Civil Air Patrol marks 65 years of helping community

Today, a local group celebrates 65 years of helping the community from the air and on the ground.

The Fox Valley Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol will mark the occasion, inviting the public to a reception at 7:15 p.m. in its space in the Planemaster Hangar at the DuPage Airport, 32W581 Tower Road, West Chicago. Enter off Kautz Road, on the west side of the airport.

The squad, nearly 100 members strong, started two years after the national Civil Air Patrol was started. Cadets age 12 to 21, and "seniors" (adults) belong. You don't have to be a pilot; there are jobs on the ground for volunteers in this official auxiliary of the Air Force.

Lt. Robert Gerber of Hanover Park will be installed as the new commander. Members come from Elmhurst to Sycamore, Bolingbrook to Barrington, said Lt. David Hoover of Carol Stream, the squadron's spokesman.

The Civil Air Patrol conducts 95 percent of the search-and-rescue missions in the United States, under the direction of the Air Force. Shortly after it started, it was tasked with keeping an eye out for German submarines off the coast of the United States in World War II.

It also helps in other ways, such as including delivering medical supplies to inaccessible disaster areas. Members of the Fox squadron recently helped search for a missing 87-year-old man who had Alzheimer's, and took aerial photos of flooding along the Seneca River to help government authorities, Hoover said.

"We have the best trained people, I like to think," he said.

Hoover became involved when his then-teenaged daughter was looking for a challenging extracurricular activity. The cadet program, styled after military practices, develops discipline and leadership skills, as well as teaching them about rescues, aviation and aerospace.

"If somebody needs us, we're available, within our ability," Hoover said.

The CAP also provides free instructional materials to schoolteachers for use in subjects such as mathematics and science, and offers free orientation flights to educators.

Having a single-engine, fixed-wing CAP airplane look for a downed plane or capsized boat is cheaper than having the military do it. For one thing, CAP planes can fly "low and slow," at 1,000 feet, to get a better look at things. The military would have to use a helicopter to do that, Hoover said.

CAP squadrons out West, for example, flew 1,700 missions, totaling more than 17,000 hours, looking for the downed plane of millionaire aviation hobbyist Steve Fossett.

"Civil Air Patrol exists because we save the country money," Hoover said.