Ralph Kramden
Active Member
I had my first flight today as a member of the Civil Air Patrol. If you are looking for flying opportunities while you are building your RV and you would like to serve your country as well, consider joining CAP.
CAP is a volunteer organization of the US Air Force. Besides providing cadet and aerospace education services, it is probably best known for being the primary search and rescue organization in the US. We fly (mostly) Cessna 172s and 182s (the 182s are new and have glass cockpits) and have about 550 of these aircraft positioned around the country. We also do counter drug, disaster relief and homeland security missions. You don't have to be a pilot to participate in flying missions (but most everyone reading this IS a pilot) but if you are a pilot there is lots of flying to do. You can rent the airplanes for training missions for much less than you could from your local FBO - our 172R is fully equipped (GPS, DME, IFR, etc) and rents for $32/hour dry. If you are training with two others, then that cost gets divided by three. If on an "air force assigned mission" then the cost of flying is covered by the Air Force.
To train to be a mission pilot, you need 175 hours PIC with 50 PIC CC. But you can fly the airplanes with even less time - 100 hours PIC to be a mission transport pilot. You can train to get your IFR rating or your commerical rating. CAP (USAF) regulations have to be followed, but it is real flying.
Our missions usually involve three people in the Cessna flying 80 knots and at about 1000 feet AGL to search for lost aircraft or to do aerial surveys of disaster areas. A mission pilot flies the airplane while a mission observer observes from the right front seat and a mission scanner observes from the lest rear seat. A mission transport pilot can fly "Highbird" missions where the purpose is to take a radio repeater aloft to about 8000 feet and loiter for hours providing communications to ground teams and low flying CAP aircraft.
Today's flight was a training flight with me in the right seat. We practiced flying a low search pattern. I learned clearly that in oroder to be useful as a search and rescue flyer you really do have to prepare and train in advance. I have heard people on this forum wanting to go out and fly search missions for lost RVers, but really a single pilot flying a low wing aircraft like an RV would be ineffective. If you want to help when something bad happens, then invest the time now and join up with CAP.
Later this week, I should be taking a checkride in order to be qualified to pilot the airplane myself. Our squadron has 25 members and one 172 and not many pilots right now. There are units everywhere.
No, it's not an RV, but it is useful flying for a good purpose. Beats sitting in the basement waiting for my RV kit to become flyable.
Interested? Try www.cap.gov for details.
--REK
CAP is a volunteer organization of the US Air Force. Besides providing cadet and aerospace education services, it is probably best known for being the primary search and rescue organization in the US. We fly (mostly) Cessna 172s and 182s (the 182s are new and have glass cockpits) and have about 550 of these aircraft positioned around the country. We also do counter drug, disaster relief and homeland security missions. You don't have to be a pilot to participate in flying missions (but most everyone reading this IS a pilot) but if you are a pilot there is lots of flying to do. You can rent the airplanes for training missions for much less than you could from your local FBO - our 172R is fully equipped (GPS, DME, IFR, etc) and rents for $32/hour dry. If you are training with two others, then that cost gets divided by three. If on an "air force assigned mission" then the cost of flying is covered by the Air Force.
To train to be a mission pilot, you need 175 hours PIC with 50 PIC CC. But you can fly the airplanes with even less time - 100 hours PIC to be a mission transport pilot. You can train to get your IFR rating or your commerical rating. CAP (USAF) regulations have to be followed, but it is real flying.
Our missions usually involve three people in the Cessna flying 80 knots and at about 1000 feet AGL to search for lost aircraft or to do aerial surveys of disaster areas. A mission pilot flies the airplane while a mission observer observes from the right front seat and a mission scanner observes from the lest rear seat. A mission transport pilot can fly "Highbird" missions where the purpose is to take a radio repeater aloft to about 8000 feet and loiter for hours providing communications to ground teams and low flying CAP aircraft.
Today's flight was a training flight with me in the right seat. We practiced flying a low search pattern. I learned clearly that in oroder to be useful as a search and rescue flyer you really do have to prepare and train in advance. I have heard people on this forum wanting to go out and fly search missions for lost RVers, but really a single pilot flying a low wing aircraft like an RV would be ineffective. If you want to help when something bad happens, then invest the time now and join up with CAP.
Later this week, I should be taking a checkride in order to be qualified to pilot the airplane myself. Our squadron has 25 members and one 172 and not many pilots right now. There are units everywhere.
No, it's not an RV, but it is useful flying for a good purpose. Beats sitting in the basement waiting for my RV kit to become flyable.
Interested? Try www.cap.gov for details.
--REK
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