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Posted on Sunday August 22nd at 6:18 p.m.
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I hardly know myself what a drilling engineer does so it's hard to explain...but think Armageddon, but hopefully with less gushing oil and probably no Ben Affleck or Bruce Willis. Despite this I was sold when they said they'd fly me anywhere in the world for my monthly 2 weeks off. Looks like my ski bag will be coming onto the oil rig with me.
On a different level of excitement, I came very close to being caught in a large avalanche. The noise of the crack was like a bomb going off, but without being able to see where it was coming from. Luckily the slab broke away below us and no one was badly hurt, but it bought home the fact that they can happen to anyone, anywhere. Since then my radar probe development has been turned up a notch.
Any equipment to be used in the search and rescue operations of an avalanche needs to be accessible and easily operated. Current radar systems available on the market sit on top of the snow and are directed vertically beneath the operator. As you can imagine, this method is really no quicker than manual probing. We are trying to incorporate these existing radar technologies into a probe similar to those used for manual search and rescue. This will allow large areas on debris to be scanned in a short period of time.
Current radar systems for finding buried victims
So what are the problems: Choosing the right antenna (like your Sky TV dish) to receive a signal bouncing off a buried object. Making a non metal pole that is strong enough to go into any type of debris. Making is portable and practical. We are keeping on at solving these problems and field testing across the Chill Mountains will continue throughout the season. In the meantime, I'm getting set for the Gnomes free ride weekend at Temple Basin this weekend. It's set to be a goodie, so come join the fun from Friday night and I'll see you up there.
‘Til next time.