If I landout, or worse parachute, I'll be ****ed and won't be a 'happy
camper'. I'll want to go home with my glider ASAP. To hell with the
fishing kit, K-Bar knife and other woodsmen stuff. I'll conceed that
adequate water, a power bar and space blankets are nice.

My priorities a

1. Tell concerned folks exactly where I am, what my condition is, and convey
the idea that I want to get picked up ASAP. I want to carefully select who
I tell about the situation.

2. Get myself and the glider extracted with the least fuss possible
involving natives, police or professional SAR people. I don't want to sound
a general emergency with a ELT or PLB unless absolutely neccessary.

3. Get crew and myself to an establishment serving food and beer.

To this end there are two almost magical devices, Globalstar/Iridium
sat-phones and GPS. We already have GPS so we need phones. Reasonably small
sat-phones cost around $500 and a service contract with zero minutes is
trivial. If you actually need to call from the wild, $2/min is also
trivial. The phones can be rented for $30/week for use at contests and
camps. With the phone, you can even make reservations for food and beer.

Bill Daniels