San Diego, CA (1888PressRelease)
May 29, 2007 - Civil Air Patrol's San Diego Senior Squadron 57 will be hosting a weekend of Pilot Continuation Training on June 2 and 3, 2007 at Montgomery Field.
This semi-annual flight clinic is intended "to increase flying skills of our mission pilots, observers and scanners, as well improve safety awareness" of Civil Air Patrol pilots in the San Diego region, said Captain Richard Akita, Squadron 57 commander. The two day event will consist of ground school, night flying and mountain flying seminars, search and rescue (SAR) training, and a representative from the Montgomery Tower that will be speaking about flight issues related to the Sunroad building project. In addition to the scheduled flight training, flights to train mission scanners and observers will be included. Three C.A.P. Cessna 182 aircraft stationed in Palm Springs, Riverside, and Hemet will fly an anticipated 25 hours to supplement classroom training activities.
"Continued training is vital to maintain mission readiness", said Squadron 57 Commander Captain Dick Akita. "This clinic enables us to train and qualify a number of additional personnel in a short period of time. Our unit receives requests several times each month for emergency services, and the clinic will expand our unit's ability to respond to such missions", he continued.
All Civil Air Patrol personnel who participate in search and rescue operations are volunteers who have been specially trained. The semi-annual flight clinic "is a vital training event and opportunity to reinforce the basic culture of safety in our flight programs and emergency services operations," said Lieutenant Peter Marto, the unit Safety Officer.
Squadron 57
Squadron 57 is a senior member squadron with a primary focus on emergency services. Members of the unit have participated in several distress and non-distress emergency locator transmitter missions in 2006 and are training to become mission observers and scanners. There are over 40 squadron members. Squadron business meetings on the 2nd Thursday on the month are currently held at the Operations Bldg at Montgomery Field with other meetings held at Senior Aerospace - Ketema, Building 1, 790 Greenfield, in El Cajon on Thursday evenings. More unit information is available at http://sq57.cawg.cap.gov/. Squadron 57 welcomes active aviators to join the CAP and be members of Squadron 57.
Civil Air Patrol
CAP, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with nearly 57,000 members nationwide. CAP performs 95 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions, as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 73 lives in 2005. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. Members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 22,000 young people currently participating in the CAP cadet program. CAP has been performing missions for America for almost 65 years.
Media Inquiries:
Captain Daniel Chatham
Public Affairs Officer
CAP Squadron 57
