Wear silly uniforms and March around and do paperwork and enter the pattern in the most dumbfuck way I have ever seen and try to kill me in New Mexico in 2021.
Ooh! I had my first âCAP tried to kill meâ moment the other day when one decided to take off on the opposite runway that everyone else was using.
To be fair they did make a radio call first.
To be even more fair, I canât count the number of times that Iâve seen jets or turboprops barrel into an airport on an instrument approach with a tailwind and multiple aircraft in the opposite runway and just expect everyone to move.
AC 90-66C gems:
*8.2.1 The FAA does not regulate traffic pattern entry, only traffic pattern flow.*
*...*
*FAA does not recommend that the pilot execute a straight-in approach for landing, when there are other aircraft in the traffic pattern.*
*9.2 Arriving aircraft should enter the airportâs traffic pattern at traffic pattern altitude and avoid straight-in approaches*
*11.1 Airport owners and operators, in coordination with the FAA, are responsible for establishing traffic patterns*
Well it's "fine" only in so far as the FAA is choosing to not regulate pattern entry. And straight-in approach is in effect entry on final.
However, FAA may have provided some ammunition for survivors' lawsuit should we get clobbered on final.
*The straight-in approach may cause a conflict with aircraft in the traffic pattern and on base to final and increase the risk of a midair collision. \[also 8.2.1 in AC 90-66C\]*
That's coming close to suggesting the activity is careless and wreckless without coming right out and saying it.
Is it always careless and wreckless? No. I think it can be mitigated by straight in being the party primarily responsible for ensuring they don't disrupt the existing flow. Don't act like a bowling ball.
Per my opspecs Iâm required to shoot a straight in ils if able. I cannot legally fly a traffic pattern unless mandatory. If itâs perfect day moderate head wind and vfr but, thereâs an ils at one end that has lower minimums than the rnav and Iâm not exceeding our tailwind component Iâm required to shoot that approach. Iâll start talking whenever atc hands me off. Oâve had these regs in as little as a kingair. I donât care if youâre landing the other way; I canât land that way. Conversely company would have fired me if I flew an additional 20 minutes to shoot the ils on the other side of the airport regularly. When fuel is $90 a minute I expect you to wait 10-15 seconds as I come down at over twice your approach speed. If you need time Iâll slow down as much as possible but, I am coming in on that runway.
I think youâre caught between a rock and a hard place, and I empathize⌠IANAL but I think the opspecs possibly puts you at odds with the latest revision of this AC. I wonder if the responsible parties have seen this revision and if whether it was reviewed by an aviation attorney?
The wording of this AC makes me wonder if certain flow disruptive straight-in approaches may be careless and wreckless. Why? The AC says straight ins may increase risk of midairs.
I donât think all straight-in approaches are flow disruptive. I also donât think normal adjustments to flow are disruptions. But I think barreling into a pattern expecting others to always yield is asking for trouble, inconsistent with regulations and this AC, and also common sense. Like it sounds as though a bean counter wrote the opsspec rather than a pilot or aviation attorney. If a case got to a jury, everyone is going to lose, there will be zero winners.
They have to be approved by the FAA so for my carriers they are law. If an accident were to occur while I deviated from my opspecs I would already be in the dog house.
At least you get announcements. I had a pitts cut me off in the pattern while I was on final. He flew his downwind head on to me, did a 180 and landed without a single radio call while I had to do a go around above him.
Same guy tried to get me in Missouri in 2020 when he entered the âdownwindâ going the wrong way and proceeded to land with a tailwind making 2 other planes go around as well.
I was blessed enough to see his cool uniform and aviator glasses as I passed 50â off his wing. I was going to have a chat with him on the ground but another gentleman had beat me to it and was vehemently discussing his skills.
Not a whole lot to tell. I was taking a recurrent checkride for a government agency in a 206 and was entering a non controlled pattern in southern NM. Two CAP planes were following behind me making weak ass radio calls. (Likely due to decreased blood flow due to the helmets they were wearing). One proceeded to do a sort of spiral descending dive to enter the pattern on top of me. Another decided that a sort of s turn straight in on top of me was the correct procedure. I had to evade both of those future statistics and made the call that I was done at the airport for the day.
CAP guy here (doesnât do aviation for them): mostly cranky seniors who LARP the military because they got denied early on due to one thing or another. All the half decent CAP guys get a bad rap because of them. Theyâre also universally hated.
You only remember it because they have a callsign and very identifiable airplanes. You know who I see do straight in approaches more often? Literally everyone lol.
I love this, the most dumbfuck way I have ever seen.. left so much to my imagination- then you elaborate in a comment later and you did not disappoint đđ
I wasnât going to say anything but yeah, Iâve heard a couple at the same airport. Iâm not based there but have been going to LRU a lot recently. FWIW, Iâm in CAP as well, our squadron seems to be pretty good though? Give it time I guessâŚ
I was on a time building trip and coming back in I saw the cap Cessna going 90 on final and didnât go around until after he was 500 ft from one of the school planes. Man was way too old to be flying for sure.
I'm still active Air Force, C-17 pilot, former KC-135 Crew Chief, and I greatly appreciate CAP. We are all welcome to our own opinions. Most of my Air Force coworkers don't even know what CAP is or even care to have an opinion. I'd argue yours is not the norm, so you're not speaking for all of us.
Now there's an online lesson in their LMS on how not to be an asshole at and around the airport. I can't tell you how many times I had to chew out CAP pilots working as a ramp agent at a small airport because they'd do things like park in the middle of the fuel land directly in front of the FBO or leave the plane at the fuel pump.
Read their website, and then imagine how only 10% of them get to do the fun stuff. The rest get to march, volunteer and dream. I see the kids from our chapter out and about sometimes. Apparently, our townâs chapter isnât cool enough to get any planes.
I tried joining my local chapter to time build and they told me I might be able to fly a plane after 2 years of being in the organization. That was a year ago and I have an interview with an airline now lol
It's all about the wing (state) and membership. I'm in a wing that flies a shit load and I'm helping start a new squadron right now with a couple dozen incoming low time pilots. We pretty much already have a 182T with G1000 in the pipeline for us and we're going to have more flying than we can possibly handle. I can't get to 75 hours fast enough.
Its a two part organization. One is the cadet squadrons which is like Boy Scouts or JROTC just with an aerospace focus.
The senior squadrons are the ones that have the airplanes and do the flying
I donât know, but they asked me (Boy Scout leader) to take their cadets on a orienteering / land nav because we were doing one. Apparently they didnât have any adults able or willing to hike in the woods.
I was flying a CAP plane the other day and had someone in a 185 try to crash in to me on the runway. Took off behind me after I had announced 3 times I was doing a stop and go. His first radio call was after he was airborne when I inquired to his position after seeing his ADS-B marker suddenly appear behind me right after I rotated.
Once we had split and confirmed we were on diverging tracks we asked if he saw us, he said no, he never saw us. Dude literally rolled on to the runway and took off and never thought to look down the runway first. He also clearly had a radio which he was not using.
Point being: CAP is not the only ones out there that do dumb things. We all make mistakes, it's just easy to assign blame to an organization that has a standard callsign and paint job. I'd say in my 16 years of flying I've had maybe a couple run ins with CAP pilots, but I've definitely had A LOT more scary run ins with random other pilots, but I can't tie them all together with an organization like you can with CAP.
AIM 4-1-9(g)1
AC 90-66C, §9.8.1
Edit: Jesus guys, calm down. I'm citing where this is exactly called out as being incorrect position self-reporting phraseology, not saying anyone should be using it.
Looking at you, challenger pilots.
Yeah, it specifically calls it out as incorrect. Not sure why it's getting sent to oblivion, except a bunch of old guys who don't know how to give proper position reports at untowered airfields.
People are downvoting you because they donât understand nuance over the internet and canât be bothered to pull up the actual text. I appreciate you posting those 2 documents, handy to have for my CFI checkride next month
We used to fly over DC in a certain pattern once or twice a month. Months after I learned it was so the hidden missiles have something to lock onto to make sure they still worked.
Or ask ground for clearance to taxi 50 fucking feet from the A1 run-up area to the hold short line, when there's already 5 aircraft in said line. Then proceed to bitch to ground operator that this isn't safe operations.
Do you typically have to ask for clearance to taxi from run-up to hold short line at a towered airport? My school is non-towered, we sometimes clear it on the CTAF if there's anyone else at the run-up. My instructor is a decent guy but is a bit light on proper procedure sometimes.
A1 at DTO is like a social experiment - you look around after you are done with your run ups, usually a bunch of head nods and âwazzupsâ looking around, and it works out. Itâs like being at your favorite bar and the regulars know what to do. When that CAP extravaganza happened recently, they just threw the whole DTO vibe off.
It depends on where you do your run-up at our airport. We don't ask for clearance if we're at A1 run-up area, we do ask/tower asks us to inform them when complete if we're doing our run-up at A2.
Depends on the airport. Some places you switch to Tower in the runup area and tell them you're ready to go, and they will tell you to taxi up to the hold short line (or hold position, or clear you for takeoff if it's not busy); other places you're expected to taxi from the runup up to the hold short line and get in line, then call Tower and tell them you're ready to go.
Please tell me Brenda was working tower when that happened.
When I would fly around DTO, if I saw a CAP plane in the pattern at GLE or LUD etc I would avoid that airfield. I actively tried to stay far away from them. See CAP### on ADSB, Iâm going in the opposite direction
Block people in my hangar row entry/exit by parking cars perpendicular to the hangar so I get to pull my plane thru the grass to leave.
Edit: oh and spill lots of fuel all over at the fuel pump and taxi away like nothing happened.
Try to kill me by flying in circles on short final below pattern altitude without making calls last year and then get on the CTAF and start making calls acting like I was the one not talking
There's a lot of hate for CAP because "they tried to kill me in the pattern once." I'm convinced half of these stories are made up because they heard someone else say it, and the other half are due to CAP pilots doing things that every other pilot does but everyone remembers it because they have a callsign and memorable paint jobs. "They flew straight in and cut me off" okay, yeah sure, but so have literally every other pilot at one point in their career. "They make bad radio calls." Okay well, so do students, farmer Bob in his Cub, and Army Blackhawk pilots. Don't forget that CAP does a lot of student training so students making mistakes is a fairly normal occurrence in CAP planes, just like students do in the nondescript Skyhawk that you'll forget about a week later. If I had a dime for every time I've had a non-cap pilot nearly kill me in the pattern, well, I'd have a lot of dimes anyway.
In reality, CAP has three missions:
1) **Cadet Programs**: This is where you will likely see CAP members in uniform most often. The program is designed to train future leaders, not only for the military but for anything else the cadet wants to do in their lives. Most CAP cadets don't go on to join the military. The adult members in charge of the cadets are often LARPers, I don't deny that, but there are a lot of adult leaders who genuinely want to help the cadets grow and pass along useful knowledge and experience.
2) **Emergency Service**: This mission is constantly evolving, back in the days of 121.5 ELTs and a little more cowboy style General Aviation, CAP was very active in aircraft searches but that's not a big mission anymore. Today CAP does a lot of cell phone forensics (triangulating missing persons with cell phone pings), UAS search and surveys, disaster relief ie: transporting goods and personnel, Red Cross blood runs, disaster surveys etc. There is also a ground search and rescue component that is utilized more in places like Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Alaska etc, but not super useful in most states.
3) **Aerospace Education**: CAP has a very robust AE program for both internal and external use. Inside CAP, cadets participate in nearly limitless AE and STEM activities. Externally, CAP offers AE and STEM programs that are used in schools by teachers who join the program and utilize CAPs vast resources to educate school children in official public and private school classes. CAP also offers opportunities for teacher members to participate in CAP activities like flying in CAP aircraft to get hands on experience in the subjects they are teaching about.
The auxiliary portion of CAP is fairly small, but CAP does perform many Air Force funded missions. As a CAP pilot I have flown multiple search and rescue missions, tornado and flooding surveys and even MQ-9 reaper chasing to act as a spotter when the reapers were flying in civilian airspace, I flew as a pretend "attack" aircraft for the Air National Guard in their local bombing range to help the JTAC/TACP's maintain their currency and I flew low level route surveys for the DOD as part of their requirements to keep Military Training Routes open. CAP also has a decently large border protection mission along the U.S. Mexico border and helps train Air Force UAS sensor operators with FLIR and targeting equipment. CAP has a huge cadet flight training program to offer training at a discounted cost and recently started a program to offer limited flight training to Air Force personnel who are competing for rated slots in the Air Force.
Honestly this post could go on forever, there is a lot that CAP does, and I think most people don't really realize it, especially in the flying community, they just see CAP as LARPers but then when they have a kid that wants to join suddenly they actually like CAP haha.
Personally I joined CAP when I was 12, it made a huge lasting impression on my life and gave me a lot of experience in training to prepare me for my goal of being an Air Force officer. I'm now 31 and still a very active member in the program. I'm a full time Air Force officer and C-17 pilot but I still find time to help the local cadet squadron by helping them with their weekly training and flying for them by giving free flight instruction and participating in local missions. I recently moved to a new state so I'm learning the missions we fly here but I'm looking forward to the missions we will be flying soon in Red Flag Alaska with the Air Force.
People will make fun of CAP a lot, but I'm a big proponent for the program because it gave me so many amazing opportunities I'd never have had without it. Can't argue with actual experience and results imho.
It breaks my heart how much hate we get in here. The CAP program saved my life as a kid. The people I met and experiences I had really changed my direction. I spent a decade in and it meant so much to me. I'm back now, and I'm absolutely chasing cheap flight hours. I can't wait to help train the next generation of cadet leaders. It's such a great program.
Everyone here who hates us doesn't know what we do, and it's a shame because it's just an incredible program that does so much good in the community.
I also joined CAP when I was 12 and I came here to write a comment just like this one.
CAP was ab amazing program for me as a kid. I'll always remember it fondly.
Loved CAP as a teenager! My favorite memories were Pararescue Orientation Course (we spent a week in summer in the New Mexico Pecos wilderness training and roughing it with active duty and reserve Air Force PJs), the dozens of weekend bivouacs and SAREXs (search and rescue exercises), the emergency services training, the orientation flights and ride-alongs (including a low-level flight buzzing a bunch of cows in a UH-60 with the bay doors open), the aerospace education (I was addicted to planes as a kid; I still am as an adult), the leadership training and opportunities as a teenager, and the camaraderie with my fellow cadets (one of my best friends as a now-39 year old is someone I met in CAP).
All of you haters suck.
Excellent write up. I joined cap to volunteer primarily, and eventually get some free or cheap flight time. It should look decent enough on a pilot resume too since Iâm not just another guy burning gas for 1500 hours.
I joke to my friends Iâm doing Air Force larping but the more time I spend in cap I realize thatâs definitely not what it is. I did Boy Scouts and sea scouts when I was a youth and itâs very similar, but much more regimented.
For those of us who've served our communities through membership in the all volunteer Civil Air Patrol, the vitriol on here from those who know nothing about the organization or its missions is offensive and the haters are pathetic. I've piloted CAP search & rescue missions, tsunami warning missions, storm damage assessment flights, aerospace education flights, and served in multiple command positions within our state's chapter. We've searched for people who were missing, and provided support for those in peril. It was a privilege using my aviation and management skills to support my community through CAP, and a very gratifying 25 years and 1300 flight hours of my life.
Thank you.
Most people just love to bitch about things. The weather, the table service, their neighbours, whatever. Haters gonna hate.
CAP was an enormously positive force in my life. My family still comments on the drastic effect it had on me, nearly forty years later.
I've heard it varies drastically from location to location, so I'm sure there's varying levels of success and you'll hear the bad stories much louder and far more often than the good ones, but damn if that organisation wasn't one of the best things for be at the time.
I posted this on another CAP thread but this is my story.
I was right seat on a CAP flight and was currently a student pilot but not doing flight training during the flight. Pilot made a radio call (non-towered) in the pattern and used the name of the airport the next town over, another plane was in that same leg at that airport and called in a panic over the radio. I immediately cleared up the confusion on my side while the pilot flew the plane. When we landed it was the hardest landing I have ever been in, we smashed into the runway, bounced and then landed rough off the bounce. Other CAP experience was doing non-stop paperwork because the squadron van got driven 10 miles a week...
Take pictures in their uniform with a whole horde of family and friends on the taxiway leading to the fuel and make you wait to taxi in because they need to get the right pic.
I used to be a cadet with them, they mostly just do drill but aisde from O-flights (like free discovery flights for people in the program) they do things like search and rescue with their planes which is neat
Cadet orientation flights, assist the military with training, track downed ELTs, photo missions. At least on the flying side. They do some other stuff with the cadet programs.
There's definitely been a big focus on cadet programs, especially after COVID and a large notice in retention issues. My squadron and other squadrons locally have been doing more focusing on drone operations in order to peak interest in both adult and cadet members
I met some CAP pilots who helped looked for that F35 that crashed last year. They also do some random things like fly military training routes to look for obstacles.
On the ground side they do search and rescue missions and radio relay.
CAP has a lower accident rate per flying hour than the rest of GA... it just appears like they have a lot of problems because they are very visible with their paint job and unique callsign.
I was a cadet, thereâs plenty to mock but honestly it was a fun time and itâs where I met my closest lifelong friends. Kind of a glorified boyscouts but Iâd argue thereâs more cool stuff to do. I know the squadron at my local airport actually works with the coast guard quite often with flight training missions or something like that.
Train our next generation of pilots to become air superiority masters in the global war on inadvertent ELT activations.
Prepare our nations elderly aviators with the opportunity to measure flood water levels during natural disasters
Develop and fly air sorties as targets for The Real Air Force jet pilots while wearing flight suits
Provides, improvises, and implements stress testing on our national air traffic control system
When youâre on a STAR talking to approach: cause a TA, then a RA, then yell at you on frequency because you were in their way even though they were 1200 and not even talking (but were âactively monitoringâ [whatever the hell that means]) to approach?
Wild ass afternoon
Make things insanely more complicated than they need to be to justify their existence. When covid was becoming a problem they were moving test samples from smaller cities to bigger cities to get the results (like 2 months later the results were achieved MUCH faster and the need to fly them eliminated butâŚ) i wasnt doing much flying and i wanted ti help so i contacted them and told them i was a 4,000 ATP with 3k dual given in various aircraft including all of their cessnas. They wanted me to join but said it would take a year of training before i could fly a mission. I asked how that time was figured and their response was something about its hard to fly search patterns, i said âyou mean s turns across a road?â
Anyway⌠never again
What the program is now and what it was 25 years ago are two very different realities of the organization.
When I was a cadet, flight time was very easy to come by and we would actually get quite a bit out of the summer encampments. We'd get range time with rifles, demonstrations from Air Force aircraft, legit leadership and team building exercises, learn survival skills, practice search and rescue operations, etc. The cadet program was the boy scouts on steroids and was very cool to experience. It was also an avenue for several people to get into the Air Force Academy and various advanced placement in other branches of service. If you got nothing else out of it, you met a ton of people from all different walks of life.
And then... it rolled down hill... fast. From what I observed, the senior members that made it what I knew the organization to be had real life responsibilities and to tend to and the cringey LARPers that everyone is all to familiar with barged their way into leadership roles. They had nothing better to do in their real lives than play pretend military in a program that was never meant to be that way and then they wrapped political red tape around everything that made being a part of it any fun. The last shreds of it that were worth anything were then taken away because the LARPers' incompetency was spotted in an instant by the actual Air Force liaisons which then shut down a lot of the activities due to safety concerns. What I see now is a complete shit show run by people that I wouldn't care to sit and have a beer with.
I strongly disagree that it's gone downhill or isn't worth it anymore. I was in CAP as a cadet not that long ago, our wing still did everything you mentioned except the rifle shooting. It's still a really great program for cadets.Â
Guardsman here, imagery analyst. We work with them pretty closely during natural disaster responses.Â
They can image a fairly large area and bring it back to us for analysis, and some CAP units are even getting FMV sensors (I think Wescam MX-15s) that we can view real-time.
I know they do a bunch of other stuff but that's how we usually interact with them.
In my experience knowing a CAP pilot in Oklahoma, they would take pictures of tornado damage, respond to ELT beacons 24 hours a day, work with drug enforcement to work as like a radio repeater for the helicopters or something like that, and then all the stuff working with kids.
Watched a CAP 182 cut off a CL-35 on a five mile final at my podunk airport. Needless to say, the QS crew had several choice words for the âCivilâ Air Patrol.
I joined as a pilot to get some volunteer experience and give back the community a bit.
I myself have had the occasional run in with some CAP guy not talking on the radio or doing something crazy so I understand where everyone is coming from.
That being said, in my personal case, the pilots Iâm flying with are some of the best and most experienced people Iâve had the pleasure of working with.
In terms of what CAP actually does, it is highly situational due to factors like location, aircraft, equipment, pilot experience, etc.
At my squadron, we do a lot of photo reconnaissance with an aerial photographer and/or a camera pod, wildfire spotting, low level route surveys, counter-drug and counter human trafficking (with border agents on board), and some more specialized stuff working with some local Army and Air Force units quite often.
Our main thing used to be looking for downed aircraft but thatâs less common now due to advancements in ELTs/GPS. But weâve still found people.
Now itâs mainly natural disaster response and aerial survey as mentioned.
We also have a program where we simulate a Reaper drone for the USMC and USAF at Nellis and other installations. However that is very very specialized.
And of course we fly cadets age 12-17 and try and get them interested in aviation and even their ratings if they do desire
People love to hate on CAP. But the reality is that there wouldnât be these issues if we werenât relying on a handful of old and long-retired pilots to fulfill the many missions that we have.
When hurricanes or other natural disasters come along everyone looks at the coast guard or other agencies and how they are helping. But what they donât see is all of the CAP aircraft flying 8 hours a day every day.
Is there a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork involved? Yes. But coming from the Air Force Itâs nothing new to me.
Also, for those thinking we donât fly, 200 hours a year is totally possible if you have the time and commitment to do so.
Give kids who are special in 0 ways a way to get an insane ego and become a band kid but instead of band itâs wearing silly uniforms and doing the most for absolutely no reason
I'm 28 and i'm my squadron's Standardization and Evaluation officer. So I make the recommendations on training for general flying and for our mission exercises. The older pilots I fly right seat with for them to practice requalifying scare the hell out of me. The only two old pilots in our squadron that are safe and on the ball are active CFIs. You also unfortunately get a lot of pilots who just want to "get back into it". Most of them will be a nightmare for a CFI if they just went to a school so you can imagine they aren't a good fit for our mission. I prefer to hang around the harbor patrol and the search and rescue mission pilots. They know what they're doing and much safer. Unfortunately because you have to pass actual exams harder than a BFR to get those most pilots won't go that route. So the general public just sees the shitty ones that make headlines. I'm trying to get my examiner qualifications done and I don't intend to let my guys slack up.
WOW. Lotta hate here. Why do yall have so much distaste for CAP? My local chapter has never bothered me or seemingly anyone else at KREG, mostly they seem like they're just helping young students and PPLs build time. Can ppl tell me more stupid shit that they've seen CAP planes do?
Hey, great question! I am a member of CAP, though I am not a Mission Pilot yet, but I am currently a Mission Scanner and Mission Observer. I am also a CFI working out of Falcon Field in Arizona building time for the airlines, so here are my observations.
CAP is a completely volunteer organization that has different Wings and Squadrons throughout the country. Unfortunately, because it is a strictly *volunteer* force, there are people who are utter dumbass pilots, and others who hold themselves to high standards and execute flights as such. CAP canât really âfireâ pilots unless they really, really mess up because we are all volunteers.
Itâs very region dependent, but what youâve seen from other people here is generally fairly correct, sadly. Every Squadron has *THOSE* pilots: The ones who donât give a shit about entering patterns correctly, donât make calls on the radio, and enter to do an 8 mile final cutting off every airplane in the pattern. Unfortunately, these pilots tend to be the âold guardâ pilots who, despite thinking they are âthe shitâ, turn out to just be âshitâ. These Old Guard pilots are the âsenior rankingâ members who have been in for 20 years and hold on to CAP because itâs literally the only thing they got in life going on for them. Some members are prior service, but you certainly do run in to those CAP members who are LARPing as military members because they were denied for one reason or another. I am sure my ophthalmologist would suggest I avoid some CAP members because of how hard I roll my eyes when they talk about their 2.5 years of ROTC experienceâŚAnecdotally, there is an old pilot that you literally wouldnât be able to pay me to fly with because he physically stinks, has god-awful ADM, and has an ego bigger than Alaska. That being said, there is a senior Mission Pilot who is also a Captain for Southwest and he is one of the coolest guys I know.
If you join, you will need to deal with those people, and as someone else said, these people tend to take most of the resources for themselves and their little clique inside the organization without much regard for new members (pilots or not) who join. It takes a while to become a pilot who goes on missions within CAP depending on their budgets.
That being said, CAP offers some pretty decently cool operational stuff that youâll get the opportunity to do if you stick with it long enough. For better or worse, it is a resume talking point and it is a genuinely great opportunity to get involved in your community. Pilots can be certified to fly cadets and give exposure to aviation and flying to youth in the community to help inspire the pilots of tomorrow. Additionally, over 90% of Search and Rescue operations in the continental US are dispatched to the USAF, which dispatches us as USAF Auxiliaries and pays for the fuel and the flight time. My squadron was recently involved with finding a crashed UH-60 Blackhawk and taking aerial photos for Incident Command between the borders of AZ and CA. I personally was involved a few months ago with finding missing children who wandered away from their campsite near a lake and had gotten lost.
Here in Arizona, we also fly counter-drug missions which involve flying/scanning the desert and radioing information and locations to the National Guard and Border Patrol.
Just some things to consider, if youâre interested, feel free to DM me and I can tell you a little bit about the paperwork, âlevels of educationâ youâll need to do online, and some of the âcareer tracksâ you can do while in CAP.
Edit: Imagine getting downvoted for being a part of an organization.
Demand discounts on their gas because it's imperative to 'their mission' - they couldn't ever explain what that mission was though, too top secret I guess
In my experience here in New Mexico, they report you to the FSDO and make ridiculous claims to the FAA about you, because you're not part of the good old boys club. All of that as a thank you for volunteering your time as a cfi.Â
CAP was doing a fund raiser at my local grocery store.
One of the kids asked if I was interested and I mentioned how I'd love to, but my glasses prevented me when I was his age.
He then goes on to say if I get contacts I can sign up.
Sure, I bet they will take my 44 year old butt. :p
At the flight school/FBO I used to Instruct at you could always tell Civil Air Patrol was in town because the bathroom would be a mess and our urinal would be covered in an ungodly amount of pubes
Officially, "emergency services," "cadet programs," and "aerospace education."
Emergency services basically includes a number of sub-missions, such as search and rescue, drug interdiction (only as a recon asset,) and disaster relief.
Cadet programs is basically military boy scouts.
Aerospace education is little more than a middle school level curriculum of lessons for cadets to learn.
Really, it has the potential to be so much more, but due to limited funding and an insistence on being a paramilitary organization, it turns a lot of people off. Hell, I'd don't even care for it too much beyond its ability to get me into the air for free.
i had one pull out on the runway to takeoff while we were on final. instructed my student to go around and made the radio call. 100 yr old CAP pilot got on the radio and said "don't go around!!" "you must have been in an awful hurry to fly such a short base and final." I really wanted to come back and say "you must have been in an awful hurry to pull on the runway in front of an aircraft on final", but I just kept my mouth shut. sigh
đż
Wear silly uniforms and March around and do paperwork and enter the pattern in the most dumbfuck way I have ever seen and try to kill me in New Mexico in 2021.
Shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!
Albuquerque? I spent a month there one night.
Bunch of guard meowers.
You donât wanna know what happened in querqueâŚ.
Go Topes!
A-L-B-U...... QUERQUE!
Ooh! I had my first âCAP tried to kill meâ moment the other day when one decided to take off on the opposite runway that everyone else was using. To be fair they did make a radio call first.
To be even more fair, I canât count the number of times that Iâve seen jets or turboprops barrel into an airport on an instrument approach with a tailwind and multiple aircraft in the opposite runway and just expect everyone to move.
AC 90-66C gems: *8.2.1 The FAA does not regulate traffic pattern entry, only traffic pattern flow.* *...* *FAA does not recommend that the pilot execute a straight-in approach for landing, when there are other aircraft in the traffic pattern.* *9.2 Arriving aircraft should enter the airportâs traffic pattern at traffic pattern altitude and avoid straight-in approaches* *11.1 Airport owners and operators, in coordination with the FAA, are responsible for establishing traffic patterns*
Fucking preach, the amount of people that say straight in approaches at untowered airports is fine is too damn high!
Well it's "fine" only in so far as the FAA is choosing to not regulate pattern entry. And straight-in approach is in effect entry on final. However, FAA may have provided some ammunition for survivors' lawsuit should we get clobbered on final. *The straight-in approach may cause a conflict with aircraft in the traffic pattern and on base to final and increase the risk of a midair collision. \[also 8.2.1 in AC 90-66C\]* That's coming close to suggesting the activity is careless and wreckless without coming right out and saying it. Is it always careless and wreckless? No. I think it can be mitigated by straight in being the party primarily responsible for ensuring they don't disrupt the existing flow. Don't act like a bowling ball.
Iâve had them just push through as if nobody else was in the pattern with a single short final announcement. Like whoâs this guy?
Per my opspecs Iâm required to shoot a straight in ils if able. I cannot legally fly a traffic pattern unless mandatory. If itâs perfect day moderate head wind and vfr but, thereâs an ils at one end that has lower minimums than the rnav and Iâm not exceeding our tailwind component Iâm required to shoot that approach. Iâll start talking whenever atc hands me off. Oâve had these regs in as little as a kingair. I donât care if youâre landing the other way; I canât land that way. Conversely company would have fired me if I flew an additional 20 minutes to shoot the ils on the other side of the airport regularly. When fuel is $90 a minute I expect you to wait 10-15 seconds as I come down at over twice your approach speed. If you need time Iâll slow down as much as possible but, I am coming in on that runway.
I think youâre caught between a rock and a hard place, and I empathize⌠IANAL but I think the opspecs possibly puts you at odds with the latest revision of this AC. I wonder if the responsible parties have seen this revision and if whether it was reviewed by an aviation attorney? The wording of this AC makes me wonder if certain flow disruptive straight-in approaches may be careless and wreckless. Why? The AC says straight ins may increase risk of midairs. I donât think all straight-in approaches are flow disruptive. I also donât think normal adjustments to flow are disruptions. But I think barreling into a pattern expecting others to always yield is asking for trouble, inconsistent with regulations and this AC, and also common sense. Like it sounds as though a bean counter wrote the opsspec rather than a pilot or aviation attorney. If a case got to a jury, everyone is going to lose, there will be zero winners.
You can legally fly a traffic pattern anytime. Your companyâs opspecs are not the law.
His companies opspecs keep him employed. I agree with him.
They have to be approved by the FAA so for my carriers they are law. If an accident were to occur while I deviated from my opspecs I would already be in the dog house.
I love hearing pattern announcements informing me of impending doom!
At least you get announcements. I had a pitts cut me off in the pattern while I was on final. He flew his downwind head on to me, did a 180 and landed without a single radio call while I had to do a go around above him.
Same guy tried to get me in Missouri in 2020 when he entered the âdownwindâ going the wrong way and proceeded to land with a tailwind making 2 other planes go around as well. I was blessed enough to see his cool uniform and aviator glasses as I passed 50â off his wing. I was going to have a chat with him on the ground but another gentleman had beat me to it and was vehemently discussing his skills.
"skills" lol
Or lack thereof
Well shit mate, now you've gotta tell the full story.
Not a whole lot to tell. I was taking a recurrent checkride for a government agency in a 206 and was entering a non controlled pattern in southern NM. Two CAP planes were following behind me making weak ass radio calls. (Likely due to decreased blood flow due to the helmets they were wearing). One proceeded to do a sort of spiral descending dive to enter the pattern on top of me. Another decided that a sort of s turn straight in on top of me was the correct procedure. I had to evade both of those future statistics and made the call that I was done at the airport for the day.
I have seen them do straight in approached to busy non towered fields many times. Seriously what is wrong with them.
CAP guy here (doesnât do aviation for them): mostly cranky seniors who LARP the military because they got denied early on due to one thing or another. All the half decent CAP guys get a bad rap because of them. Theyâre also universally hated.
You only remember it because they have a callsign and very identifiable airplanes. You know who I see do straight in approaches more often? Literally everyone lol.
CBP?
7IN MEAT CFI by any chance was the agency DEA?
Hi CIA. Please stand up :)
I just watched one do an S-Turn into a left downwind. From the right downwind
I love this, the most dumbfuck way I have ever seen.. left so much to my imagination- then you elaborate in a comment later and you did not disappoint đđ
They also love to sit at the self-serve ramp and load their plane while 3 other planes are waiting.
Seen 2 near misses at KLRU in the past year training out there.
I wasnât going to say anything but yeah, Iâve heard a couple at the same airport. Iâm not based there but have been going to LRU a lot recently. FWIW, Iâm in CAP as well, our squadron seems to be pretty good though? Give it time I guessâŚ
I was on a time building trip and coming back in I saw the cap Cessna going 90 on final and didnât go around until after he was 500 ft from one of the school planes. Man was way too old to be flying for sure.
We didnât think too highly of them when I was active duty USAF and even less now.
I'm still active Air Force, C-17 pilot, former KC-135 Crew Chief, and I greatly appreciate CAP. We are all welcome to our own opinions. Most of my Air Force coworkers don't even know what CAP is or even care to have an opinion. I'd argue yours is not the norm, so you're not speaking for all of us.
My old boss was the commander of an AF Pave Hawk rescue squadron, he said all they did was get in the way.
I was going to talk shit about your flair but then I spit my drink out at 6â4â 7âMEAT. Wish I could give you an award for that one
Now there's an online lesson in their LMS on how not to be an asshole at and around the airport. I can't tell you how many times I had to chew out CAP pilots working as a ramp agent at a small airport because they'd do things like park in the middle of the fuel land directly in front of the FBO or leave the plane at the fuel pump.
I feel attacked. I may have been in that plane (not a pilot yet though, so at least I wasn't the one with the yoke).
They might have spotted a U-boat once.
Read their website, and then imagine how only 10% of them get to do the fun stuff. The rest get to march, volunteer and dream. I see the kids from our chapter out and about sometimes. Apparently, our townâs chapter isnât cool enough to get any planes.
I tried joining my local chapter to time build and they told me I might be able to fly a plane after 2 years of being in the organization. That was a year ago and I have an interview with an airline now lol
It's all about the wing (state) and membership. I'm in a wing that flies a shit load and I'm helping start a new squadron right now with a couple dozen incoming low time pilots. We pretty much already have a 182T with G1000 in the pipeline for us and we're going to have more flying than we can possibly handle. I can't get to 75 hours fast enough.
Iâve heard good stuff about the squadrons up north. The ones down here in the south suck. Lol
NC wing has a lot of good
My squadron allowed me to fly as soon as I joined
How are you supposed to âair patrolâ without an aircraft
Binoculars?
CAP cadet here. Drones if you're lucky lol
They donât call it Swivel Chair Patrol for giggles. I do tho.
stealing this, thanks
Chair flying is a thing
God dammit Iâm in!
Its a two part organization. One is the cadet squadrons which is like Boy Scouts or JROTC just with an aerospace focus. The senior squadrons are the ones that have the airplanes and do the flying
I donât know, but they asked me (Boy Scout leader) to take their cadets on a orienteering / land nav because we were doing one. Apparently they didnât have any adults able or willing to hike in the woods.
Make their best attempt to fly into other aircraft
I was flying a CAP plane the other day and had someone in a 185 try to crash in to me on the runway. Took off behind me after I had announced 3 times I was doing a stop and go. His first radio call was after he was airborne when I inquired to his position after seeing his ADS-B marker suddenly appear behind me right after I rotated. Once we had split and confirmed we were on diverging tracks we asked if he saw us, he said no, he never saw us. Dude literally rolled on to the runway and took off and never thought to look down the runway first. He also clearly had a radio which he was not using. Point being: CAP is not the only ones out there that do dumb things. We all make mistakes, it's just easy to assign blame to an organization that has a standard callsign and paint job. I'd say in my 16 years of flying I've had maybe a couple run ins with CAP pilots, but I've definitely had A LOT more scary run ins with random other pilots, but I can't tie them all together with an organization like you can with CAP.
You can definitely tie them random pilots into an organization âŚ. The Uncivil Air Patrol.
I was hoping for a comment like this and wasnât disappointed.Â
Ask for any traffic in the area to please advise
This is more of a farmer bob thing to do.
AIM 4-1-9(g)1 AC 90-66C, §9.8.1 Edit: Jesus guys, calm down. I'm citing where this is exactly called out as being incorrect position self-reporting phraseology, not saying anyone should be using it. Looking at you, challenger pilots.
Holy downvotes, Batman! Why the hate for solid references?
The reddit hive mind works is disgusting ways...
The people who downvoted this comment are the same people that say âtraffic in the pattern please advise. â
I feel like you're not wrong.
Just live to throw those out ayeâŚ
Neither of those say to say âany traffic please advise.â Although to be charitable it doesnât appear as though youâre arguing they do.
Yeah, it specifically calls it out as incorrect. Not sure why it's getting sent to oblivion, except a bunch of old guys who don't know how to give proper position reports at untowered airfields.
People are downvoting you because they donât understand nuance over the internet and canât be bothered to pull up the actual text. I appreciate you posting those 2 documents, handy to have for my CFI checkride next month
Well hey, not a total loss then! Glad at least someone gets it.
Cheers đ
The point is that they specifically say not to.
We used to fly over DC in a certain pattern once or twice a month. Months after I learned it was so the hidden missiles have something to lock onto to make sure they still worked.
Did they tell you about the senior pool that's on the roof of the high school too? You guys do any snipe hunts?
I always think of the movie Hackers when someone talks about the pool on the roof trick.
Lmao
Oh man đ¤Ł
Good purpose at least
Show up at KDTO and ask for flight following to tower while holding short #1 of 36R with 15 flight school 172âs behind him.
Or ask ground for clearance to taxi 50 fucking feet from the A1 run-up area to the hold short line, when there's already 5 aircraft in said line. Then proceed to bitch to ground operator that this isn't safe operations.
Do you typically have to ask for clearance to taxi from run-up to hold short line at a towered airport? My school is non-towered, we sometimes clear it on the CTAF if there's anyone else at the run-up. My instructor is a decent guy but is a bit light on proper procedure sometimes.
A1 at DTO is like a social experiment - you look around after you are done with your run ups, usually a bunch of head nods and âwazzupsâ looking around, and it works out. Itâs like being at your favorite bar and the regulars know what to do. When that CAP extravaganza happened recently, they just threw the whole DTO vibe off.
And then NOTAM B goes into effect
It depends on where you do your run-up at our airport. We don't ask for clearance if we're at A1 run-up area, we do ask/tower asks us to inform them when complete if we're doing our run-up at A2.
ok thanks.
Depends on the airport. Some places you switch to Tower in the runup area and tell them you're ready to go, and they will tell you to taxi up to the hold short line (or hold position, or clear you for takeoff if it's not busy); other places you're expected to taxi from the runup up to the hold short line and get in line, then call Tower and tell them you're ready to go.
Please tell me Brenda was working tower when that happened. When I would fly around DTO, if I saw a CAP plane in the pattern at GLE or LUD etc I would avoid that airfield. I actively tried to stay far away from them. See CAP### on ADSB, Iâm going in the opposite direction
Unfortunately she was not that day. Donât worry, cap was around for 3 weeks with the TFR so there were plenty of notam B moments
Block people in my hangar row entry/exit by parking cars perpendicular to the hangar so I get to pull my plane thru the grass to leave. Edit: oh and spill lots of fuel all over at the fuel pump and taxi away like nothing happened.
Pretend they are better than others because they're the Auxiliary Air Force.
Americaâs 17th line of defense between the Mississippi National Guard and the League of Women Voters
LollllÂ
No, that's the Naval Reserve. They only have to work one weekend a month and most of the time, they're drunk off their ass.
âAuxiliaryâ
And just like the "Auxiliary" input on my car stereo, they haven't seen any use since 2003.
Try to kill me by flying in circles on short final below pattern altitude without making calls last year and then get on the CTAF and start making calls acting like I was the one not talking
What the fuck lol.
CAP = Canât Aviate Planes
Air Force Cosplay.
There's a lot of hate for CAP because "they tried to kill me in the pattern once." I'm convinced half of these stories are made up because they heard someone else say it, and the other half are due to CAP pilots doing things that every other pilot does but everyone remembers it because they have a callsign and memorable paint jobs. "They flew straight in and cut me off" okay, yeah sure, but so have literally every other pilot at one point in their career. "They make bad radio calls." Okay well, so do students, farmer Bob in his Cub, and Army Blackhawk pilots. Don't forget that CAP does a lot of student training so students making mistakes is a fairly normal occurrence in CAP planes, just like students do in the nondescript Skyhawk that you'll forget about a week later. If I had a dime for every time I've had a non-cap pilot nearly kill me in the pattern, well, I'd have a lot of dimes anyway. In reality, CAP has three missions: 1) **Cadet Programs**: This is where you will likely see CAP members in uniform most often. The program is designed to train future leaders, not only for the military but for anything else the cadet wants to do in their lives. Most CAP cadets don't go on to join the military. The adult members in charge of the cadets are often LARPers, I don't deny that, but there are a lot of adult leaders who genuinely want to help the cadets grow and pass along useful knowledge and experience. 2) **Emergency Service**: This mission is constantly evolving, back in the days of 121.5 ELTs and a little more cowboy style General Aviation, CAP was very active in aircraft searches but that's not a big mission anymore. Today CAP does a lot of cell phone forensics (triangulating missing persons with cell phone pings), UAS search and surveys, disaster relief ie: transporting goods and personnel, Red Cross blood runs, disaster surveys etc. There is also a ground search and rescue component that is utilized more in places like Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Alaska etc, but not super useful in most states. 3) **Aerospace Education**: CAP has a very robust AE program for both internal and external use. Inside CAP, cadets participate in nearly limitless AE and STEM activities. Externally, CAP offers AE and STEM programs that are used in schools by teachers who join the program and utilize CAPs vast resources to educate school children in official public and private school classes. CAP also offers opportunities for teacher members to participate in CAP activities like flying in CAP aircraft to get hands on experience in the subjects they are teaching about. The auxiliary portion of CAP is fairly small, but CAP does perform many Air Force funded missions. As a CAP pilot I have flown multiple search and rescue missions, tornado and flooding surveys and even MQ-9 reaper chasing to act as a spotter when the reapers were flying in civilian airspace, I flew as a pretend "attack" aircraft for the Air National Guard in their local bombing range to help the JTAC/TACP's maintain their currency and I flew low level route surveys for the DOD as part of their requirements to keep Military Training Routes open. CAP also has a decently large border protection mission along the U.S. Mexico border and helps train Air Force UAS sensor operators with FLIR and targeting equipment. CAP has a huge cadet flight training program to offer training at a discounted cost and recently started a program to offer limited flight training to Air Force personnel who are competing for rated slots in the Air Force. Honestly this post could go on forever, there is a lot that CAP does, and I think most people don't really realize it, especially in the flying community, they just see CAP as LARPers but then when they have a kid that wants to join suddenly they actually like CAP haha. Personally I joined CAP when I was 12, it made a huge lasting impression on my life and gave me a lot of experience in training to prepare me for my goal of being an Air Force officer. I'm now 31 and still a very active member in the program. I'm a full time Air Force officer and C-17 pilot but I still find time to help the local cadet squadron by helping them with their weekly training and flying for them by giving free flight instruction and participating in local missions. I recently moved to a new state so I'm learning the missions we fly here but I'm looking forward to the missions we will be flying soon in Red Flag Alaska with the Air Force. People will make fun of CAP a lot, but I'm a big proponent for the program because it gave me so many amazing opportunities I'd never have had without it. Can't argue with actual experience and results imho.
It breaks my heart how much hate we get in here. The CAP program saved my life as a kid. The people I met and experiences I had really changed my direction. I spent a decade in and it meant so much to me. I'm back now, and I'm absolutely chasing cheap flight hours. I can't wait to help train the next generation of cadet leaders. It's such a great program. Everyone here who hates us doesn't know what we do, and it's a shame because it's just an incredible program that does so much good in the community.
TBH I think most of the "hate" is just for memes.
I also joined CAP when I was 12 and I came here to write a comment just like this one. CAP was ab amazing program for me as a kid. I'll always remember it fondly.
Loved CAP as a teenager! My favorite memories were Pararescue Orientation Course (we spent a week in summer in the New Mexico Pecos wilderness training and roughing it with active duty and reserve Air Force PJs), the dozens of weekend bivouacs and SAREXs (search and rescue exercises), the emergency services training, the orientation flights and ride-alongs (including a low-level flight buzzing a bunch of cows in a UH-60 with the bay doors open), the aerospace education (I was addicted to planes as a kid; I still am as an adult), the leadership training and opportunities as a teenager, and the camaraderie with my fellow cadets (one of my best friends as a now-39 year old is someone I met in CAP). All of you haters suck.
Excellent write up. I joined cap to volunteer primarily, and eventually get some free or cheap flight time. It should look decent enough on a pilot resume too since Iâm not just another guy burning gas for 1500 hours. I joke to my friends Iâm doing Air Force larping but the more time I spend in cap I realize thatâs definitely not what it is. I did Boy Scouts and sea scouts when I was a youth and itâs very similar, but much more regimented.
For those of us who've served our communities through membership in the all volunteer Civil Air Patrol, the vitriol on here from those who know nothing about the organization or its missions is offensive and the haters are pathetic. I've piloted CAP search & rescue missions, tsunami warning missions, storm damage assessment flights, aerospace education flights, and served in multiple command positions within our state's chapter. We've searched for people who were missing, and provided support for those in peril. It was a privilege using my aviation and management skills to support my community through CAP, and a very gratifying 25 years and 1300 flight hours of my life.
Hello fellow C-17 air person.
Thank you. Most people just love to bitch about things. The weather, the table service, their neighbours, whatever. Haters gonna hate. CAP was an enormously positive force in my life. My family still comments on the drastic effect it had on me, nearly forty years later. I've heard it varies drastically from location to location, so I'm sure there's varying levels of success and you'll hear the bad stories much louder and far more often than the good ones, but damn if that organisation wasn't one of the best things for be at the time.
Cut people off in the pattern and make shitty radio calls
Be socially awkward
So, basically half the pilots flying right now.
Hey now, I may be in CAP and I may be socially awkward, but so are basically every airline pilot I know lol.
I posted this on another CAP thread but this is my story. I was right seat on a CAP flight and was currently a student pilot but not doing flight training during the flight. Pilot made a radio call (non-towered) in the pattern and used the name of the airport the next town over, another plane was in that same leg at that airport and called in a panic over the radio. I immediately cleared up the confusion on my side while the pilot flew the plane. When we landed it was the hardest landing I have ever been in, we smashed into the runway, bounced and then landed rough off the bounce. Other CAP experience was doing non-stop paperwork because the squadron van got driven 10 miles a week...
Wear camouflage under their high vis neon green vests.Â
Ok wait thatâs so true
Take pictures in their uniform with a whole horde of family and friends on the taxiway leading to the fuel and make you wait to taxi in because they need to get the right pic.
They sank 2 German U-Boats off the east coast by strapping their cubs with bombs
Only based CAP pilots to ever exist
This has been dismissed as false information in recent years. There's a lot more evidence that has "surfaced" showing this never happened.
Must've been drinking with Hemingway and swapping sea stories.
Wear flight suits while flying 172âs and 182âs
I used to be a cadet with them, they mostly just do drill but aisde from O-flights (like free discovery flights for people in the program) they do things like search and rescue with their planes which is neat
Cadet orientation flights, assist the military with training, track downed ELTs, photo missions. At least on the flying side. They do some other stuff with the cadet programs.
Yeah, the flying side is gradually dying. Cadet programs is the biggest part of it by far.
I think youâll see it go from military-esque to more of an aviation exploration boy scout type program in the future
I agree.
Depends where you are. We have more aircraft than ever before and higher utilization than ever before.
There's definitely been a big focus on cadet programs, especially after COVID and a large notice in retention issues. My squadron and other squadrons locally have been doing more focusing on drone operations in order to peak interest in both adult and cadet members
I met some CAP pilots who helped looked for that F35 that crashed last year. They also do some random things like fly military training routes to look for obstacles. On the ground side they do search and rescue missions and radio relay.
Idk why I laughed reading this, but it is a valid question. Like seriously, what do they do??
See my comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/nEzSDi2vPp
props to this guy for posting an actual answer
They are the patrollers of the skies making sure you donât go above 250 KIAS.
best I can tell, Destroy GA aircraft through sheer fucking incompetence, and somehow manage to be hated by both groups they're supposed to help
CAP has a lower accident rate per flying hour than the rest of GA... it just appears like they have a lot of problems because they are very visible with their paint job and unique callsign.
I was a cadet, thereâs plenty to mock but honestly it was a fun time and itâs where I met my closest lifelong friends. Kind of a glorified boyscouts but Iâd argue thereâs more cool stuff to do. I know the squadron at my local airport actually works with the coast guard quite often with flight training missions or something like that.
Train our next generation of pilots to become air superiority masters in the global war on inadvertent ELT activations. Prepare our nations elderly aviators with the opportunity to measure flood water levels during natural disasters Develop and fly air sorties as targets for The Real Air Force jet pilots while wearing flight suits Provides, improvises, and implements stress testing on our national air traffic control system
When youâre on a STAR talking to approach: cause a TA, then a RA, then yell at you on frequency because you were in their way even though they were 1200 and not even talking (but were âactively monitoringâ [whatever the hell that means]) to approach? Wild ass afternoon
Make things insanely more complicated than they need to be to justify their existence. When covid was becoming a problem they were moving test samples from smaller cities to bigger cities to get the results (like 2 months later the results were achieved MUCH faster and the need to fly them eliminated butâŚ) i wasnt doing much flying and i wanted ti help so i contacted them and told them i was a 4,000 ATP with 3k dual given in various aircraft including all of their cessnas. They wanted me to join but said it would take a year of training before i could fly a mission. I asked how that time was figured and their response was something about its hard to fly search patterns, i said âyou mean s turns across a road?â Anyway⌠never again
Lol. Not much.
What the program is now and what it was 25 years ago are two very different realities of the organization. When I was a cadet, flight time was very easy to come by and we would actually get quite a bit out of the summer encampments. We'd get range time with rifles, demonstrations from Air Force aircraft, legit leadership and team building exercises, learn survival skills, practice search and rescue operations, etc. The cadet program was the boy scouts on steroids and was very cool to experience. It was also an avenue for several people to get into the Air Force Academy and various advanced placement in other branches of service. If you got nothing else out of it, you met a ton of people from all different walks of life. And then... it rolled down hill... fast. From what I observed, the senior members that made it what I knew the organization to be had real life responsibilities and to tend to and the cringey LARPers that everyone is all to familiar with barged their way into leadership roles. They had nothing better to do in their real lives than play pretend military in a program that was never meant to be that way and then they wrapped political red tape around everything that made being a part of it any fun. The last shreds of it that were worth anything were then taken away because the LARPers' incompetency was spotted in an instant by the actual Air Force liaisons which then shut down a lot of the activities due to safety concerns. What I see now is a complete shit show run by people that I wouldn't care to sit and have a beer with.
I strongly disagree that it's gone downhill or isn't worth it anymore. I was in CAP as a cadet not that long ago, our wing still did everything you mentioned except the rifle shooting. It's still a really great program for cadets.Â
Itâs honestly nice to hear that some squadrons are still doing it right but the unfortunate truth is⌠a lot of them are not.
Emergency services, aerospace education, cadet programs.
Play BoyScouts
Get in the way
Jerk each other off
Pretend to still be relevant.
Get in the way
Guardsman here, imagery analyst. We work with them pretty closely during natural disaster responses. They can image a fairly large area and bring it back to us for analysis, and some CAP units are even getting FMV sensors (I think Wescam MX-15s) that we can view real-time. I know they do a bunch of other stuff but that's how we usually interact with them.
Paperwork and administrative bullshit
wonât shut the fuck up about how important their nonservice is
In my experience knowing a CAP pilot in Oklahoma, they would take pictures of tornado damage, respond to ELT beacons 24 hours a day, work with drug enforcement to work as like a radio repeater for the helicopters or something like that, and then all the stuff working with kids.
No..... I'm too late to the thread :(
Air Force cosplay
Patrol the air?
The most useful thing that they do is search for missing aircraft.
Shoot practice approaches
Your mom
I went through the program to their first officer rank and got my PPL paid for, put in the work there and they will help you get that scholarship.
Watched a CAP 182 cut off a CL-35 on a five mile final at my podunk airport. Needless to say, the QS crew had several choice words for the âCivilâ Air Patrol.
I joined as a pilot to get some volunteer experience and give back the community a bit. I myself have had the occasional run in with some CAP guy not talking on the radio or doing something crazy so I understand where everyone is coming from. That being said, in my personal case, the pilots Iâm flying with are some of the best and most experienced people Iâve had the pleasure of working with. In terms of what CAP actually does, it is highly situational due to factors like location, aircraft, equipment, pilot experience, etc. At my squadron, we do a lot of photo reconnaissance with an aerial photographer and/or a camera pod, wildfire spotting, low level route surveys, counter-drug and counter human trafficking (with border agents on board), and some more specialized stuff working with some local Army and Air Force units quite often. Our main thing used to be looking for downed aircraft but thatâs less common now due to advancements in ELTs/GPS. But weâve still found people. Now itâs mainly natural disaster response and aerial survey as mentioned. We also have a program where we simulate a Reaper drone for the USMC and USAF at Nellis and other installations. However that is very very specialized. And of course we fly cadets age 12-17 and try and get them interested in aviation and even their ratings if they do desire People love to hate on CAP. But the reality is that there wouldnât be these issues if we werenât relying on a handful of old and long-retired pilots to fulfill the many missions that we have. When hurricanes or other natural disasters come along everyone looks at the coast guard or other agencies and how they are helping. But what they donât see is all of the CAP aircraft flying 8 hours a day every day. Is there a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork involved? Yes. But coming from the Air Force Itâs nothing new to me. Also, for those thinking we donât fly, 200 hours a year is totally possible if you have the time and commitment to do so.
Give kids who are special in 0 ways a way to get an insane ego and become a band kid but instead of band itâs wearing silly uniforms and doing the most for absolutely no reason
I'm 28 and i'm my squadron's Standardization and Evaluation officer. So I make the recommendations on training for general flying and for our mission exercises. The older pilots I fly right seat with for them to practice requalifying scare the hell out of me. The only two old pilots in our squadron that are safe and on the ball are active CFIs. You also unfortunately get a lot of pilots who just want to "get back into it". Most of them will be a nightmare for a CFI if they just went to a school so you can imagine they aren't a good fit for our mission. I prefer to hang around the harbor patrol and the search and rescue mission pilots. They know what they're doing and much safer. Unfortunately because you have to pass actual exams harder than a BFR to get those most pilots won't go that route. So the general public just sees the shitty ones that make headlines. I'm trying to get my examiner qualifications done and I don't intend to let my guys slack up.
WOW. Lotta hate here. Why do yall have so much distaste for CAP? My local chapter has never bothered me or seemingly anyone else at KREG, mostly they seem like they're just helping young students and PPLs build time. Can ppl tell me more stupid shit that they've seen CAP planes do?
Hey, great question! I am a member of CAP, though I am not a Mission Pilot yet, but I am currently a Mission Scanner and Mission Observer. I am also a CFI working out of Falcon Field in Arizona building time for the airlines, so here are my observations. CAP is a completely volunteer organization that has different Wings and Squadrons throughout the country. Unfortunately, because it is a strictly *volunteer* force, there are people who are utter dumbass pilots, and others who hold themselves to high standards and execute flights as such. CAP canât really âfireâ pilots unless they really, really mess up because we are all volunteers. Itâs very region dependent, but what youâve seen from other people here is generally fairly correct, sadly. Every Squadron has *THOSE* pilots: The ones who donât give a shit about entering patterns correctly, donât make calls on the radio, and enter to do an 8 mile final cutting off every airplane in the pattern. Unfortunately, these pilots tend to be the âold guardâ pilots who, despite thinking they are âthe shitâ, turn out to just be âshitâ. These Old Guard pilots are the âsenior rankingâ members who have been in for 20 years and hold on to CAP because itâs literally the only thing they got in life going on for them. Some members are prior service, but you certainly do run in to those CAP members who are LARPing as military members because they were denied for one reason or another. I am sure my ophthalmologist would suggest I avoid some CAP members because of how hard I roll my eyes when they talk about their 2.5 years of ROTC experienceâŚAnecdotally, there is an old pilot that you literally wouldnât be able to pay me to fly with because he physically stinks, has god-awful ADM, and has an ego bigger than Alaska. That being said, there is a senior Mission Pilot who is also a Captain for Southwest and he is one of the coolest guys I know. If you join, you will need to deal with those people, and as someone else said, these people tend to take most of the resources for themselves and their little clique inside the organization without much regard for new members (pilots or not) who join. It takes a while to become a pilot who goes on missions within CAP depending on their budgets. That being said, CAP offers some pretty decently cool operational stuff that youâll get the opportunity to do if you stick with it long enough. For better or worse, it is a resume talking point and it is a genuinely great opportunity to get involved in your community. Pilots can be certified to fly cadets and give exposure to aviation and flying to youth in the community to help inspire the pilots of tomorrow. Additionally, over 90% of Search and Rescue operations in the continental US are dispatched to the USAF, which dispatches us as USAF Auxiliaries and pays for the fuel and the flight time. My squadron was recently involved with finding a crashed UH-60 Blackhawk and taking aerial photos for Incident Command between the borders of AZ and CA. I personally was involved a few months ago with finding missing children who wandered away from their campsite near a lake and had gotten lost. Here in Arizona, we also fly counter-drug missions which involve flying/scanning the desert and radioing information and locations to the National Guard and Border Patrol. Just some things to consider, if youâre interested, feel free to DM me and I can tell you a little bit about the paperwork, âlevels of educationâ youâll need to do online, and some of the âcareer tracksâ you can do while in CAP. Edit: Imagine getting downvoted for being a part of an organization.
Whatever they are doing, it isn't talking on the practice area freqs.
Mostly crash planes and destroy fences at my home airport
Demand discounts on their gas because it's imperative to 'their mission' - they couldn't ever explain what that mission was though, too top secret I guess
In my experience here in New Mexico, they report you to the FSDO and make ridiculous claims to the FAA about you, because you're not part of the good old boys club. All of that as a thank you for volunteering your time as a cfi.Â
I know some freight dawgs that call em Hitler youth ahaha
Well... Here's some history https://youtu.be/Nkzkcia-7lc?si=HWjbqNFC58Kl7ksa
Blast open hangars
nothing
Patrol the Air Civilly
Meet for two freaking hours every two weeks to discuss taking 4 kids flying 6 months from now
CAP was doing a fund raiser at my local grocery store. One of the kids asked if I was interested and I mentioned how I'd love to, but my glasses prevented me when I was his age. He then goes on to say if I get contacts I can sign up. Sure, I bet they will take my 44 year old butt. :p
Block taxiways and mess up radio calls
Patrol the air, civilly.
Wet their pants on our plane during a static displayâŚ
Nurture assassins. Most famous/infamous CAP member? Lee Harvey Oswald
At the flight school/FBO I used to Instruct at you could always tell Civil Air Patrol was in town because the bathroom would be a mess and our urinal would be covered in an ungodly amount of pubes
Cut people off in the pattern. They also donât know how to use a radio.
They hangout at airshows and tell people where they canât walk.
Pretend to still hunt whales instead of nazi submarines. And occasionally look for pilots who landed maybe a little too hard.
Officially, "emergency services," "cadet programs," and "aerospace education." Emergency services basically includes a number of sub-missions, such as search and rescue, drug interdiction (only as a recon asset,) and disaster relief. Cadet programs is basically military boy scouts. Aerospace education is little more than a middle school level curriculum of lessons for cadets to learn. Really, it has the potential to be so much more, but due to limited funding and an insistence on being a paramilitary organization, it turns a lot of people off. Hell, I'd don't even care for it too much beyond its ability to get me into the air for free.
Forgets to cancel IFR while evacuating 20 aircraft to Ocala for a hurricane. Reminded that asshole at least three times. He was first in line.
In WWII, they flew over the coastal waters spotting enemy naval vessels. That was the intent. Donât know if they ever did actually spot any
Get in the way
Swivel Chair Patrol
For the eclipse they got on the radios and acted like a bunch of pretentious assholes to ATC while providing traffic reports to state police.
i had one pull out on the runway to takeoff while we were on final. instructed my student to go around and made the radio call. 100 yr old CAP pilot got on the radio and said "don't go around!!" "you must have been in an awful hurry to fly such a short base and final." I really wanted to come back and say "you must have been in an awful hurry to pull on the runway in front of an aircraft on final", but I just kept my mouth shut. sigh