SoCal Civil Air Patrol Squadrons

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sarodude

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saro marcarian
Hi all. I'm wondering who here has had experience with Southern California CAP squadrons.

I live in north LA county and work in Glendale. I have a plane I can use to reach somewhat more distant CAP units assuming they meet at an airport and actually fly - so distance matters a bit less than if I was just driving.

First off, who actually flies? I actually would like to work with Cadets as well, but not sure I want to sacrifice flying for talking about flying...

-Saro
 
There is a unit in San Diego based at Gillespie (SEE), but they were EXTREMELY disorganized when I last attempted to get info from them (about 3 years ago). Unless things have significantly improved, I wouldn't bother down that way.
 
Fearless Tower said:
There is a unit in San Diego based at Gillespie (SEE), but they were EXTREMELY disorganized when I last attempted to get info from them (about 3 years ago). Unless things have significantly improved, I wouldn't bother down that way.
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Ditto - was a bit disorganized, and cliquish.

May have improved though so I would suggest stop by and see for yourself, Squadron 57, they meet at KMYF in the terminal building conference room, Wednesday's at 7PM.

Not a bad group of folks but never felt particularly welcomed or encouraged.

'Gimp
 
Glendale to San Diego is one hell of a drive.

There is a very active squadron in Van Nuys. I believe there is another at Whiteman.

Lots of good people down there; I've met quite a number now, even though I'm far away from there.

Don't expect to fly the CAP aircraft right away. It takes about a year to go through all the hoops so they trust you with their plane. Two years to qualify as mission pilot. And if flying is your only motivation, you're not going to be very happy; it's not a flying club.

At least most of the SoCal aircraft are steam gauge aircraft. It takes less time. It's really hard to get the G1000 ground school, especially the IFR side.

FYI, flying the cadets is kinda fun, though a 182 isn't really the best platform for that. They get 5 free "orientation rides" apiece in the right seat, and as many back seat rides as they want. Some of the rules are kinda irritating, like it's not allowed to give the kids the controls below 1000 feet and I can't tell the difference between CAP "slow flight" and CAP "stalls" because stalls are defined as setting off the stall warning), but it's CAP's aircraft, so it gets flown by CAP's rules.
 
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There was a CAP unit near Longbeach? They did glider operations with a winch. Do not know their current status.
 
BillTIZ said:
There was a CAP unit near Longbeach? They did glider operations with a winch. Do not know their current status.
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There is a unit at Los Alamitos, that does the glider clinics. I don't know if there is a regular squadron there.

See http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com

There are quite a number of squadrons around the LA area.
 
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MAKG-

The issue with Whiteman and Van Nuys is that they're both Senior squadrons. As you mentioned, the Cadet flights are a certain kind of rewarding and I'd prefer a Composite group if possible.

I don't expect to be flying all that quick - but I want to be in a group that actually flies. I imagine a squadron without its own plane doesn't fly much if at all.

I didn't get much from the Whiteman contact other than "show up". Still need to call the Van Nuys contact.

I know Camarillo has a G1000 equipped 182 - and I got the distinct feeling that it gets used.

-Saro
 
Camarillo gets used A LOT.

So does Van Nuys.

Sometimes senior squadrons have cadet squadrons really close by. An example is San Jose (Reid), which has the two squadrons in the same building. Oakland (senior) has Hayward (cadet) just a few miles away.

I fly in a composite squadron, and you're quite right that much (not all) of the focus goes to cadets. There is some fun stuff. We happen to have a very good aerospace ed officer, who has the kids building all kinds of stuff, and learning how to fly an RC airplane intended for SAR.

The airplanes do not belong to the squadron. They belong to the Wing (state). So, I can go down to Camarillo myself and fly their airplane, because I'm G1000 qualified in California. San Jose for now does not have their own airplane -- it's being rotated to SoCal for a few months. They will probably use ours. Oakland shows up on our doorstep all the time when theirs is in use. I just used Concord's over the last weekend for a mission pilot (Form 91) check ride followed by an ELT hunt.

It's definitely more convenient when the airplane is right outside the door, but it's not a barrier to flight without it, as long as the drive isn't too bad.

There are SoCal airplanes at SNA, LGB, RAL, CMA, HMT, L18, SEE, FUL, VNY, WHP, and CCB.

If you're into emergency services, you'll want to be near a squadron you can get to in a hurry, either from work or home (preferably both).
 
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TOA had a squadron last I was there in 2011. It was basically being run as a good old boys flying club and was not doing much in the way of training or missions at the time. Hopefully it has changed.
 
sarodude said:
Hi all. I'm wondering who here has had experience with Southern California CAP squadrons.

I live in north LA county and work in Glendale. I have a plane I can use to reach somewhat more distant CAP units assuming they meet at an airport and actually fly - so distance matters a bit less than if I was just driving.

First off, who actually flies? I actually would like to work with Cadets as well, but not sure I want to sacrifice flying for talking about flying...

-Saro
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I'd look into the coast guard air aux, my experience with CAP has been..well
 
I flew with CAP for about 14 years - it should not/not take a year to get a basic check ride (form 5) to fly the airplane. If it you hear that at a squadron you visit, look at another squadron. Actually, it might be good to visit a couple of the squadrons you can reach - they can vary a lot in "quality". By orders of magnitude. Vastly.

They (CAP) are worth looking at - but your experience will depend, to a large degree, on your personal tolerance level for bureaucracy, versus what you'll encounter in the particular sqdn and (and Wing) you end up with.

It's not an issue for some guys; for others, it's just too much SAS to be worthwhile.
 
A few things changed with TAA aircraft.

There is a distinct shortage of CAP instructor time, which is the bottleneck. They are basically being asked to instruct for free, and more instruction is required with the TAAs. Like about 8 hours of ground school, plus several hours in the air.

It kinda has to be that way, if you've ever seen a steam gauge pilot just thrown into a G1000.

Frankly, I think almost all the problems go away if an instructor is allowed to charge a modest fee for adult flight instruction, at least for those parts that CAP doesn't directly require (like flight reviews or instrument training). There are a lot of instructors in CAP who make their living instructing and can't do it for free as CAP instructors.

That's at the wing level, not the squadron. Switching squadrons won't help either me or the OP unless we go to Nevada. And they probably have a similar problem.

You can definitely short circuit much of the time if you can afford your own training in a non-CAP G1000 and/or 182. Then, you can probably get through an initial Form 5 in a month or two. But if you can't do a short field landing reasonably close to PTS and you fly your 182 continuously full rich at 27 inches MP with 10 flaps, you aren't likely to pass the Form 5.
 
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SkyDog58 said:
TOA had a squadron last I was there in 2011. It was basically being run as a good old boys flying club and was not doing much in the way of training or missions at the time. Hopefully it has changed.
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A plane from San Diego went to TOA for a while this year while their aircraft was in maintenance. Even being the same basic plane(206 Round Dial) it never flew, I don't think theirs does much either. I expect they won't have a plane there much longer.
 
chartbundle said:
A plane from San Diego went to TOA for a while this year while their aircraft was in maintenance. Even being the same basic plane(206 Round Dial) it never flew, I don't think theirs does much either. I expect they won't have a plane there much longer.
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According to WMIRS, they don't have one.

Also according to WMIRS, SEE has three (is that where maintenance is down there, perhaps?). Two 206s and a 182, and all are not-mission-ready.
 
MAKG1 said:
According to WMIRS, they don't have one.

Also according to WMIRS, SEE has three (is that where maintenance is down there, perhaps?). Two 206s and a 182, and all are not-mission-ready.
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No, maintenance for San Diego is HMT. The two 206s are actually sitting at MYF for their maintenance since they timed out before they could go to HMT. The 182 is a loaner until one of the 206s is back(and it's just an oil change).

And it looks like the TOA plane is still at POC being repaired.(I guess POC is one of the other main shops.)
 
MAKG1 said:
A few things changed with TAA aircraft.

There is a distinct shortage of CAP instructor time, which is the bottleneck. They are basically being asked to instruct for free, and more instruction is required with the TAAs. Like about 8 hours of ground school, plus several hours in the air.

It kinda has to be that way, if you've ever seen a steam gauge pilot just thrown into a G1000.

Frankly, I think almost all the problems go away if an instructor is allowed to charge a modest fee for adult flight instruction, at least for those parts that CAP doesn't directly require (like flight reviews or instrument training). There are a lot of instructors in CAP who make their living instructing and can't do it for free as CAP instructors.

That's at the wing level, not the squadron. Switching squadrons won't help either me or the OP unless we go to Nevada. And they probably have a similar problem.

You can definitely short circuit much of the time if you can afford your own training in a non-CAP G1000 and/or 182. Then, you can probably get through an initial Form 5 in a month or two. But if you can't do a short field landing reasonably close to PTS and you fly your 182 continuously full rich at 27 inches MP with 10 flaps, you aren't likely to pass the Form 5.
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Actually, I just stepped away from CAP last year, so I'm familiar with the G1000; part of the original bottleneck was self-imposed, as they were insisting on the CAP/Cessna ground school (about a day) even for those up-to-speed on the glass. I may have heard they backed off that, but don't recall. I remember the class was not well designed.

But that's sort of indicative of the organization; takes a while to get things done, and they can be cavalier with member's time. If you can deal with some of that frustration, there are rewards, too.

But dang, Glass or not, it's a182, not the space shuttle. . .and the check pilot and mission pilot shortages go way, way back.
 
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