Thoughts on Civil Air Patrol

[denverpilot]

When asked for a specific list of tangible results, how do you respond? Can you point to specific accomplishments insofar as doing whatever it is that your squadron is supposed to do? Does your group look for downed airplanes or perform some other function?

Yes to all.

- Cadet orientation rides: We're doing enough of them that one pilot actually said he was tired and needed a break. (He was giving me grief for not getting checked out since I meet all the requirements.) The Cadets deserve to not wait forever for these.

- Wing has had various missions in support of wild land fire and/or disasters. Our squadron has always responded and been prepared to go. And in some has been the closest unit and selected. (Large multi-aircraft SAR missions are rare.)

- Squadron members were involved in ground team activity for the Find last year in the San Juan mountains.

- Squadron members and Colorado aircraft participated in both the Steve Fossett search and Katrina.

- Squadron members have participated in disaster relief work on the ground for the various tornadoes in Colorado and the Boulder fires.

- Our Squadron's Vice-Commander is also a Wing Historian who dug into documentation and found enough information about Gen. John F. Curry to re-write much of CAP's early history. He also started a Memorial Day annual honor guard service for the General since he's buried at Ft. Logan National Cemetery. The General's family was flown out to see this one year, at CAP member's expense.

And there's others... some are sensitive in nature, honestly. USAF has a few roles they've used us for as has DEA that Wings participate in, but I'd prefer not to mention any Squadron or individual's personal involvement for their safety.

So yeah, tangible real results besides training.

You do have a good point though. The Squadron should have this data for our own involvement and Wing accomplishments in a document. Of course there are documents galore sent up to both Federal and State but nothing in the format meant for say, a brochure.

Part of the difficulty is we go when called. If we're not called, nothing happens. That would be "no tangible result" other than that we were trained and ready to go.

We're cheap compared to many other aerial assets an Incident Commander can utilize, but they have to call and say they're funding the flight(s) before a prop turns... we're getting better at letting other Agencies know we exist. Today it's all about Interoperability in all of these Public Safety and SAR roles.

 

[Palmpilot]

Part of the difficulty is we go when called. If we're not called, nothing happens. That would be "no tangible result" other than that we were trained and ready to go.

Reminds me of the fact that on the day of the 9/11 attacks, we were asked to have a crew at the squadron airplane all day, preflighted and ready to go on a moment's notice. I didn't necessarily think we were going to get called, but we did it anyway. The next day, I was surprised when we actually were assigned a mission, to fly Red Cross blood samples to a lab in Portland, OR, because they had to be tested before they could be used. I'm pretty sure that anyone who received a blood transfusion associated with any of those samples would say that they got a tangible result.

 

[airbornejohnny]

Every volunteer group has it's mission, and not every person involved has the same goals in serving that mission. Some emt's or firefighters are more interested in the plate or emergency lights than spending the personal time learning the art of rescue. In much the same way, some CAP folks are more interested in ego inflation by way of rank/insignia. People come and go, and the roles people play never change. EMS will respond for a heart attack, the Fire Dept. will respond to a burning house, and CAP will respond to an ELT.
There will always be more people who whine, ****, moan, and begrudge than people who shut up and do the work.

 

[Henning]

Yeah, pretty sad but that's just the way people are and the percentages just can't be beat. 'Stupid' has the house odds. They loves you to play and profit from it, but they won't let you win.

 

[denverpilot]

2 sorties launched, 4.8 hours of flight time, and 12 total personnel spent their Saturday assisting in a search for a lost hiker here in Colorado today.

12 people, and many more on-call, moved out and got eyeballs in the sky.

Hopefully there's a small-town Sheriff grateful this evening that he could call upon a resource he otherwise didn't have or couldn't afford.

Probably a few chores and lawns didn't get taken care of today, and a few tired volunteers dozed off after supper, tired... but knowing they went when called...