Civil Air Patrol keeps on flying

By Mary Garrigan, Journal staff | Thursday, November 27, 2008

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Civil Air Patrol volunteers Gary Hewett and Gary Schroeder love their job, even if it does sometimes make them sick.

From 1,000 feet above the ground, spotting a white pickup in the middle of a snow-covered forest is tough duty. It's even tougher to do it while fighting off nausea in the tiny cockpit of a Civil Air Patrol plane that is making lots of twists and turns in a low-level search pattern. For an extra challenge, throw in some air turbulence while tracking GPS coordinates and taking notes on a clipboard.

"It's a different kind of flying, that's for sure," said Schroeder, one of 36 members of the Rushmore Squadron of the South Dakota Civil Air Patrol. "I about puked twice the day of that mission."

On Oct. 24, Schroeder was serving as a "scanner" in a CAP plane flown by pilot Hewett. The CAP crew was on a search and rescue mission for missing hunter Brad McGee, 35, of Onida, who died of a heart attack while hunting elk. He'd been reported missing Oct. 23 and CAP had been called in to help narrow the ground search area. "You don't know how many white, extended cab pickups with a black covering there are in the Black Hills until you start looking," said Hewett.

CAP search crews were assigned to fly a grid pattern over a 15-mile by 10-mile area bordered by Deerfield Lake to the north and Highway 16 to the south. One of three CAP planes on the search, Hewett and Schroeder spent all morning crossing the area in half-mile wide increments without spotting anything. Then, at about 2:40 p.m., they spotted McGee's truck, parked on a heavily forested trail in a remote area southwest of Hill City.

"By the grace of God, and a little luck, there he was," Hewett recalled. "We'd narrowed the search area down from 2,000 square miles to an area that we knew, within 60 feet, where that guy's pickup was."

Searching for missing people falls within one of the Civil Air Patrol's three missions: search and rescue; aerospace education; and its cadet program, which is designed to promote careers in aviation for youth between 12 and 22 years of age.

CAP dates to 1941, when it grew out of highly successful efforts by civilian pilots flying small aircraft to sink German submarines that were operating off the East Coast of America. The "homeland security" mission of CAP has changed since those World War II days, but the private, nonprofit organization is still an official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force

The search and rescue aspect of CAP's mission is the most visible to the public, particularly in high-profile situations, such as the crash of pilot Steve Fosset's small aircraft earlier this year.

CAP is tasked with a duty to respond whenever a plane's emergency locator transmitter sends out a signal on an emergency radio channel.

That happens whenever a plane crashes, of course, but the motion-sensitive ELTs are triggered far more often by mistake -- a hard landing, a slammed hangar door or some malfunction. Each of those signals requires a response and often that can mean tracking the signal in the air, according to Mike Beason, commander of the South Dakota wing, to determine the cause.

In addition to the McGee search, this year in western South Dakota, CAP planes have flown missions to document spring flooding damage and to coordinate wildland firefighting efforts. Most recently, CAP volunteers explored electric transmission line damage and searched for stranded deer hunters in the wake of a blizzard that hit western South Dakota on Nov. 5-7.

The Rushmore Squadron is housed in the old airport terminal at Rapid City Regional Airport. It is one of 10 squadrons that make up the South Dakota wing of the Civil Air Patrol. In Rapid City, the organization has 36 members, including 12 cadets.

"We'd love to have more," Schroeder said of the cadets. CAP cadets are fortunate to get exposure to a wide array of aviation opportunities, including flight time, as well as numerous search and rescue exercises, he said.

Like many CAP members, Hewett served -- for 27 years -- in the Air Force. But you don't have to be a retired Air Force colonel, or even a licensed pilot, to belong to CAP. Nationwide, there are about 62,000 CAP volunteers and most of them are not licensed pilots.

Schroeder got interested in civil aviation about six years ago when he decided to get his private pilot's license. He joined the CAP about three years ago to help him earn his instruments rating.

"Initially, I joined for selfish reasons," he said. "But I've found so much more here. There's so much to do and to learn here."

Currently, there are six certified pilots in the Rushmore Squadron. The Rapid City group holds weekly trainings and meetings on Mondays. To learn more, contact Beason at wing headquarters in Rapid City at 394-5206.

Philip, Custer and Spearfish all have their own squadrons, as well. Statewide, there are about 200 members, 120 of whom are cadets.

Recently, the South Dakota wing acquired its seventh airplane -- a 2008 Cessna 182 NAV III. The new plane will allow CAP pilots to make instrument approaches to many more airports. Hewett has already flown the new plane, and all CAP pilots had a chance to train in it during a statewide training session at Pierre over the weekend.