Originally published at: Civil Air Patrol Ends Glider Program
Organization cites aging fleet, limited reach, and cost challenges in decision to deactivate national soaring operations.
20 years ago I dabbled in the civil air patrol. The fleet itself was old back then. And we didnât have gliders at that location. Me personally, donât think that gliders should be in congested areas. Perhaps the civil air patrol should consolidate the glider program, and only out in the rural areas. And concentrate on updating the fleet of flying aircraftâŚ
I think General Aye made the right call. CAP consistently fails to accomplish much of anything, and they consume a lot of resources.
CAP makes a shockingly small amount of pilots considering the resources they have. CAP is functionally worthless for search and rescue. What CAP excells at is giving paunchy, elderly nerds an excuse to drill teenage kids. And these squadrons that exists more for a fat man to wear a flight suit than anything else are NOT want to set forth as examples in front of our aerospace minded youth. At least we should not have our tax payers supporting this.
Refocusing this program to help more kids learn to fly and access aerospace engineering concepts will do the organization and the country well. One could argue that the EAA is better at some of CAPâs missions than CAP itself.
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A Master Pilot now, the CAP helped me get started at age 16 by soloing in planes and eventually get licensed.
From what Iâve seen at my gliderport, the glider âorientationâ flights are usually an assembly line of pattern tows. Not much, but everything to a 15 year old.
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From the EU.
When I turned 15 or so(veeeeery long time ago) I was admitted (coming from a model flying club) to a gliding club. The club received an amount of money from the Airforces, to cover the cost of training for a (limited number) of young kids. I joined, learned to fly very well, soloed, got my licenses (we need those here for gliding) but went on to fly commercially, into a scratch free 30 Yr airline career. Turned CPT at 37 on the B747-400.
I donât know what is the yearly budget of the CAP, but our system worked, probably at a fraction of that cost. The clubs loved us, we brought some resources the clubs always needed. Everybody happy.
Having flown only gliders was not an issue once starting training on GA trainers, flew w/o any interference from my instructor, right from the beginning. Soloed in no time.
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Might we be using poor hindsight to make this decision?
Today there is an outstanding simulator available to start the program.
many limited flight activity airports are now very busy with nearly all having GPS approaches and Cirruses running around, however, club sites mostly glider exclusive do not seem to be growing that fast,
homework for the entire glider category need to create Wings programs that can be done by oldies too limited in their flying capabilities,
the younger you can interest youth before they spend a lot of time and money after the opposite sex, the more experienced and better pilot they will be! The younger cadets need more opportunities to log flying. unfortunately dual seat gliders for training have to come from Europe. Schweizer 1-26s still fly for solo time and are quite inexpensive.
Possibly in hindsight, the towplane buy was not the best (Maule had
a first attempt at building a nose-wheel)
Places to fly at limited power GA flying now are limited but numerous National Academy sites should still be available. And gliders will need to have ADS-B for awareness.
I wonder if past National Academy cadets were polled as to their views?
A real shame. Problem is that all the issues brought up by the author is also plaguing piston powered segment of general aviation. With a few exceptions, most of the GA airports I visit doing charters are mostly ghost towns with little activity. When new planes costing over $ 1/2 million to purchase itâs no wonder so few prospective students can afford training. And (for lack of a better term) older pilots canât afford to stay current with the cost of fuel and other expenses that come with aviation and airplane ownership.
Far off here and not paying for it but given the cost differential between glider flights and powered flights that seems like letting go of a cheaper alternative for introductory flying lessons (and good ones as well, as gliders tend to be a bit less forgiving than powered planes). Maybe part of the cost considerations comes from using towplanes. Given enough space (which seems to be the case in many parts of the US), using winch launches would cut costs significantly and staffing the required positions shouldnât be a problem in a cadet organization. Maybe it also has to do with gliders being something much more exotic in US general aviation than in Europe.
The gliding route has more advantages. I operated the winch at 16. A lot of HP for a young kid. Assisted in repairs of the tractors used to haul the cables back to the starting point. Though in my times one was expected to be all day there ( 07.00-SS) to assist in the operations, getting the gliders from the storage hangars, doing tip walking, hauling gliders back after landing. You learned social skills, and a host of technical skills, insights. Nowadays the new kids just to do half a day, the morning crew that sets up and flies, the afternoon shift has more chance of thermal activity and closing the operations in the evening. OK, nowadays they need time to be online of course :)âŚ
So one learned that flying is not about solo flying in some nice uniform, but working hard in dirty clothes to get Yr fellow students in the air. Nothing wrong about that starting a career from scratch. It worked for me.
Great! Now the CAP can get back to its true purpose: To be a government subsidized flying club for miserable old B.U.F.F.A.L.O.s! Screw the kids, let them find their own way to fly.
As a long time CAP member, I am sorry to see this program go, but I understand the reasoning. With regard to some other posts: 1. The CAP is not a flying club and does not operate the way glider clubs do in Europe. I flew gliders in Germany with a glider club. That is, I think, the best way to learn and fly gliders, but that is not the CAP mission. 2. We all live in a resource constrained environment and CAP is no exception. CAP has three Congressionally mandated missions: Emergency Services, Aerospace Education, and the Cadet program. Powered aircraft are used in all three missions. The glider program only supported one, the Cadet program, with tangential support to Aerospace education. As the article pointed out, the cost benefit ratio to the Cadet program just didnât work anymore. 3. For those whose experience with the CAP is two or three decades old, it is a very different program today. I have been a member and pilot with CAP since 1990. The changes over the course of those 35 years have been impressive, both in terms of our fleet and our senior members (the cadets have always been great.) These changes are particularly noteworthy since CAP was realigned under Air Combat Command in 2016.
This decision by CAP simply doesnât make sense. If 41 gliders provided 1,895 cadets with orientation flights (average of 46 cadets per glider) and 544 powered aircraft provided orientation flights to 10,295 cadets then the gliders are giving well over twice the number of cadets orientation flights per aircraft - probably at a lower cost and with more stick time for each cadet. The other arguments are frivolous, as well: The Blanik and ASK gliders were not made in the United States and worked fine for both CAP and the Air Force Academy and, frankly, I would much rather learn from a 62 year old pilot than a 32 year old one. Old airplanes fly a lot like new ones. Frankly, a lot more flights in both gliders and powered aircraft could be made if it werenât for CAPâs oppressive bureaucracy. When I flew for CAP I found that I spent about one hour of paperwork and set-up for each hour of flying. It would have been less burdensome if I simply paid a commercial flight school to take the cadets for rides in my place!
Tell us you know nothing about the CAP without saying so. 67 year member here. Cadet at 12 in 1958. Senior member since 1964. While it is true that some of us are overweight there is exactly ZERO âflying clubâ aspect to the flying. In every way we are controlled by the regulations and standards. Yes, we can self fund but few do due to the costs. Sounds like you had a bad experience with us.
I earned my glider solo wings at CAPâs National Encampment in ~1987. We flew out of University of Central Missouri and stayed on Whiteman AFB (long before the B-2). The planes, gliders and instructors were all contracted through the University. I donât remember CAP having an in-house glider program at that time. Perhaps a summer encampment could be a good model for a limited glider program going forward.
Iâm sorry to see the CAP glider program go. As a commercial glider pilot along with SEL and MEL ratings, I feel that glider pilots make better pilots all around. It was mentioned that there are good simulator programs to learn from. But what wasnât mentioned was that motor gliders would have been a good option. Much cheaper to own and fly than the usual Cessna 182âs. I was in the CAP program for a short time. Just wasnât for me, but I think it is great for young people. I would discount the negative comments made by some.
Jim is exactly correct. More time is spent on paperwork by tow pilots and instructors than itâs worth.
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