[Pilots] March CAP Operations Newsletter

[Greg Bestul]

Hello MN Wing Pilots,

As we move into March with temperatures reaching the 50’s, hopefully winter will be wrapping up soon.
Our winter flying mission has ended. We do have a Large Orientation flight budget, and with many of our cadets having time off for spring break it would be a great time to get some cadets up flying. With the long government shutdown at the beginning of the year, we are a little behind last years pace. Through the end of February we have completed 59 orientation flights this fiscal year compared to 89 at this time last year.
A reminder that we do not want to leave the parking brake set on our planes for more than an hour. If the plane will not be moving for more than an hour it should be chocked and the parking brake released.
Also, a reminder to take care when moving our planes into and out of the hangars. This is the area where we see the most damage events happening. Make a plan, move slowly and use spotters to make sure we don’t ding our planes, causing them to be grounded for repairs.
Some exciting news for some upcoming missions. We are in the final stages of setting up a couple of missions with the state of Minnesota. One would be to help distribute the airport passport boxes to all the airports in the state. A second mission with the state of Minnesota is to observe airport facilities (lights, navigation aids, ATIS/AWOS operations and other airport facilities) at all the state’s airports. This is also in the final stages of development. One requirement we will have on these missions is that the PIC must be a commercial pilot, and if flying at night or more than 50 miles from departure will also need an instrument rating. This is an FAA requirement due to the State of Minnesota funding this mission. In addition, the commercial pilot must have a valid class two medical. So, if you currently are a commercial pilot with basic med and would like to participate in this mission you will need to get a class two medical. These missions should be starting by this summer.
A word of warning, If you are flying along the northern border of Minnesota and wonder about landing in Canada, DON’T do it. Landing a CAP airplane in another country must be coordinated through NHQ. Since CAP airplanes are owned by the air force, landing in a foreign country with a military owned aircraft requires CAP NHQ to coordinate with the state department!
If you haven’t been on the MN wing website in a while, the home page has once again been revised. When you go to MNWG.CAP.GOV you have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the box labeled “Members Portal” to click on to get to the Intranet.
A glitch that has been found in WMIRS: If your flight goes over 0000Z, it may not be able to be closed out. If this happens you can change the times in WMIRS to Central time and then you should be able to close out the sortie. As always make sure to fill our sortie briefs and debriefs completely.
We did an excellent job keeping our planes flying in February. We flew 233 hours compared to 152 for last February.
One final reminder. If you find damage to, or experience non-normal operation of, our planes make sure to contact LTC Tom Fitzhenry (612) 685-2639 or myself to help coordinate with maintenance to get the plane repaired. This is the responsibility of the pilot in command of the flight.
Upcoming events:
Wing Conference    April 24-26
Wing Compliance Inspection May 2-3
NCPSC Check pilot clinic  May 2   At Camp Craig, Hutchinson

Thank you for your hard work and dedication,

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/>
[cid:175daab7-c75c-4f40-ba91-8ca761da23e5]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.mncap.org/pipermail/pilots/attachments/20260302/490fdb83/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 20736 bytes
Desc: image.png
URL: <https://lists.mncap.org/pipermail/pilots/attachments/20260302/490fdb83/attachment-0001.png>