RQ-15 Sparrowhawk— unmanned reconnaissance aircraft
RTB— Return to Base
SAREX— Search and Rescue Exercise
Scopolamine— an antiairsickness drug
SIGMET— Significant Meteorological, a report of possibly hazardous weather conditions
SQTR— Specialty Qualification Training Record
Technicals— homemade attack vehicles
UAV— Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
VFR— Visual Flight Rules
VoIP— Voice over Internet Protocol, a way of using the Internet for voice communications
Wilco— “will comply”
WMIRS— Web-based Mission Information Reporting System, the Civil Air Patrol’s computerized reporting system
XS-19A Midnight— single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane
Zulu— Greenwich mean time, used as a universal time reference
Real-World News Excerpts
EXTREMISTS TO GOVS: RESIGN OR BE REMOVED:
FBI Warns Letters Could Provoke Violence
— Devlin Barrett, Associated Press — April 2, 2010—WASHINGTON
— The FBI is warning police across the country that an anti-government group’s call to remove governors from office could provoke violence.
The group called the Guardians of the Free Republics wants to “restore America” by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site. It sent letters to governors demanding they leave office or be removed…
As of Wednesday, more than 30 governors had received letters saying if they don’t leave office within three days they will be removed, according to an internal intelligence note by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The note was obtained by The Associated Press…
… The FBI associated the letter with “sovereign citizens,” most of whom believe they are free from all duties of a U.S. citizen, like paying taxes or needing a government license to drive. A small number of these people are armed and resort to violence, according to the intelligence report.
Last weekend, the FBI conducted raids on suspected members of a Christian militia in the Midwest that was allegedly planning to kill police officers. In the past year, federal agents have seen an increase in “chatter” from an array of domestic extremist groups, which can include radical self-styled militias, white separatists or extreme civil libertarians and sovereign citizens.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SEARCH:
Update on Nebraska Plane Crash
— Krystle Kacner, KDLT, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
— November 27, 2010
— Earlier this week, the Civil Air Patrol found a missing single engine plane that took off from Chamberlain, headed for Omaha.
The plane that crashed Sunday night was found in northeastern Nebraska, and resulted in the death of the two people on board. But before the aircraft was found, a lot of people put in a lot of work.
“At first it was a little nerve wracking, because it was my first mission, but then as I came here and started doing everything we were supposed to, it wasn’t really thinking, it was just doing,” said Cadet Chief Master Sergeant Elizabeth Foy.
Cadet Chief Master Sergeant Elizabeth Foy got the call early in the morning, right before she headed off to school at O’Gorman High School.
But, once she arrived at the Sioux Falls Civil Air Patrol headquarters, all her training started to kick in.
“It’s more of you need to get it done faster, there’s no goofing off… As part of the ground team, it was making sure we were looking at all times outside the window making sure all the leaders stayed on track,” said Foy.
… “Yes I’m a sophomore in High School but I can make a difference, so that’s really the greatest part for me,” said Foy…
ANOTHER SAVE FOR NEVADA WING:
— gocivilairpatrol.com
— December 11, 2010
— Congratulations are due to all who participated in mission 10M0964A, resulting in the location of a lost hunter in Lincoln county. N9459M, piloted by Rick Parker and crewed by Clyde Cooper and Bill Petersen, spotted the 83 year old man and talked in a Sheriff’s ground team. The man was airlifted by helicopter to medical facilities.
Eleven total personnel and two aircraft were involved in the search. AFRCC [Air Force Rescue Coordination Center] has officially awarded Nevada Wing its second find and save for this fiscal year.
Prologue
This is the porcelain clay of humankind.
“Severe thunderstorm activity along your route of flight,” the Federal Aviation Administration Flight Service Station weather briefer began. “Convective SIGMET Seven Charlie for Nevada, Idaho, California, and Utah, heavy- to-severe thunderstorms in a one-hundred-mile-long band fifty miles southeast of Battle Mountain, Nevada, moving from two-two-zero at fifteen knots, tops above flight-level three-niner-zero, with heavy rain, hail, and damaging winds with gusts over fifty knots.”
Cripes, the young pilot thought, it was one of the worst weather observations he had ever heard. Frank Post was a software engineer from Silicon Valley, an honor graduate of Stanford University, and a fairly new instrument- rated private pilot, with a bit less than two hundred hours of flying time, most in his used single-engine Cessna C- 182R Skylane. He looked at his wife sitting beside him, still wearing that impatient expression he had been forced to put up with for the past day and a half.
“Where are the thunderstorms now?” Frank asked on the phone. His wife, Kara, rolled her eyes and looked at her watch for the umpteenth time that afternoon. Kara had been in real estate, but the real estate market had all but dried up in California in the current economic meltdown, so she did part-time fill-in work for other agents, mostly doing escrow paperwork and staging and showing homes. She never liked the idea of owning something as complex and extravagant as an airplane, and only agreed to go on this weeklong cross-country trip because she
