Wow! CAP orders 36 New Airplanes

[NIN]

I agree if it works for you (collective you lol) it can help the overall mission. I saw a survey on this some time ago asking if I was interested but my understanding was in reality the focus was on minorities becoming CFIs. Of course, that is a political hot potato I personally try hard to avoid. I would venture most CFIs out there are doing it to build the time to move on to bigger and better things and once they get to where they want instructing drops way down the list. On another note, if you are near an AFB or otherwise have a contingent of former Air Force pilots their IP time in the military means they're 90 percent to a civilian CFI. Based on what they did in the military some have to get the single engine add-on.

I'm sure there's some diversity component (its AF money, and the AF is looking to improve the diversity of the pilot corps overall, both military and civilian, so you do what Big Momma Blue asks), but in the case of our pilot, he's a late 30s-early 40s Kiwi software engineer with kids who has no airline aspriations. He just wants to do cool things and introduce cadets to aviation.

[heliodoc]

I took that survey,too. I have no airline aspirations and more like aerial survey, if that

So where is CAP on the helping of us with Commercial ASEL,AMEL,Instrument types with getting our CFI/ CFII?

Word needs to get to us where CAP could "donate" its resources so we can "donate" our resources to the cause.....

[SARDOC]

Well, when was the last time you actually used the DF in the airplane? And how many times in the past year have you used it? Live missions only, not training missions please.

About 3 years ago.  Located an EPIRB floating in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

[PHall]

Well, when was the last time you actually used the DF in the airplane? And how many times in the past year have you used it? Live missions only, not training missions please.

About 3 years ago.  Located an EPIRB floating in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

Kinda makes you wonder if it's worth the cost and weight penalty anymore.

[SARDOC]

About 3 years ago.  Located an EPIRB floating in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

Kinda makes you wonder if it's worth the cost and weight penalty anymore.
[/quote]

I guess that really depends on how much money is it worth to save a life.  I've had a couple of distress finds (That weren't known to be in distress, in the last 5 years)

[PHall]

About 3 years ago.  Located an EPIRB floating in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay

Kinda makes you wonder if it's worth the cost and weight penalty anymore.

I guess that really depends on how much money is it worth to save a life.  I've had a couple of distress finds (That weren't known to be in distress, in the last 5 years)
[/quote]


We were finding ELT's with aircraft long before The L'Per and the Becker came along. Wing shadowing works.

[NIN]

Kinda makes you wonder if it's worth the cost and weight penalty anymore.

The cost and weight penalty are miniscule compared to the loss of capability. Especially a "core competency" capability.

Look, man, the Air Force hasn't lobbed a nuclear weapon against an adversary since, what, 1945?  But yet: its still considered a major part of what they might be called on to do, so the aircraft are equipped for it, and the crews train for it.

[Fubar]

Look, man, the Air Force hasn't lobbed a nuclear weapon against an adversary since, what, 1945?  But yet: its still considered a major part of what they might be called on to do, so the aircraft are equipped for it, and the crews train for it.

Definitely true, but consider the context of an all-volunteer force training for something that never happens. I don't know if you saw anything nationally in the area of retention, but I've seen a number of people who leave CAP or stop participating in ES because they got tired of practicing something over and over that was never put into practice. I'd argue learning and then mastering a new skill is rewarding, but that's not enough for a lot of people.

I've also seen this in the fire service. We call it the "fire service" and your agency the "fire department" and you personally a "fire fighter" and you drive lights and siren in a "fire truck" where you then spend 99.9% of your time providing medical services. But man, when you're needed for that .1% of the time, you're really needed, but it's hard keeping people engaged.

One answer of course for retaining volunteers in either scenario is appropriately setting up expectations from the start. When people stop volunteering because of those correctly communicated expectations is when the real problem begins.

[NIN]

I said that for years as a ground team leader (my wing is not invited to the Ground SAR party by the state's SAR agency): You can only train for the "big game" so much and never get the phone call before you say "Why do I bother?"  Thats the reason I let my ground team leader qual lapse in the mid-2000s.

There was a pie-chart breakdown of our flying hours a couple years back at a command council meeting where I think it showed something around 1% of our flying was spent on actual Air SAR. (it was not a super great chart, graphically, and my photo of the screen displaying the chart was horrible, so I'd be lying if I said that I was SURE it said that... It did look that way)

That said, we still practice things like creeping line searches, grid searches, to at least have crew profiency in the task.  But are they the majority of our training?  No. Thats angled primarily toward aerial photography.

[PHall]

I said that for years as a ground team leader (my wing is not invited to the Ground SAR party by the state's SAR agency): You can only train for the "big game" so much and never get the phone call before you say "Why do I bother?"  Thats the reason I let my ground team leader qual lapse in the mid-2000s.

There was a pie-chart breakdown of our flying hours a couple years back at a command council meeting where I think it showed something around 1% of our flying was spent on actual Air SAR. (it was not a super great chart, graphically, and my photo of the screen displaying the chart was horrible, so I'd be lying if I said that I was SURE it said that... It did look that way)

That said, we still practice things like creeping line searches, grid searches, to at least have crew profiency in the task.  But are they the majority of our training?  No. Thats angled primarily toward aerial photography.

Because that's the mission we do these days.

[Paul Creed III]

The CAP Geospatial Program builds upon the photography mission in a big way.

https://gis.cap.gov/

[Fubar]

Because that's the mission we do these days.

Which returns to the original question, is the expense of the DF gear and the training required to be proficient in operating the DF gear worth it?

The answer likely varies by wing (we get no ELTs anymore vs. we get only 4-5 ELTs a year), but there's likely value in matching equipment to the mission parameters of a state.