Is CAP the best resource for finding pot plantations?

[simon]

I was going to say "Most cost efficient" but decided instead to say "best". Anyway:

Here is an article from Saturday's Wall Street Journal in which the head of the Mount Shasta, Oregon Sherrif's department talks about budget cutbacks, federal incentives for drug operations and the cost of searching for pot plantations:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703648304575212382612331758.html?KEYWORDS=marijuana

The photo was taken from a chopper, presumably with paid employees. Is this cost efficient compared to a 182 with a couple of CAP volunteers?

I would think CAP aircraft and crews would be ideal for this job. Unless they are in a Robinson, a Bell Jet Ranger and a couple of paid law enforcement agents have to be at least $500 an hour. A 182 with 3 CAP people would cost 1/4th of that. Either way, the feds are footing the bill.

[HGjunkie]

Do we have enough flight Crews to do ES, O-Flights, yadda yadda, AND pot farm location? maybe the occasional "hey, we need more men" but not solely a CAP operation.

[SJFedor]

Do we have enough flight Crews to do ES, O-Flights, yadda yadda, AND pot farm location? maybe the occasional "hey, we need more men" but not solely a CAP operation.

CD is a very big part of what CAP does lately. We don't talk about it a whole lot, but especially in some wings, its a very big thing. Even nationwide, about 1/5th of our AFAM flight hours for FY09 was CD flights, more than SAR, more than disaster relief.

[JoeTomasone]

Do we have enough flight Crews to do ES, O-Flights, yadda yadda,

Cite, please.

[isuhawkeye]

what does he need to cite???  he asked a question

[JoeTomasone]

what does he need to cite???  he asked a question

*blink*

Guess I needed more early morning caffeinated beverage this morning.

Disregard.

[Short Field]

Do we have enough flight Crews to do ES, O-Flights, yadda yadda, AND pot farm location? maybe the occasional "hey, we need more men" but not solely a CAP operation.

What makes you think we don't?  Is your squadron running short of aircrews for the aircraft assigned to your squadron?

[simon]

Good question HGjunkie. Good answer SJFedor. Good point Short Field.

So on the question of "Does CAP have the resources?", we might have to look squadron to squadron. One would need to consider several things:

1) Availability of an aircraft. With the 121.5 satellites no longer listening, this means less UDF A/C missions. This has an impact on training. Less missions means harder to keep up the training and currency for crews without more SAREX's. I would think funded missions looking for plantations would be helpful here. I mean, isn't it better to be doing something really useful for the money such as doing a pot finding mission that eliminates the sheriff's office having to do it? SAREX's are good, but this is good as well.

2) Availability of a crew. I dunno. I guess it depends, squadron to squadron. I know I'd do it.

3) The competence of the crew. Worth mentioning. We would want the other agencies to be assured that CAP was at least as professional as they were. It's probably just a matter of training, doing it a couple of times etc. It would seem to be very beneficial to CAP to have real world missions and be working with other agencies, another benefit over many SAREX's.

4) Non crew resources, e.g. Time from Group / Wing staff. I can't imagine this would be overbearing. We do it anyway on CD stuff, right?

5) Ground pounders. Hmmm. Probably not. Few people get shot looking for a downed aircraft. This can be dangerous stuff. As for cadets.... (Yes, of course not - we don't want them stuffing buds into their pockets - okay, so that was totally un-PC - light humor for a post July 4 w/e ;-)

6) Cost. Again, it's gotta be so much more cost effective than a Jet Ranger and 2-3 salaried state/federal employees.

7) Impact to Emergency Services. This is the one I would look at. It seems to me that our local aircraft are on the ground and available quite a bit. Maybe we'd have to look at the annual utilization, what the target was etc.

I'm just thinking of ways in which we can maintain and improve the currency of aircrews. To me, these kind of ops would actually reduce the overall cost to federal and state agencies. But then again, I am sure there is a bit of red tape to work out.

I know our planes here in Northern CA make the trip down to Imperial a fair bit for CD work. This would seem to be a practical addition.

As SJFedor said, if this is already going on then I imagine yeah, specifics of ops are not going to be discussed on a public forum, but when I read articles like the one in the journal it just jumps out at me as a perfect fit for CAP.

[Krapenhoeffer]

I'm going to suggest, for reasons of Force Protection, that CAP steer clear of <bad pun unavailable> missions.

In my local municipality, pot busting missions are almost done entirely by uniformed officers, but with identity concealed. The reason being is that the pot trade is tied heavily to gang activity. Should gangs find out about CAP involvement, they will likely retaliate against our membership, and harass our cadets (or worse). This would of course be more of a problem in urban squadrons.

So, I say: No!

[jeders]

I have no problem considering that CAP already does exactly this. CD, and in my neck of the woods now, HS air missions far surpass SAR/DR/O-rides combined. It's no more dangerous than anything else CAP is doing. We just need our wings to go out and solicit the business from the states.

[simon]

Should gangs find out about CAP involvement, they will likely retaliate against our membership, and harass our cadets (or worse).

Krapenhoeffer, I respect your concern, but do you really think this is likely? I do not see how this would manifest itself.

I can understand ground based being dangerous. Are there instances of air crews being shot at? Since air based scanning for plantations have been going on for years from law enforcement, I would think the prevalence of any incidents like this and thus the risk would be understood.

BTW, I just followed through with my squadron commander who participates in missions on the border and she said that we do already actively participate in plantation work and in fact did so in Northern CA last week. So perhaps as SJFedor said, it is something that is a part of CAP activities already but due to the nature of the work just not discussed in an open forum.

[tsrup]

Should gangs find out about CAP involvement, they will likely retaliate against our membership, and harass our cadets (or worse).

Krapenhoeffer, I respect your concern, but do you really think this is likely? I do not see how this would manifest itself.

This is why (as it was explained to me *scuttlebutt alert*) that SD wing does not do CD missions.  We used to, but some gangs (the two wheeled kind, that become pretty prevalent in South Dakota, especially around August) looked up and noticed it was CAP planes that they were seeing before they got busted.  From there it wasn't too difficult to find out our meeting times/locations. 

As I said, this is what I heard.  It may have happened, it may have just been a scenario that the higher ups predicted.  But either case, this is the reason we don't do CD.

[RiverAux]

Is CAP the best resources?  Absolutely not.  A helicopter is the best platform for visual search for pot plants. 

Can CAP do it?  Sure.  Can they do it at no cost to the locals?  Sure.  Might that be something the locals would want to consider asking for on the theory that a less than ideal platform may still come up with some sites for them to check out?  Absolutely.

Do we have the resources to respond to such requests?  At what seems to be the current demand - yes.  The limitation seems to be how much flying the AF is willing to pay for. 

[blackrain]

repaint the aircraft to be non-descript for starters..............don't advertise who you are.....

[Krapenhoeffer]

My understanding was that CD missions were done primarily for Federal Agencies (AUX ON), which has more anonymity associated with it. I don't know about your areas, but in my neck of the woods, whenever the police make a pot bust, the local press is all over it.

If CAP decides to go along with this, we should make sure we only do it in a AUX ON capacity, and we heed the advice of Gandalf:

Keep it secret, keep it safe.

[HGjunkie]

Keep it secret, keep it safe.

Keep it with the secret squirrel.

[SJFedor]

Keep it secret, keep it safe.

Keep it with the secret squirrel.

Now you're getting it.

*see below*

[Krapenhoeffer]

Ah, but HGjunkie has the new and improved ACU/ABU version of the Secret Squirrel patch, and is clearly ready for the eventual transition to the ABU.

While you currently have the subdued version of the patch, as currently authorized (sic) for wear with BDUs.

[HGjunkie]

Keep it secret, keep it safe.

Keep it with the secret squirrel.

Now you're getting it.

*see below*

 

[SJFedor]

Ah, but HGjunkie has the new and improved ACU/ABU version of the Secret Squirrel patch, and is clearly ready for the eventual transition to the ABU.

While you currently have the subdued version of the patch, as currently authorized (sic) for wear with BDUs.

BDU's? What are those? I have the patch up that I would wear on my flight suit, if I could.

[SJFedor]

Do we have enough flight Crews to do ES, O-Flights, yadda yadda, AND pot farm location? maybe the occasional "hey, we need more men" but not solely a CAP operation.

Anyway, dragging back to the original conversation, as a cadet you probably don't hear much about the CD program, even less if you're not with a squadron w/ an active air operations program, but in general, we do a lot of things that aren't always talked about openly. Heck, until I was an older cadet getting into air operations via me learning how to fly through CAP, I didn't think our aircraft did anything other that SAR, o-flights, and training.

Much to learn still, young grasshopper.

[Krapenhoeffer]

I completely forgot about the Zoom Bag! I only brought my BDUs with me to school last year. My zoom bag must still be up in my room! <Krapenhoeffer runs to his closet, laughing manically>

Yeah, has your plane ever been chased by F-16s? I know ours has, but I haven't. Because I'm not 21. So they wont let me.

[simon]

I enquired with a CAP pilot in my squadron is flying CD. The reply was: "Currently, CD missions (of all types) make up 40% of the hours flown by CAWG."

Interesting statistic, especially compared to SD WG, who, if tsrup is correct, is flying zero CD.

[simon]

Oh, and BTW, finally I have to ask.

What's with the squirrel???

[HGjunkie]

Oh, and BTW, finally I have to ask.

What's with the squirrel???

It's a secret.

[lordmonar]

I enquired with a CAP pilot in my squadron is flying CD. The reply was: "Currently, CD missions (of all types) make up 40% of the hours flown by CAWG."

Interesting statistic, especially compared to SD WG, who, if tsrup is correct, is flying zero CD.

Not really.  CD mission like many other mission have to do with what agency is asking for them.  Here in NVWG we did not fly CD missions for something like 2 years because the guy in charge of the land we were going to overfly did not know/like CAP.  He moved on and the new guy started ramping up CD missions.

This year the supported agencies wanted us to fly A LOT of mission 3-4 times the number of hours that the USAF/CAP had allocated funds for.

We had to go to the customer and scale back what he was asking for.

[bosshawk]

I believe that tsrup is correct, SD does not fly CD.  In fact, I seem to recall that a couple of years ago I was informed that several Mid-West states had notified National that they were not going to participate in the CD program.  Can't remember which ones, outside of SD.

CAWG regularly flies between 2,000 and 2500 hours of CD per year: that is about 35-40 percent of all hours flown in CA.  It certainly helps justify the 26 aircraft assigned to CAWG.

[Flying Pig]

I cant imagine why a wing would take themselves out of the game by telling NHQ that they were just not going to do it.  Lets see, a free opportunity to allow your crews to participate, on a daily basis sometimes, in real world operations?  Not to mention, CD can be a great way to recruit solid, experienced members.  Ummm, nah, not interested.

CAUTION Below conversation based on actual events.  Names and locations removed for OPSEC purposes.

Cop to Pilot "Man, this is awesome.  I've always loved flying."

Pilot to Cop  "You ever thought about joining CAP?"

Cop to Pilot "No, Im not a pilot but I've always loved flying."

Pilot to Cop "You don't have to be a pilot."

Cop to Pilot "Huh? I always thought you had to be a retired military pilot or something to be in CAP?"

Pilot to Cop "Since we are flying though a canyon at the moment, we'll talk after the flight.  By the way, do you have any kids?"

[Flying Pig]

As far as the best resource, CAWG CD serves some agencies as almost their full time air unit just about in certain times of the year.  Some of the ops we do here can involve 10+ CAP planes and crews all at once.  Other times, we slip in, do the mission and slip out like it never happened.  Yes, CA has a mission that isn't everywhere, but if you market it right, there isn't an agency around who couldn't use CAP.  You may run into some flak from volunteer Air Squadrons with some departments but again, not every department needs us. 
Sure, CAP isn't a resource that every department needs or uses but for those who do many of our pilots are on a first name basis with the cops who fly with them to the point of "or so I have heard" some agencies even request pilots by name.

[RiverAux]

I can certainly imagine CAP Wings saying that they didn't have the operational capability to support CD missions (though that would be pretty embarrassing) or CAP Wings saying that the local agencies weren't interested in using CAP for these missions.  But, I have a hard time believing any CAP Wing Commander would refuse to do CD missions based on some sort of personal opinion of their own.

Now, if this was back in the time before the NOC when the Wing Commanders had a lot more responsibility for taking a risk on approving "iffy" missions (in regards to posse commitatus), then I wouldn't be surprised if some Wing Commander declined to do CD missions just to make sure they didn't accidentally approve something that crossed the line.  But today all that responsibility (and any perceived legal risk) has been shifted to NOC. 

[tsrup]

I cant imagine why a wing would take themselves out of the game by telling NHQ that they were just not going to do it.  Lets see, a free opportunity to allow your crews to participate, on a daily basis sometimes, in real world operations?  Not to mention, CD can be a great way to recruit solid, experienced members.  Ummm, nah, not interested.

AFIK it was a simple ORM call.  Did the risk outweigh the benefit?  No.  Pot grown here in the state tends to be indoors, as we have seasons that are less than favorable to growing well, anything.  So the payoff of an arial search did not seem to outweigh the risk that we could impose on our members.  We are not a large wing, so it's pretty easy to tell which squadron is running the aircraft in your area. 
And if the reasons that were explained to me were true, that seems like an awfully large risk to assume for the off chance of recruiting.  There are many other avenues that that goal can be accomplished, simple education is one of them, that don't paint a target on your members backs.

No worries, we lend ourselves useful to our state in many ways, CD is just not one of them.

[simon]

Pilot to Cop "Since we are flying though a canyon at the moment, we'll talk after the flight.  By the way, do you have any kids?"

LMAO. I am visualizing it right now.