab bag, signal mirror, compass on your watch strap

46:30 Resources you can repurpose from airframe – radios if they still work, battery to start a fire, tires for black signal smoke, insulation fabric, fuel for fire and cooking, piping/ducting to carry or store water

50:30 Leadership and passengers – 75% chance that any individual will be stunned and bewildered. Panic is not that common but contagious. Give them tasks to keep busy.

55:10 Books – South: Sir Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic survival story from early 1900s, When I Fell From The Sky, Juliane Koepcke, survived 10,000’ fall into jungle, Royal Marines Survival Handbook by Colin Towell

58:40 Top take away ideas from the interview

1:00:00 Episode Sponsors trainmorepilots.com

Links from this week’s episode:

John’s personal website – johnhudsonsurvival.com

Survival Wisdom website and resources

Dude You’re Screwed TV series website

BBC Article on Sergey Ananov’s survival story

Royal Marines Survival Handbook by Colin Towell

Snippet from a Dude You’re Screwed episode – John making a cup of tea

[leadplayer_vid id=”56052A5FAC8C2″]

John training in the snow with UK military

[Tweet “Make a cup of tea, allows time to think, glucose, heat to boil water @jhsurvival”]

[Tweet “Survival is not one huge task, it’s a series of little tasks”]

Got a question for John that we didn’t cover in the episode or a survival tip? Continue the conversation in the comments below.

The post RWS 36 – Survival and Rescue with John Hudson appeared first on The Rotary Wing Show Podcast.