Oregon Civil Air Patrol Assists in Washington Homeland Security Training

Oregon Civil Air Patrol Assists Washington CAP in Homeland Security Exercise.

Oregon CAP Cessna 182 conducts a digital photo reconnaissance mission in support of Washington CAP's Homeland Security Training Exercise. Digital photos can be either sent anywhere in the world via satellite or downloaded after mission completion. Photo courtesy: Oregon CAP

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - An Oregon Civil Air Patrol aircraft and crew from the Portland Metro area is participating in an aerial digital photography assignment in support of the Washington CAP's Homeland Security Training exercise this weekend.

The exercise, which will be officially monitored by a United States Air Force evaluation team, will task the Washington CAP's capability to respond to numerous realistic assignments in Homeland Security as well as natural emergencies and search and rescue operations.

"Quite frequently in our training we combine the exercises with other Wings to enhance our coordination abilities for actual missions" remarked Capt. Bob Asher, Director of Operations for the Oregon Wing of the CAP. " It is quite common to use adjacent wings for coverage in remote areas. Oregon uses Idaho and Nevada wings for coverage in Southeastern Oregon and the Washington wing for coverage in Northeastern Oregon as California uses our Southern Oregon squadrons for coverage in Northern California" he said.

A timely case in point would be a recent search, earlier this week, for an Oregon resident > pilot Oregon wing assisted the Mississippi Wing by providing a liaison to the family to keep the family informed as to the search progress and to provide the Mississippi wing with pertinent information about the pilot and his abilities and habits.

The pilot, from Klamath Falls, OR, was found injured but alive by CAP searchers and was flown by Mississippi law enforcement helicopter to a Tennessee hospital where he us currently recovering. "In actual missions such as this, mission coordination is facilitated by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center ( AFRCC) located at Tyndall AFB in Florida" he said.

Oregon wing CAP will have it's own USAF evaluated exercise also this year in August.The Civil Air Patrol is the volunteer, civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force and conducts over 95% of all air search and rescue missions in the continental United States using it's nation wide fleet of over 520 search and rescue aircraft under the coordination of the AFRCC resulting in an average of 100 lives saved each year.