[Pilots] CAP August Operations Newsletter

[Greg Bestul]

Hello MN Wing Pilots,

Hard to believe, but in less than a month most of our cadets will be back in school. We need to make a big effort to get as many orientation flights in as possible in the next few weeks. We have a wing wide orientation flight day coming up this Saturday so try to get some cadets signed up to go!!
We also have good funding in our flight clinic, advanced avionics training mission as well as our A12 proficiency mission. These missions will start closing out next month (September) as we approach the end of the fiscal year, so don’t delay, take advantage of these funded flying  options well we still have time and good weather.
Now we come to the ugly. We had been doing so well taking care of our airplanes but we have recently had two damage incidents that I want to bring to your attention.
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The first involves C182 aircraft N828CP. (see above photo’s) While being washed in Red Wing recently it was noticed that there are several deep scratches, a crease in the underside of the tail and a dent in the Becker “can” antenna. It appears as if the airplane taxied over something metal, like a taxi light or something similar. The last time this plane was in maintenance was back in March, since then it has been in several different squadrons. The big questions in this case is: nobody saw this damage on a preflight or postflight inspection? If the person that did this knew about this, why wasn’t it reported? We want to make sure our airplanes are safe and airworthy. Maintenance has now inspected the airplane to make sure there was no internal damage, luckily there was none.
The second involves C182 aircraft N878CP. While in maintenance for its annual inspection it was found to have a cracked nose gear strut casing. Again this plane has been out in the field for quite some time with several squadrons since its last inspection. The bottom line on this one is that if you have a hard landing, let someone know so that we can get the plane inspected. We don’t want to have a catastrophic failure of a component on one of our airplanes. For those that fly the C182 you must remember that it flies differently than the C172 when coming in to land. You need to keep some power on the plane until the flare or it will tend to land hard or bounce.
These incidents are not witch hunts to point fingers at pilots, it is a call to the pilots integrity that if something happens that did, or may have caused damage to one of our airplanes, make sure you report it so that we can make sure the plane is airworthy for the next flight crews!!
Another item I wanted to relay to you all. We have a lot of FAA checkrides being accomplished, especially this time of year. If you have a student that is scheduled to do a checkride, let me know and I will make every effort to keep the same type airplane (G1000, Steam guage) at your squadron for the checkride.
We have had a couple of photo missions over the summer and it has highlighted the need for more qualified members to be airborne photographers. So if you are doing some ES training don’t forget this important qualification.
Lastly to continue our exemption with the FAA that lets us do funding flying with private pilots, we need to provide the ops sheets from the AIF books in the airplanes. The item that we need to make sure we fill in is the box that shows who the PIC is. At some point this will be added to WMIRS, but for now the paper copy is the only source we have.
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Attached is this months copy of the Stan/Eval newsletter,

Take care, Fly safe,
Capt. Greg Bestul
Minnesota Wing Director of Operations
Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary
612-251-4786
GoCivilAirPatrol.com<https://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/>
MNCAP.org<https://www.mncap.org/>
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