Civil Air Patrol

MilSpouse Blog Hoppin’ to the Nth Degree

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Wife on the Roller Coaster over at Riding the Roller Coaster is hosting a military spouse blog hop, so I figured I’d dust off my own personal lily pad for new visitors as they bounce from one milspouse blog to the next.  Welcome!

The Short Version: I’m a geeky Jewish Navy wife with two cats and no kids.  I like to cook, fly, read science fiction and fantasy, and drink martinis (provided that there are no pilots playing dice games involved).

My world is defined in large part by two big N’s.  N the First is the Navy: I’ve been married to my Naval Aviator for three years and change, but the Navy has been a part of our lives for much longer.  We started dating when I was sixteen (I know, I know…), and we liked each other enough that we kept at it through his four years at the Naval Academy while I completed my studies at a school other than that quaint little engineering college in Annapolis.

The subject of my studies leads nicely into N the Second: Nerdiness.  I am a great, big, proud, unabashed geek, and no one can talk to me for more than five minutes before they figure out that I was probably never one of the cool kids.  That didn’t bother me too much, as I had Star Trek, Dune, text-based online Dragonriders of Pern roleplaying games, LEGO, C.J. Cherryh, Terry Pratchett, computer programming, and Harry Potter to keep me company.  In college, I couldn’t decide which of my academic geekdoms meant more to me, so I wound up with a distinctly odd double major in Computer Science and Religion.

These days I’m involved in the Civil Air Patrol, in which I have trained to conduct search and rescue missions as a member of the aircrew.  I am hoping to begin flight training towards my own private pilot certificate this summer, so there will be a whole lot of aviation going on in this family.  Later on, some of my husband’s part of the flying equation will take place somewhere far away as we muddle through our first deployment.

If, by the end of that, you’re interested enough to stroll along with me for a while, I look forward to getting to know you.  Once again, welcome!

I Miss Flying

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With my husband flying again and loving life as he learns to wrestle “the beast” that is the mighty War Pig C-2A Greyhound into compliance, I find that with my excitement for him comes a certain green-eyed envy.  It’s been months since I’ve been up in the air in anything other than a commercial jet, and it’s giving me the shakes, man.  I can almost feel those perishable skills withering from lack of use; I need to get myself in the right seat again before I really do forget everything I learned about conducting a SAR mission and dazzling everyone with my G1000 mastery (okay, okay, my G1000 competency, at the very least).  Time to start poking at pilots in my CAP squadron for a proficiency flight or three — preferably funded by our estimable patron in blue, the United States Air Force.  Gotta stay in practice if we’re going to be of any use in an emergency, after all… oh, who am I kidding?  While I absolutely do care about being as proficient as possible as a Mission Observer, I love any excuse to get up in the air.

I would be thrilled if stars aligned this year such that I could start work on my own private pilot certificate.  The sticking point for me is that I want to have the time and resources to fly frequently enough (more than once a week, if at all possible) that I can progress along that learning curve without a lot of retracing my steps due to time out of the cockpit.  I hear of so many people hitting the proverbial wall before they get their certificates simply because they are unable to fly regularly, whether due to scheduling conflicts or running out of ready cash.  There are scholarships available through several organizations, including a few devoted to women in aviation, but most seem to require that one has at least reached a certain milestone in the training process.  There’s no way I can even start until after we are settled wherever we are going to be for my husband’s first fleet squadron, and I’ll have to wait even longer if we wind up in Japan.

It will happen someday, though, even if we have to wrench those stars into alignment by force.  How else will I be able to fully enjoy the kit plane we intend to build someday off in the misty future after my husband retires?

CAPtivated

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When I went to my first Civil Air Patrol meeting last August, I didn’t know what to expect.  Having read a few forum threads in which people outlined their encounters with some cringeworthy toolishness from members of the organization, I feared that I would find a passel of wannabes more excited about dressing up in an Air Force-style uniform and marching around collecting salutes and bling than in contributing something to the community.  The stories were out there, and I don’t doubt that the unprofessional/disrespectful/downright WTF?-inspiring moments described happened.  I just had no idea whether they were the exception — as I sincerely hoped — rather than the rule when it came to the United States Air Force Auxiliary.

I needn’t have worried.  My fears were put to rest immediately upon meeting the squadron commander and a few other key members.  They exuded professionalism, good humor, enthusiasm, and a distinct absence of any uniform bling-hound tendencies.  I was, therefore, not at all surprised to learn that most of them were retired Navy, with Naval Aviators and NFOs strongly represented.  No wonder I felt so instantly at home!  I wound up turning in my membership paperwork shortly thereafter, and I’ve been volunteering ever since.

I qualified as a CAP right-seater in June 2009.

I qualified as a CAP right-seater in June 2009.

Of CAP’s three congressionally mandated missions of Cadet Programs, Aerospace Education, and Emergency Services, my primary interest lies with ES.  CAP is responsible for about 90% of all inland search and rescue in the United States; if you are in an airplane that goes down, nine times out of ten, CAP volunteers will be the folks looking for the wreckage.  I started on the path to train as aircrew for search and rescue missions, finally earning my Mission Observer (aircraft right-seater who assists the pilot with the GPS, radios, direction finding equipment, and anything else that will allow the pilot to focus on flying the plane safely while the rest of the aircrew focuses on the mission at hand) wings at the beginning of this month.

While I was having a grand old time training in ES specialties and flying with former Tomcat backseaters and learning all about the sweet Garmin G1000 in the Cessna 182, my husband was enduring a massive slowdown in his Navy flying.  Ridiculously enough, I was actually getting more flight hours with CAP than my winged Naval Aviator husband was getting with the Navy.  After deciding that the squadron was populated by some pretty cool folks and hearing how much fun I was having with a group of dedicated volunteers, the wheels started to turn in my husband’s poor flight-hour-deprived brain.  He turned in his own membership packet and jumped right into knocking out his on ES quals.

…which brings me to my present situation, which is that I am sitting at home waiting for my husband to return from his first Mission Observer training flight.  He’ll ultimately pursue his Mission Pilot qual, but he needs to pick up some 172 time before he starts that process in earnest.  I look forward to when he gets qualified in the left seat, when together we’ll make up the better part of a mission aircrew.  I think we’ll coordinate well in the cockpit.  For now, though, I’m trying to suppress a twinge of jealousy that he’s flying and I’m not; I’m trying to remind myself of all the other times our positions were reversed, but it ain’t easy.