CAP Aircraft Fleet 2

[Rotorhead]

  Its simply unfortunate that use of member-owned airplanes has been discouraged, as the foundation of CAP came from just that.

This goes to my question--when and how did the use of member-owned aircraft become discouraged?

[es_g0d]

If you use member-owned aircraft, the corporate birds won't get flown as much.
And as we all know, we have to put hours on the corporate birds to justify their existence.

I see your line of thought.  Lets say I own a Cessna 172, and I go out and do proficiency flying.  If I get a flight release, then we as an organization can count that towards our total hours flown.  Certainly utilization numbers on corporate airplanes are important, but we also add evidence to our claim with member-owned airplanes flown on CAP business.

If you belong to a squadron that doesn't have an airplane assigned within a reasonable distance, then fly your member-furnished airplane under CAP rules and suddenly you're building a case to have one assigned nearby. 

The discouragement of flying member-owned airplanes, particularly on funded activities, I believe is simply to ensure that we're using funding to build hours on corporate aircraft.  And, honestly, that's where the priority SHOULD be for funded activities.  Across the whole spectrum, though, we clearly fly more aircraft than just CAP-owned ones, and this should be documented.