Are the $100 hamburgers getting old? Have you visited every airport restaurant within 100 miles so many times that the staff greets you by name and has your favorite meal ready? Did you already give all your friends rides, so that you are now reduced to approaching people on the street, like the press gangs of early naval warfare, hoping to find someone to go flying with you? Since most people don’t have the unlimited resources necessary to go hop in an airplane whenever they want to, maintaining currency and proficiency can be a problem. Even if you do have unlimited cash, boring holes in the sky can get old pretty fast. Because of this, many pilots end up flying just a few times a year. In the meantime, the flying skills they worked so hard to develop get pretty rusty. This in turn leads to days when less active pilots don’t feel safe to fly because of conditions like a gusty crosswind, which means flying skills deteriorate even further. It sure would be nice to have a way to stay current while doing some interesting flying.
What if I told you there was a way to fly regularly at a reduced cost or even for free? How about if your expenses could be tax deductible and you would be helping your country and your fellow pilots at the same time? Sound too good to be true? Absolutely not! The Civil Air Patrol offers all this and more. Most pilots are familiar with the cadet program the CAP runs for young people. However, many pilots may not be aware that the CAP also has senior squadrons that often have an aircraft assigned to them and offer numerous opportunities to maintain currency and even increase your skills as a pilot. In fact, the CAP operates the largest fleet of single-engine aircraft in the world, with 546 aircraft owned by the CAP, and hundreds of other aircraft owned by members and available for use by the CAP.
