Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary
When severe weather strikes or a hiker goes missing, trained volunteer pilots are ready to launch—thanks to rigorous all-weather training like Saturday’s event in Moorhead. Fourteen Civil Air Patrol pilots, from across North Dakota gathered Saturday for annual advanced training. Lt. Col. Chad Smith was happy to host the event at his squadron’s hangar at Moorhead Municipal Airport. “This is one of the few times we all get to gather in one place, get to know each other, and just talk aviation for the day,” said Smith. Squadrons from Grand Forks, Jamestown, and as far away as Minot assembled a total of four CAP aircraft to support the day of training. Additionally, CAP-USAF Liaison Jeremy Aamold visited from St. Paul maintaining the relationship with CAP as the Auxiliary to the United States Air Force.
The day’s weather was far from typical for search-and-rescue or aerial photography—CAP’s most common North Dakota missions. Instead, low clouds and reduced visibility prompted Smith to focus training events on topics and flight plans applicable to instrument flight rules. “It ended up being the perfect weather for that,” said one of the pilots Maj. Jeffrey Slocum. “Cloud cover was low enough to provide real-life training but high enough off the ground to allow a safe margin of safety.” Most of Civil Air Patrol’s emergency response flights occur with good visibility required for photography and visual search, however, crews may need to travel through clouds between their designated mission area and their servicing airport.
The full day of training fostered many conversations amongst volunteers in between scheduled flights. Experienced members shared stories of search and rescue practice exercises and real-world flooding response missions. Capt. Fred Remer, a Civil Air Patrol pilot and retired professor from University of North Dakota, presented an overview of modern forecasting tools available to all pilots. According to Remer, “These models don’t count as the ‘legal’ forecast, like the terminal aerodrome forecast, but they are updated much more frequently allowing crews to make real-time decisions during mission flying operations.”
People interested in volunteering to serve with Civil Air Patrol in the air or on the ground can visit gocivilairpatrol.com/join to find out more and connect with the nearest squadron. The newest CAP pilot present, David LaBeur, shared that he joined CAP to, “…have a purpose to get back into general aviation … and fly emergency response.” Civil Air Patrol’s volunteers provide states with a cost-effective, life-saving extension of emergency response.
