The goal of the Aerospace Education mission of Civil Air Patrol is to educate youths and adults about the aerospace environment, aerospace history, science, and careers in aerospace. The program covers everything from the beginning of flight, to rocketry, the space program, weather systems, down to the finer points of how an airplane, hot-air balloon, rocket, or glider flies and how they work.

While there are a few things that cadets are not allowed to do in the Emergency Services program (mostly those activities involving flying an aircraft on missions), the inverse is true of the Aerospace Education program: there are many things which cadets can do that senior members are not eligible to participate in.

For example, cadets under 18 years of age are eligible to participate in Orientation Flights. The photo above actually shows two former cadets from our squadron (C/A1C Walker and C/Amn Monterrosa) about to depart on an orientation flight. The Orientation Flight program is a curriculum of six flights in which a cadet flies in a CAP aircraft with a CAP Orientation Pilot and performs various flight routines that educate the cadet about the science of flight and how an aircraft works. The curriculum spans the basics of flight, pre-flight checks, all the way to more complex (but still completely safe) activities such as minimum controllable airspeed and stalls (also known as how an aircraft doesn’t work). Most of the time, the cadet gets to spend some part of the flight at the controls of the aircraft. Cadets who participate in this program (which, by the way, is free) and decide to continue on to primary flight instruction will come pre-armed with a basic knowledge of aircraft systems, handling, and science, making them that much more likely to successfully complete a flight instruction program. Additionally, cadets who don’t know if flying is for them or are unsure whether they even want to fly can get a first-hand, hands-on view of what piloting an airplane is all about. Nervous about flying? Well, you wouldn’t be the first CAP cadet who was nervous about flying before an orientation flight, but have to be dragged out of the aircraft after the flight!

Cadets are also eligible to participate in the Model Rocketry program, which, like the Orientation Flight program, is a curriculum which guides the cadet through classes and instruction on model rocketry, concluding with a series of launches of various types of model rockets. Completion of this program makes the cadet eligible to wear a badge on their blues uniform, a patch on their BDU uniform, and a device on their ribbons.

Then there’s the ultimate thrill-ride: the photo above shows Cadet Captain Frank deBros (at the time; he has since transitioned to the senior program due to age limitations) stepping out of a CAP Cessna 172 (N96227 from Beverly) after having completed his first solo flight in August 2002. He and five other cadets were given the opportunity to participate in Massachusetts Wing’s Flight Encampment program that year. These six experienced cadets, who had all previously attended an Encampment as corps cadets, and almost all of whom had additionally served on Encampment staff at least once (in many cases twice), were selected from a group of applicants to spend the week of Encampment in Primary Flight Training, where they received ground schooling and flight instruction from senior member Certified Flight Instructors from around Massachusetts Wing. The goal of the program is to have all six cadets perform their first solo flight (taking off and flying around with only themselves in the aircraft, and more importantly, bringing the airplane back in working order!) by the end of the week. In 2002, all six cadets did complete the program, in the process earning an average of 10 hours of logged flight time per cadet. They did all of this at the cost of $180 apiece, which included their food, lodging, fuel for the aircraft, instructor pilot time (the pilots actually paid to come teach the cadets!), and use of the aircraft and ramp space at Otis Air National Guard Base. To accomplish ground school and solo flight with the same type of aircraft at a private flying school would have cost these same cadets somewhere between $1000 and $2000 each, and that’s not including the week-long vacation on Cape Cod (sic)!

Were they so inclined (and several were), these cadets could then continue flight instruction with their instructor pilots after the conclusion of Encampment (or with any other willing CAP flight instructor, for that matter) all the way to completion of their private pilot’s license, and all it would cost them is the cost of fuel, the rental of the aircraft (which is about $30/hour for our Cessna 172′s), and maybe an occasional lunch for the instructor pilot (that is optional, CAP instructor pilots are not allowed to charge for their services to CAP members). What it boils down to is this: as a cadet in Civil Air Patrol, you have the opportunity to earn your private pilot’s license in a Cessna 172 for about half the cost of a pilot’s license at a private flight school. Senior members are not allowed to receive primary flight instruction in CAP aircraft, although licensed pilots may receive advanced training (instrument or high-powered, for example) at the same rate as cadets: cost of fuel, relatively low rental fee for aircraft, free instruction from a willing instructor pilot.

Of course, flying is not all there is to the Aerospace Education program. There is also the education part. Aerospace Education is built into all CAP cadets’ progression in the cadet program. Once they earn their “first stripe” (their first achievement, the grade of Cadet Airman), all cadets are required to pass an aerospace test, based on an Aerospace Education module, in addition to the other requirements for promotion. The Aerospace Education modules are a series of booklets that a cadet receives along with the rest of their books and manuals upon joining the program. Each module covers a separate aerospace topic, such as the solar system, the basics of flight, and the weather environment. The modules also include activities that the cadet can perform to get a better grasp on the knowledge involved, and many of these are done as a group during the cadets’ Aerospace Education classes.

Our squadron’s quarterly schedule is such that twice per quarter (roughly every six weeks), we have a meeting night dedicated exclusively to Aerospace Education. The cadets are presented a short briefing on aerospace current events, and the rest of the meeting night is spent in various Aerospace Education-related happenings, from module activities, to model rocketry, to videos, to lectures.

As you can see, the variety of Aerospace Education activities available to CAP members is immense, and in fact, what is mentioned on this page doesn’t even cover all of it (that would just take too long!), so if you’ve gotten this far and you’re still thirsting for more, come visit our squadron and see just how much you can do as a Civil Air Patrol cadet!