About The CAP| About The CAP |
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| Written by Administrator | |
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The United States is divided geographically into areas known as regions. These regions are not constituted as separate legal entities. Each region is known by the geographical locale of the United States it encompasses. CAP wings are positioned within these regions. There are 52 wings in CAP, one for each state, the District of Columbia (which includes the Washington, D.C., area), and Puerto Rico. A wing is comprised of the wing headquarters and all units within its geographical boundaries unless otherwise prescribed.
Wing commanders may form groups when the wing geographical area or the number of units in the wing is too large to permit the wing commander to exercise effective supervision directly over squadrons and flights. The squadron is the community-level organization of CAP. Wing commanders may activate squadrons whenever there is a minimum of 15 members in a unit, three must be seniors. There are three types of squadrons:
There is also a unit known as a flight. The flight is the smallest CAP membership unit authorized and must contain a minimum of eight members, three of whom must be senior members. Typically a flight is organized in sparsely populated areas where there are insufficient numbers of individuals to make up a squadron. The CAP is tasked with three missions -1. Aerospace Education • Provides support for more than 100 workshops at colleges nationwide each year 2. Cadet Programs • Develops, publishes and distributes aerospace education curricula for K through college classrooms • Sponsors premier aerospace education conference, the National Conference on Aviation and Space Education (NCASE) • Provides classroom materials, teacher training and other educational aids at no cost to America's teachers and homeschoolers • Serves as aerospace resource center for education through CAP's Web site at www.cap.gov • Includes almost 25,000 members ages 12-21 3. Emergency Services• Encompasses multi-step program that includes aviation and aerospace education • Offers orientation flights in powered and glider aircraft, and flight training scholarships • Provides about 10 percent year's new classes entering military service academies • Provides enlistment in Air Force at higher pay grade for cadets who have earned the Gen. Billy Mitchell Award • Provides activities and competition for cadets at local, state, regional and national levels • Provides an International Air Cadet Exchange program • Provides college scholarships in several disciplines • Conducts 95 percent of inland search and rescue in the United States, as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and other agencies • Performs aerial reconnaissance for homeland security • Saves an average of 100 lives per year • Provides disaster-relief support to local, state and national disaster relief organizations • Transports time-sensitive medical materials, blood products and body tissues • Provides damage assessment, light transport, communications support and low-altitude route surveys for the U.S. Air Force • Assists federal agencies in the war on drugs • Conducts orientation flights for Air Force ROTC students • Maintains the most extensive communications network in the nation |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 21 April 2008 17:52 ) |
The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) is a volunteer organization, organized as a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. The CAP is the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. The CAP National Headquarters is located at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The CAP has the world's largest fleet of single-engine, piston aircraft (535); controls the Nation’s most estensive communications network, and utilizes over 1,000 emergency services vehicles. There are currently more than 56,000 members, including 27,000 cadets ages 12-21. These volunteers make up 1700 units that are organized into 52 Wings, and eight geographic regions.
