Civil Air Patrol

By: Braden Rush

Civil Air Patrol is a civilian organization that is an auxiliary of the US Air Force. Civil Air Patrol started on Dec 1, 1941. They have 56,000 members who put time into their communities’ well-being while promoting aviation. You can either join as a Senior citizen and you can help with the program, or join from the ages of 12-19 as a cadet. As a cadet, you can go to special events and go on orientational flights (Orientational Flights are pretty much you get to go fly a plane with a pilot.) 

Civil Air Patrol meetings occur on Tuesdays from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm at local city airports. In this program, you learn about Aerospace, Leadership, Character Development, and Drill. For each Tuesday of the month, the meeting is different. The first Tuesday of every month is promotions and learning about leadership, the second is Character Development, the third is Physical Fitness, the fourth is Aerospace, and if there is a 5th Tuesday it’s a fun night. Another benefit aside from the ones listed above would be getting into an Air Force Academy which requires a lot of hard work but is easier through this program. You can also get scholarships and a Pilots License. Also, if you get to a certain rank in the program and you join the Air Force you start with a higher rank. 

My personal experience with Civil Air Patrol so far is it has been pretty fun, You can make some new friends, and you get a lot of benefits with the learning benefits. If you don’t like it, that’s okay. but when I first joined it, I didn’t like it, but eventually, I just didn’t mind it. If you can get a friend to join as my friend did, it can be a lot more fun.