The compiled list of CAP uniform suggestions....

[RiverAux]

Although I'm not a propoenent of requiring NOMEX for all flight activities I did find it interesting that the Marines are issuing NOMEX flightsuits to their armor and some of their infantry units in Iraq to reduce burn injuries caused by IEDs. 


I had thought that tank guys were already in NOMEX because I've seen them in jumpsuits I assumed were NOMEX before. 

[lordmonar]

We have to evolve now. ELT tech & NIMS are the straw that broke the camels back on this one. We can't be who we were & survive. To undertake such a transformation requires vision for sure (there's some good material out there, but we might be lacking in the leadership to get it done), and requires us to accept that just maybe we aren't as bullet proof & all fired critically important to the AF as the hype says we are. I've spun that same hype to unsuspecting politicians before, but that doesn't mean we need to believe our own BS. We have to move beyond the denial phase, then we can get to making some changes.

That is true...but we are still a SAR agency.....we need to find out what we can become...I agree with this....but if we are not a SAR agency then the USAF has no need for us anymore and we need to break with the USAF-AUX crowd and become CAP.  The Civil Air Patrol.  We do what you need in the air.  Be you USAF, DEA, FBI, HSA, FEMA, Red Cross, County Sheriff, Highway Patrol.  We can fill a lot of shoes if we break from being just the USAF-AUX.  Until that happens we can not change our basic paradigm.

So....now it comes down to it.  Do we break from USAF-AUX or do just become obsolete and go the way of the F-4?

[lordmonar]

Although I'm not a propoenent of requiring NOMEX for all flight activities I did find it interesting that the Marines are issuing NOMEX flightsuits to their armor and some of their infantry units in Iraq to reduce burn injuries caused by IEDs. 


I had thought that tank guys were already in NOMEX because I've seen them in jumpsuits I assumed were NOMEX before. 

The army tanker uniforms have been nomex for a long time.  The change may be that the troopers in the back are now wearing nomex instead of their BDU's. 

[Major Carrales]

The Good (I assume by now) Capt says...

I agree with the good Major on this one.  We should mandate the wearing of Service Caps!  That will take care of this silly hat issue once and for all.


My serive cap wearing days have been be reduced to service coat days in that I once again have a flight cap.

I had been wearing the prior because I has lent out the two that I owned to new aviators from our units that better needed them.  I have since been returned one and have ordered another one.

I may wear the service cap to our unit Holiday shin-dig on 11 December 2006.

The "dogpile" on the Major begun some months back is now a moot point.

You know, I ought to go around wearing the service cap just despite some of my detractors.

Naw...

[DNall]

We have to evolve now. ELT tech & NIMS are the straw that broke the camels back on this one. We can't be who we were & survive. To undertake such a transformation requires vision for sure (there's some good material out there, but we might be lacking in the leadership to get it done), and requires us to accept that just maybe we aren't as bullet proof & all fired critically important to the AF as the hype says we are. I've spun that same hype to unsuspecting politicians before, but that doesn't mean we need to believe our own BS. We have to move beyond the denial phase, then we can get to making some changes.

That is true...but we are still a SAR agency.....we need to find out what we can become...I agree with this....but if we are not a SAR agency then the USAF has no need for us anymore and we need to break with the USAF-AUX crowd and become CAP.  The Civil Air Patrol.  We do what you need in the air.  Be you USAF, DEA, FBI, HSA, FEMA, Red Cross, County Sheriff, Highway Patrol.  We can fill a lot of shoes if we break from being just the USAF-AUX.  Until that happens we can not change our basic paradigm.

So....now it comes down to it.  Do we break from USAF-AUX or do just become obsolete and go the way of the F-4?

We're not a SaR agency & the AF doesn't need us. CAP doesn't get to decide its relationship w/ the AF, congress does that. They say we exist to serve the AF & the AF owns us (in a figurative sense). If & when they decide we're obselete, CAP will not be allowed to spin off & will not remain affiliated with some other part of the govt. It would be dissolved & a couple laws changed to transfer the aircraft fleet back to the govt & redistribute it to state police or the like. W/o the AF & their strong support, both financial & emotional, there is no CAP. You can't spin off seperate parts of the org or attach it to some other agency. The govt will pay for the Aux of the AF, not some civilian flying club that tries to help people but isn't really qualified.

We don't need to find out what we can become, we need to decide & dynamically move to it, THEN show the AF what new options we've made avail to them. Be bold, get it done, then ask forgivness after the fact if necessary. Even if it's forgiveness, it'll cause resolution.

[arajca]

:off topic:
AFJROTC cannot replace the CAP cadet program because the number of JROTC units is governed by law and agreements among the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Each branch gets a set percentage of the toal number of JROTC units available. Additionally, JROTC units are tied to a specific school. If you don't go to a school with JROTC, you can't be in JROTC. The CAP cadet program gives the Air Force an advantage over the other services (admittedly a small advantage) in the number of Air Force based cadet units it has available to it. From my researches, no other military cadet program has the full nation-wide coverage CAP does. Some may have a unit or two in every state, but not all do.
:return to topic:

[DNall]

You know how much money the AF spends each year for what amounts to fewer than 2000-2500 kids even elgible to enter military service eash year? JROTC produces tens of thousands & generally does a better, or at least more consistent job of it. Cadet Programs is the only reason I care to be involved with CAP anymore, and I can certainly sell it when I want to, but the AF is gaining very little from us that they don't already have, and spending a truck load more per CAP cadet turning 18 each year than per graduating AFJROTC cadet. The decent geographic coverage, opportunity for homeschool/private school types, loop hole around JROTC limits, etc is all nice, but not nearly worth the money.

[lordmonar]

This is way off topic form the original thread..so maybe we should split it off.

I don't understand your point of view DNall.  If we are locked into the USAF and our only reason for being is going away...then CAP is going away.  End of story.  There is nothing that I can see that we can bring to the table other than what we already are.

There are no more missions that the USAF is doing or may be doing in the mid term future that CAP is in anyway shape or form ready to take on.  And there is nothing that I can see that we can do to change it.

The only thing I can see that CAP can do is to find a different sponsor.  If the USAF is done with us.  Let's see if the DEA can use a fleet of Cessna's (that belong to the corporation the USAF CANNOT TAKE THEM BACK.  It just don't work that way our fleet is not u.s. government property.)

If the DEA can use us...how about HLS, or FEMA, or Department of Energy or the Coast Guard!  Our specialty is air born search and rescue.  We only need to find a customer that has that need or a need close to it that we can transition to.

If you see we have to be locked in with the USAF, and they don't want our SAR capability....what missions do you think we can pick up from the USAF?  I'd really like to know.

[DNall]

Well certainly we are drifting well off topic, but it started out tying in.

I'd start by disputing that SaR is or was ever our only reason for being. Too many people take on that belief, but it's never been the case. We've always had many other major ES missions. There was a time before mandatory ELTs when CAP did little SaR. Then during the height of the cold war when we were again shifted into a civil defense force as the top job. Now we're facing a new reality where HLS dominates the short term world & 80-90% of SaR is going away.

You can throw that FLIR on the side of the plane & do a hell of a lot, same deal with advanced RadMon & chem/bio gear coming out that can be used from HAZMAT to terrorism. We already do a few front line disaster gigs in some states, I've heard some ambitious plans for how to field an organic combined air/grd team for assessment, rescue support, comm support - in fact a range of airborne comm options that were dynamite. There's lots of HLS work & dollars to be had, maybe some money for border defense if the Congress decides to let us play. There's an environmental mission like you see the CG running that the AF runs w/ larger planes & sats in conjunction w/ NOAA but maybe there's a place for us there. I thik just about everything the National Guard or 1AF does is on the table, plus a big percentage of domestic fixed wing avaition in the Army (which is a lot), then comes augmentation/support/supplement, working in conjunction w/ the AFA for one thing... there's a lot we CAN do, and that's the stuff we'd put in public versus what 1AF likes to play at.

Are we prepared to take that kind of thing on? I'm not so sure. In the days when CAP was created it was a simpler world, one w/o computers to start with. It was fine to have a bunch of civilians flying around using mark one eyeballs out the window of a surplus trainer to find someone that made a forced landing in a remote area & had no way to call for help. Today NIMS is professionalizing the standards for emergency responders around us & may well put a lot of CAP memebrs out of business (you saw the medical/phisical requirements on the way mentioned in that other thread right? And, the standrards are pretty serious stuff in their own right).

Does that mean CAP is obselete? Well, yes & no. The CAP of old has certainly seen its time come & go. We don't need hobbiests flying around looking for downed pilots. However, I think we can transform the organization into being capable of taking on all of those missions listed above. We've talked at length about what I'd like to see in the way of adult standards & professional development for the officer grades & to bring in enlisted or warrant grades & how to work those. I think that's the biggest thing is start by living up to AF standards, or rather 80% of an ANG/Res officer of the same grade type standard. Turn CAP into something more like a national Air-SDF, like how we started life. The people drawn to us will change when you change those aspects of our identity & culture, that will change our capabilties.


Oh, and so far as the planes staying w/ CAP, they wouldn't. They are property of the CAP corporation, but governed by the AF. The AF sets the fleet size they are willing to support & CAP can't fund them w/o those dollars so sells down accordingly. Likewise, the AF requests funds for the new planes, and can just as easily ask for that to be redirected thru DHS to state police aviation or whatever. There's also little item that allows CAP to sell the planes & keep the money. You see normally if you use appropriated fund to buy a non-expendable item & then you see that item, the money goes back to the govt. Congress can reverse that & take the cash or planes when the fleet gets ratcheted down. Bsically, they can sqeeze the fleet out of us in as little as 2-5 years if they want. They can doa lot of things really. They have more iherent power over CAP than anyone in CAP would like to admit. Really, if Congress wanted to, they could dissestablish the corporation & sieze our assets pending investigations, then with us dead can absoard the assets for redistribution. It never was free money & it won't end that way if they put us down.

[Major Carrales]

Emergency Services if one of our main Missions (remember Emergency Services, Aerospace Education and Cadet Program?)

Now, I would say that qualifies us as a SAR organization, if not, what is Emergency Services?  The USAF cannot use CAP in cobat operations or even support unless the US is under attack.

I should say that I prefer to do SAR than to live through the conditions of an all out invasion of CONUS.  I do not pray for disaster to be activated, but we must be vigilant (semper vi, remember) to meet those conditions.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Joe, you got it right.  SAR is part of what we do, we are not, to the exclusion of all other missions, a SAR agency.

We can perform ANY "Non-combat" mission of the Air Force.  SAR is one of them. 

We are in a position to be the US Air Force's major contribution to homeland defense, but two conditions have to be met:

1.  We have to get our own act together, and

2.  We have to shoot all the lawyers at Maxwell.

[Ned]

You know how much money the AF spends each year for what amounts to fewer than 2000-2500 kids even elgible to enter military service eash year? JROTC produces tens of thousands & generally does a better, or at least more consistent job of it. Cadet Programs is the only reason I care to be involved with CAP anymore, and I can certainly sell it when I want to, but the AF is gaining very little from us that they don't already have, and spending a truck load more per CAP cadet turning 18 each year than per graduating AFJROTC cadet. The decent geographic coverage, opportunity for homeschool/private school types, loop hole around JROTC limits, etc is all nice, but not nearly worth the money.

Where are you getting your figures?

The last time I checked, it looked like the USAF's cost/cadet/year in appropriated dollars was:

AF JROTC: $358

CAP: $127.

Which makes sense if you consider the hundreds of paid JROTC instructors that have no counterpart in CAP.

Have you checked the CAP vs. JROTC commissioning/enlistment/zoo admittance rates on a per capita or cost basis?

I think you'll find that CAP does very well for our Air Force stakeholders.

[DNall]

Where are you getting your figures?

The last time I checked, it looked like the USAF's cost/cadet/year in appropriated dollars was:

AF JROTC: $358

CAP: $127.

Which makes sense if you consider the hundreds of paid JROTC instructors that have no counterpart in CAP.

Have you checked the CAP vs. JROTC commissioning/enlistment/zoo admittance rates on a per capita or cost basis?

I think you'll find that CAP does very well for our Air Force stakeholders.

That's HIGHLY misleading. We have CAP cadets for up to 9 years, they have cadets for a max of four years. We also carry a lot of cadets on our rosters that are not actually active. If you read what I wrote, it says per cadet turning 18 (becoming elgible to enter military service) per year. If you run those numbers you'll find a VERY different picture.

I have seen statistics, though I don;t know where to find them now, that say cadets with a certain amount of active CAP service/advancement have I think a 22% better pass rate in initial military programs than do individuals with one year of JROTC or other cadet program experience, I'm just going by rough memory though so don't quote me on that. The thinking is more that this is a function of it requiring greater determination & self-discipline to advance as a CAP cadet, so the lower number that do are naturally going to be mnore successful when tested again.

Joe, you got it right.  SAR is part of what we do, we are not, to the exclusion of all other missions, a SAR agency.

We can perform ANY "Non-combat" mission of the Air Force.  SAR is one of them. 

We are in a position to be the US Air Force's major contribution to homeland defense, but two conditions have to be met:

1.  We have to get our own act together, and

2.  We have to shoot all the lawyers at Maxwell.

That's right, it's not WHO we are. SaR is one thing in ES, along with CN, HLS, DR, etc. We are a broad adaptable agency that does SOME search (no rescue to speak of) in the midst of a lot of other things, and all of that just makes up a third of what we do. For instance, a police department may from train its members & from time to time participate in a search for a missing person, that doesn't mean the police department is a SaR agency, it's a LE agency that may be able to also do some limited SaR work when it needs to, kinda like CAP.

I'm making a point about this because IF you believe we are primarily a SaR agency  & are a part of CAP to be a part of SaR activities, then when that goes mostly obselete here in the near future, then we indeed will be rather useless to the AF. If you drop the hype we thrust on ourselves & the snow job we send at them, you can see we're almost there already. The point where you're identified as useless is not the time to be looking for money to change into something else. You have to rock & fire off a success to change things before they're needed, otherwise you sink.

We can do ANY domestic AF mission that doesn't involve direct combat, which does include combat support. Tat's prety musch what we have been doing all along, they just restated it to encourage us to broaden our thinking.

NOW, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Ned]

That's HIGHLY misleading. We have CAP cadets for up to 9 years, they have cadets for a max of four years. We also carry a lot of cadets on our rosters that are not actually active. If you read what I wrote, it says per cadet turning 18 (becoming elgible to enter military service) per year. If you run those numbers you'll find a VERY different picture.

I have seen statistics, though I don;t know where to find them now, that say cadets with a certain amount of active CAP service/advancement have I think a 22% better pass rate in initial military programs than do individuals with one year of JROTC or other cadet program experience, I'm just going by rough memory though so don't quote me on that. The thinking is more that this is a function of it requiring greater determination & self-discipline to advance as a CAP cadet, so the lower number that do are naturally going to be mnore successful when tested again.

Oh, I dunno.  I think it's a little more misleading to suggest that we "have cadets for up to nine years" when we both know that most CAP cadets don't stay more than a year or two, and less than 5% stay over 6 years.

And to the extent that units carry non-active cadets on the rosters, that just makes us more efficient in our contact time with cadets that DO actively participate.

And while I appreciate the fact that you where trying to compare CAP cadets at age 18 to the average JROTC high school graduate, I simply repeat my request:

Where did you get those numbers?  As a CP kind of guy, I'm genuinely interested.

But given your figures, I'm a little concerned that we are comparing apples and oranges here.  Most CAP cadets do not remain until age 18, and you are excluding cadets who have left by age 18 and still go on to enlist or commission.  Surely these cadets have some value to our USAF stakeholder? 

But given that those cadets who DO remain after age 18 are our most enthusiastic and arguably  most successful cadets, I'd really like to "run those numbers" as you suggest to try to get some differential success/cost effectiveness figures.

And even given my limited imaginaion, I still have trouble imagining how CAP spends more on our 18+ cadets than our <18 year olds.  So tell me again, what is wrong with the hard numbers I posted?

[DNall]

AFROTC produces an annual report covering JROTC w/ stats. There's some other data too. There were some studies a few years back that I can't find anymore that compared varrious cadet programs (CAP, NSCC, ACA, JROTC) in terms of enlistment/commission rates, success in military programs, etc. You have to go looking for yourself to track it all down again.

I realize we virtually never have a cadet for 9 years, JROTC cadets tend not to stay four years either, that was far from my point. My point was we have a wider age distribution. Even if you cut off the 18-21 cadets, the fact that we take kids as young as 11-12yo versus freshmen skews our numbers. Run those figures by distribution to see the gross number we can theoretically place in military service each year versus JROTC. And what gross number DO we place in enlisted, academy or college ROTC service after HS (I grant the percentages are better for CAP, but it's such a minascule program it doesn't matter). Then subtract the inactive numbers from our roster & divide against the total spent on cadet programs (which is a pretty good amount); the result will be a dramatically higher figure than JROTC (remember school districts rather than the AF pay most of the expenses for JROTC).

Oh and sorry, I'm not restricting it to active CAP cadets turning 18. The study I saw, which I'm trying to ref from memory, used a standard of cadet advanced to a certain point in the program. JROTC involved I believe 1-2 years. CAP involved a mid-NCO level (even if they quit after that at 13, they'd be counted for CAP in the year they turned 18), the others had some similiar standards. There was some differential above my math skills applied to cancel out dual members. None of this was written to compare one program versus another, it was a DoD sponsored study to help justify the expenditure. I believe I saw it as a ref in a War College paper, or maybe Joint Defense, I forget something like that though. I think CAP ref'd it at the time, this would be about 5 years back. It's still true today though, maybe even moreso given our recent retention slide.

I'm also a cadet programs kind of guy, and franly would have passed on all the BS CAP comes with if it weren't for the opportunity to work with & help such outstanding young men & women as they reach for & attain their dreams (tear  ).  I'm not advocating getting rid of our cadet program, or any part of CAP for that matter. I'm not saying it isn't a good thing that the AF appreciates. I'm saying you have to take a hard look at the big picture & wonder if it is SO valuable to them that they aren't willing to consider better solutions. If it's not that explicitily critically important to them, then we need to change so it is & they see that it is, or we're going to be in trouble down the road.

[JohnKachenmeister]

DNall:

Where does it say we are restricted to domestic missions?

[Major Carrales]

I should say that these are non-combat roles that the USAF could charge us with...


Not so probable missions in that the conditions do not exist at present...
1) Transporting aircraft, CAP Pilots could be rated to transfer aircraft as in WWII.  That is if we were ever in the need of USAF pilots in theater.

2) Operating Domestic (CONUS) communications for the USAF.

3) Providing passive security at USAF installations

More likely missions
1) Inland SAR

2) Communications net as per the CAP networks

3) Man recruiting stations

4) Border Surveylance

5) Augmenting pool for Reserve Officers

Anyone else want to be creative and add to this list?

[afgeo4]

LOVE the new badge design, but to cut costs and ridiculousness, eliminate the enamel please.  Aircrew badges don't have to be very distinctive from military since they don't suggest military affiliation (a civillian could wear wings and it's not against the law).  Also, create a Recruiting occupational badge since there is a recruiting/retention career field in CAP now.  Perhaps something similar to the USAF one?  On that note, create a badge for EVERY CAP career field.  Also create a cloth version of each one.

A++ on overall design though!

(AFROTC shoulder boards aren't black, they're navy blue to reflect USAF Officers.  The Army ROTC wears black ones to reflect Army Officers.)

Bigger than any of those questions I think is... do we transform to ABU's, stay with BDU's or go with Corporate Utilities after 2011 (proposed mandatory wear date for ABU in USAF)?  What would our uniforms look like with current insignia in ABU colors?  I know we have photoshop wizards out there!  Please no patches since USAF is eliminating them from ABU's.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Ferrying aircraft is never going to happen.

"Passive" security... What's that?  I could see assisting in Pass and ID, and doing traffic/crowd control at big base events, or perating an information booth.  But that would be about it as far as security.

CONUS commo... maybe backup in an emergency.

PA support.  We could provide journalists and other staff to base newspapers and magazines.

Weather briefers.  We have pilots that, with a little orientation training, could augment base operations as pilot briefers.

Medical support.  We have doctors, nurses, EMT's that could assist in on-base medical support.

Legal.  Our lawyers could assist deployed families with legal matters, write wills for deploying troops, etc.

Personnel.  In the event of a reserve deployment, our admin folks could assist in getting records complete, arranging required briefings, etc.

[JohnKachenmeister]

LOVE the new badge design, but to cut costs and ridiculousness, eliminate the enamel please.  Aircrew badges don't have to be very distinctive from military since they don't suggest military affiliation (a civillian could wear wings and it's not against the law).  Also, create a Recruiting occupational badge since there is a recruiting/retention career field in CAP now.  Perhaps something similar to the USAF one?  On that note, create a badge for EVERY CAP career field.  Also create a cloth version of each one.

A++ on overall design though!

(AFROTC shoulder boards aren't black, they're navy blue to reflect USAF Officers.  The Army ROTC wears black ones to reflect Army Officers.)

Bigger than any of those questions I think is... do we transform to ABU's, stay with BDU's or go with Corporate Utilities after 2011 (proposed mandatory wear date for ABU in USAF)?  What would our uniforms look like with current insignia in ABU colors?  I know we have photoshop wizards out there!  Please no patches since USAF is eliminating them from ABU's.

The AF Uniform Board has already authorized the ABU for CAP, but the wearout date of the BDU has yet to be determined.  Also, OUR NB has to change the regs.  In this case the suspersonic part of the Air Force is actually ahead of the power curve.  Look to add about 5 years on to the phase in of the ABU to be fully phased in to CAP.  That's been about standard for uniform changes.

DNall did a lot of research, and the enamel does NOT add to the cost.  Current manufacturing techniques make enamel badges cost the same as bare metal.  Also, the status of "Auxiliary Pilot" needs to be differentiated from the "Air Force Pilot."  But I want to see the CAP Form 5 for "Astronaut."    If you do a Form 5 ride in a Shuttle, does that also qualify as a 5G?