The more I read about CAP, the requirements, etc....wow the AF must be completely different than the Navy! In the Navy I scrubbed dishes for about a month (sucked) but each night I worked on qualifications. So just 30 days later I was driving a Nuclear submarine. I wasn't talking about it or hoping for it. While I did that I qualified in a rating and moved up again. Things took weeks, sometimes a few months. I think I'd go insane if CAP/AF had this long drawn out good old boys paperwork fest. Now I can see why no one young would join - the path to doing "fun ****" just seems too drawn out. Now maybe if CAP service lowered the 1500hr minimums I could see if being a different story.
You were a captive on the boat. Do all of that in one 8 hour weekend training course and a couple of weekday hours, including the dishwashing. LOL. (By dishwashing I mean you spent 70% of your time doing menial stuff and all organizations have menial stuff that has to get done.)
Comparing a full time job where you literally live where you work (including Navy and USAF) to a volunteer gig is crazy. Volunteer gigs usually have to figure out the best use of everyone’s time and don’t have any left over for stupid bureaucracy.
But a volunteer organization being audited by a bored team of USAF Captains hanging around a few more years for retirement points, is a part time job for the volunteers dumb enough to take a squadron leadership role along with wanting to do anything in actual missions.
You also had senior people helping you pass and they were the majority of the boat, the newbies weren’t.
In CAP you have a majority of newbies and no flow control on that whatsoever (they have to “hire” whoever walks in the door) with a few senior folk who are constantly bombarded with “How do I get to where I can fly?” from the pile of newbies and the senior folks get a manual and maybe if they’re lucky a video to train everyone who walks through the door how to work IN EMERGENCY SERVICES. And half of those newbies leave in a couple of years and after a while the seniors (who themselves didn’t show up to teach but to DO things 20 years ago) have almost no interest in teaching it again WITH NEW RULES every couple of months.
The only people I see who do well in that FLYING ES ORGANIZATION who teach are people who teach because that’s what they INTENDED to do. Like CFIs! Duh.
Often CAP leadership isn’t determined by skill, it’s determined by who can take the most time away from their day job. The really heinous time killer jobs like Crew Chief, are almost always either someone working at the airport already as a mechanic, or a retired guy. You can’t freaking manage maintenance on busy aircraft from your desk job clear across town.
And let’s talk about that for a minute shall we? CAP started out with NO FLEET. The only damn reason it has a fleet is that the Senator from Kansas wants to give Cessna money. For some highly specialized missions yes, corporate aircraft needed, but politics and lawyers have killed personal aircraft use.
And no, don’t give me that crap that the missions need standardized G1000 Cessnas with a freaking Becker and an FM radio. You know what we did back when CAP didn’t have CORPORATE radios? We drilled a hole in an inspection port, ran the coax into the cockpit and stuck an earbud inside our headset with a handheld. And no, they STILL don’t use their highly expensive digital radios properly anyway, so analog is just fine. Code words for sensitive topics.
Half of the damn aircrews couldn’t figure out the freaking STCd and well documented audio panel changes for those additional radios anyway. Probably too busy doing monthly mandatory safety meetings to act like they’re full time USAF employees and that meeting was just one of many.
Corporate aircraft was a mistake. Painting them in USAF colors and marketing them that way is also a mistake. This is the CIVIL Air Patrol. Want USAF crews? Send out a helo.
Why not do this: Allow clubs or groups to receiving training in aviation based SAR from a local agency (Sheriff, etc). Once signed off they can purchase a CAP plane (yes, no longer theirs) that can be used for club flying and SAR.
Any Sheriff can do that today and many do. Why pay for a CAP plane? Just buy a good one non-new at half or less the price and maintain it well?
The club would have to document a minimum amount of training. They would also have to agree (which they easily would) to pre-empt regular club flight reservations to support a SAR or whatever the sheriff or fire department needs.
Already done in CAP. Along with a million other requirements. See: Using volunteers as trainers for hoardes of newbies, above.
Basically the equivalent of a volunteer fire fighter but the volunteers own the plane and can use it when there aren't fires. Or what scuba divers do to assist PD's and Counties. Wouldn't something like this be way more efficient than CAP and all the politics. Heck, maybe even introduce a new 14 CFR xxx based rating for SAR-Land, etc. I would take that up in an instant. This would get all those nice 172's/182's flying. And only some of the CAP money would be needed to re-imburse these groups when they fly an actual mission or do their minimal training.
You’re describing what used to be done with personally owned aircraft under official CAP missions up until the Cessna restart and politicians in Congress deciding that CAP needed a nice shiny fleet of brand new Cessnas. Any Doc or Lawyer with spare time and an airplane could help out as long as they put the training time in.
Money back then was spent for SARCOMPs (SAR competitions) to see who’s the best crews. Awards were given out. Etc. No money for that today. Zero. SAREX (SAR Exercises / Training ) yes there’s very limited funds. And they’re RARELY done in cooperation with any other local agencies which is really what needs to happen.
But let’s also not forget we live the era of government handouts and “fairness” and those who don’t own an aircraft would whine mightily that the government needed to provide some for them to participate in. In a VFD the specialized gear like fire trucks is provided (barely, and usually purchased used and cheap from big city departments when the city folk get new ones on the taxpayer dime) but members may still outfit POVs with lights, radios, and whatever they feel like they need to show up at a dispatch. If the tool fits the job, feel free to bring it. Up to you and we aren’t replacing it if you wreck it.
Also realize local agencies train on Saturday and Sunday sometimes... but sometimes on Tuesday. Sometimes a big State exercise is a week long.
Want to look like a flaky ES organization? Say you’ll only participate in training on weekends, you have no dedicated trainers and all your job personnel are tired from reaching four classes this month for people who already left the organization because you have no standards or hiring process, and your rank is based off of who can spend $1000 to travel to an out of state FEMA class, not time in service or any objective measurement of job function. Think any Fire Chiefs get the title before they know a lot about fighting freaking fires?
