COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Civil Air Patrol cadets from around the nation traveled to Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi July 23-29 to attend Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training Familiarization Course.
“CAP cadets have three primary missions,” retired Maj. Rich Auger said. “The cadet program, which is what we are doing at Columbus AFB, emergency services, where they assist the Air Force with search and rescue and disaster relief, and aerospace education, where they spread knowledge of the aerospace community.”
The Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training Familiarization Course is held at Columbus AFB every year to expose cadets to Air Force life and the SUPT environment.
For one week, cadets live the life of a student pilot in SUPT, giving them a taste of what it is like to be a pilot. They visit many of the places that students visit for training and other support.
“We try to simulate pilot training for them in a week,” Auger said. “We get them learning boldface and operating limitations. We teach them basic systems classes and chair flying to show them the procedures of flying. Then they go to the actual simulators where they can actually perform the motions and see their results.”
During the week the cadets learn much of the same material studied by student pilots and even use the same pilot training pipeline syllabus to determine their activities.
“Our goal by the end of the week is to let them see a realistic view of what pilot training is like,” Auger said. “We want them to eventually become officers and pilots.”
Cadets are evaluated by all the same criteria that student pilots are scored on and the best few receive a T-1 incentive ride with the 48th Flying Training Squadron. The week culminates in a mock assignment night and graduation from the program, similar to an actual pilot.
“We want them to leave here so excited that they will want to put forth all the work to commission and become pilots,” Auger said. “I have seen many who attend this course follow through and become pilots flying all over the world for our military. We love the support we get from the base to be able to come here and put these young people through an awesome experience.”
Civil Air Patrol is the only official auxiliary of the Air Force and is a nonprofit organization with 59,000 members nationwide. CAP performs a large percent of inland search and rescue missions assigned by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.
They also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counterdrug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 24,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. The CAP has existed since 1941.