Civil Air Patrol

Nonprofit organization whose volunteers provide search-and-rescue, disaster-relief, counterdrug, and homeland security missions at the request of federal, state, and local agencies as part of the Air Force Homeland Security Directorate.

The brainchild of aviation advocate Gill Robb Wilson in the late 1930s, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) was founded on December 1, 1941, by New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia to provide civilian air support to the military. The CAP was established days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and, shortly thereafter, the CAP insignia began appearing on civilian aircraft everywhere. The CAP was initially charged with providing liaison and reconnaissance flying, but the group's mission expanded during the early days of World War II, when German U-boats sank several ships off the East Coast of the United States. The CAP planes were armed with depth charges and bombs later in the war.

The CAP pilots are credited with saving a tanker off of Cape May, New Jersey, early in the war when unarmed planes dived in mock attacks, forcing the German U-Boat to break and run. The pilots flew 24 million miles during the war, found 173 enemy submarines, attacked 57, and sunk 2. Sixty-four CAP aviators lost their lives during World War II.

In 1943, the CAP became an auxiliary to the Army Air Corps, and when the U.S. Air Force was established in 1947, the CAP was designated as the air force's civilian auxiliary the following year. Over the years, the Civil Air Patrol has provided an important service to the air force by testing new technology, such as personal locator beacons, night vision, infrared imaging, digital satellite communications for transmitting video and photos, and real-time video for search-and-rescue missions.

Although the CAP has long been identified with search-and-rescue operations (95% of inland searches of the continental United States are conducted by the CAP after being assigned by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center), its 62,000 members are also involved in drug interdiction, disaster relief, and homeland security. The CAP owns a fleet of more than 550 single-engine aircraft and has one of the largest communications networks in the United States, operating around the clock. The national headquarters of the Civil Air Patrol is located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, but the organization has planes based around the country and available for CAP pilots.

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the CAP, which flew relief efforts in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania, was placed under the Air Force Homeland Security Directorate. The CAP provided security for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as flights over NASA space launches.

Some 27,000 young people participate in the Civil Air Patrol's cadet program, in which they are mentored [Page 125]by members and receive aerospace education and flight training. The CAP provides more than $200,000 in scholarships each year. Approximately 10% of each year's freshman class at the Air Force Academy is composed of former CAP cadets.