"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm still pretty new in CAP. One thing I've realized is that it takes
at least a year or two before you can actually fly missions.

My impressions are that there is a lot of paperwork and beaurocratic BS
involved in CAP. I don't believe it's any different in other similar
organzations though. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.

There are quite a few hoops to jump through on your way to becoming a
mission pilot, but once you are there, you get to fly quite a lot. The
training and testing is not particularly hard either. Yeah, it will take
some time to complete the training, but not necessarily a year or two. I
would say that you could be a mission pilot in under six months if you have
the minimum hours and the squadron flies enough practice missions. Getting
the missions required is usually the bottleneck at our squadron. I feel the
need to say something........

I do get generally irritated by those who love to take pot shots at CAP. I
don't know where that comes from, but I wish it would stop. It's a good
organization made up of volunteers giving back to their community. We are
doing positive things for young folks as well. It's not perfect, but I just
don't understand why there's got to be some yahoo that comes on this
newgroup to tear down CAP whenever it's mentioned. There. I feel better.

We had a member who came from the CG Aux. He compared the two favorably and
didn't express a lot of misgivings about coming to CAP. He was a non-pilot
though.

Hope this helps.

-Trent
PP-ASEL