[pajama pundit]

Yes, I have spent many hours crossing the Pacific Ocean (and the Atlantic) mostly at night. It is VERY big. Two points/observations.

1. We used to do search and rescue practice during the day. We would fly out to a point off the coast about 50 miles offshore. We would drop a marker buoy with dye marker attached, fly away from it for 10-20 miles then start a search pattern to try and find it again (altitude 500-1000 feet). If there were “white caps” (waves where the wind is blowing the tops off of the waves) then about half the time we could not find our own marker. Very sobering when you realize that if you are in a small liferaft without a signalling device (mirror, smoke, flares, etc.) then the odds of you being spotted by a search plane are very small.

2. After all these years we still don’t know what happened to Amelia Earheart (and there are many other similar stories)

[BwanaNdege]

We would drop a marker buoy with dye marker attached, fly away from it for 10-20 miles then start a search pattern to try and find it again (altitude 500-1000 feet).

P-3 or P2-V?

SH-3 or other helo SAR?