McMinnville Composite Squadron Will Be In Position At Oregon's Evergreen Museum

By 1Lt. Cathe Frederick, CAP, McMinnville Composite Squadron Public Affairs Officer

If you’re a pilot, CAP has plenty of opportunities for you. CAP owns the largest fleet of single-engine piston aircraft in the nation, primarily Cessna 172s and 182s, and CAP pilots are able to fly those planes to perform CAP missions in service to their local communities.

As a matter of fact, CAP will be performing a community  service this Christmas Eve as we have been invited to assist NORAD in it's yearly Santa Track!  McMinnville Composite Squadron will be participating in this mission by having our mobile HF CAP van ready for the CAP Santa Track Net roll call. In addition we will  be passing message traffic to the North Pole and issuing NORAD advisories. The CAP Van will be positioned at the Evergreen Aviation Museum at 17:30 on 24 Dec, 2015.

Santa will also have to file flight plans in each and every country. This is for his safety. With those flight plans we will be better able to fulfill our traditional role in national security as "The Eyes Of The Skies"! And before any flight plan is begun a standard preflight must be executed by the pilot, (or elves).

The standard pre flight check list for one type of plane that CAP flies can be found here.

But did you ever wonder what type of preflight Santa would have to do? Well I think he probably has all the standard equimpment. How else would he qualify to fly over all those different countries? And we really can't know for certain because it is, well you know, "North Pole Classified" information.

I did find however the following image that details some of the items Santa would have to preflight. So here for your inspection is Santa's sleigh. (This does not indicate what parts of the reindeer harness systems would have to be preflighted as well, but I am sure the elves have that under control.)

(Image leaked by the CAP)

FMI: www.facebook.com/McMinnville-Composite-Squadron-Civil-Air-Patrol-1413559622198903/