Any CAP pilots?

On Nov 5, 10:54 am, "Gatt" wrote:

I'm just curious what thoughts or experiences people have with regard to the
CAP.

-Chris

Chris,
There is two CAP wings in my state. A power wing and a glider wing
(which works exclusivly with cadets). I am a member of both and I have
a nite and day difference in my experiences. Let me start by saying
that I am in the clique and I get to do as much flying as I want to,
so this isnt about sour grapes. The power wing has suffered from
incredibly poor leadership over the years. It is full of pilots who
just want to fly on the cheap and avoid any real work. The power
safety meetings always degrade into arguments over who has the biggest
twinkie. The safety record has been very poor (This is true nation
wide so whatch out !!).
The glider wing on the other hand has been one of the best experiences
I have had in aviation. The commanding officer and everyone else has
been great (Or we dont let them in ') ). The required safety meetings
are fun, and I love working with the cadets.
Much of your experience will depend on who is running the wing and who
they let in the door. Good luck!
KB

On Nov 6, 9:59 am, Newps wrote:
The Wyoming guys sound like student pilots on the radio. You have to
treat them with kid gloves.


- Show quoted text -

Ya know. I didn't join the CAP to get free flight time, I have my own
plane and even my own airport. I joined so I could help another human
being that needs help in a timely manner. Let's add up the Wyoming
track record, they had four planes, two are destroyed, four people are
dead, all in two years. The thing that really got a chuckle out of me
was back about a month ago when the CAP was conducting a search for
Steve Fosset the networks were interviewing a woman CAP rep who was
very well spoken and sounded sincere, right up till the time a
reporter asked her if any other pilots would be allowed to help
search. Her response was " when the cowboys jump in their planes and
start searching we will ground all of our planes". This was just days
after one of "their" cowboys killed himself and two others in Northern
Wyoming looking for a lost hiker. Now granted, during a search every
one needs to be on the same page for safety there is nothing lost by
getting pilots together, make a plan for the CAP to search a given
sector and the others to each work different sectors. The more eyes
looking down the greater chance of a find, and at the end of the day
that's what search and rescue is all about. Her arrogent answer that
day has sealed the deal for me stay far away from the CAP.... Just my
two cents worth....

off my soapbox.

Ben

NW_Pilot wrote:


Yea, The only ones that have lasted in the US have been ones that could
afford to keep with the times and technology.

And are willing to work short contract stints.

I work for a super-duper way big company (310,000 employees), and almost
all of our programming is done on a contracting basis. An application
gets ordered, it gets coded as fast as possible by 2000 guys in India,
then the contractors get canned and there's no one to fix or modify the
thing.

One of the big issues today is the move to replace old databases with
SAP, but all the old application SME's that "didn't keep up with the
times" are gone.

Some of the old apps include 30+ years of undocumented work arounds, and
are based on many distributed, custom versions obtained via mergers and
takeovers. These are the basic daily operation systems for the
corporation. The vendors who sold the original applications either no
longer have access to the talent, or they demand way-insane, got ya' by
the short ones, consulting fees to help define the problem to be solved
in SAP.

On Nov 7, 4:01 am, B A R R Y wrote:
NW_Pilot wrote:

Yea, The only ones that have lasted in the US have been ones that could
afford to keep with the times and technology.

And are willing to work short contract stints.

The main reason businesses go for short term contracts (which are
usually more expensive) is because is damn hard to find programmers
out there to hire. Its a very, very tight market for employers.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Nov 7, 4:01 am, B A R R Y wrote:
NW_Pilot wrote:

Yea, The only ones that have lasted in the US have been ones that could
afford to keep with the times and technology.

And are willing to work short contract stints.

The main reason businesses go for short term contracts (which are
usually more expensive) is because is damn hard to find programmers
out there to hire. Its a very, very tight market for employers.

-Robert



It's almost as bad as the airlines there are programmers out there but no
one wants to pay the labor rates! So they outsource it to the u.s. prison
system or overseas to a poor third world country where people work for
almost nothing.

I am not going to spend 30-50k to learn new devices and languages and spend
1/4 of a year in classes to make 70-80K for maybe 2 years. Now back in the
day mid to late 90's I was paid to take the classes from the client or
provided contracts from leading device/component manufactures for attending.
Money was great 3 to 4 times what's paid now then rapidly declined when they
were able to outsource or bring in foreign workers and get tax breaks!!

USA = United Slaves Of America

I saw her speak several times, but I missed that one! Ya know even the best
politician screws up sometimes. I hope someone straightened her out there
seems to be enough bad press already going around. But back to the
question, I believe I saw there were several non-CAP planes in on the
search.

Ron Gardner



wrote in message
oups.com...
On Nov 6, 9:59 am, Newps wrote:
The Wyoming guys sound like student pilots on the radio. You have to
treat them with kid gloves.


- Show quoted text -

Ya know. I didn't join the CAP to get free flight time, I have my own
plane and even my own airport. I joined so I could help another human
being that needs help in a timely manner. Let's add up the Wyoming
track record, they had four planes, two are destroyed, four people are
dead, all in two years. The thing that really got a chuckle out of me
was back about a month ago when the CAP was conducting a search for
Steve Fosset the networks were interviewing a woman CAP rep who was
very well spoken and sounded sincere, right up till the time a
reporter asked her if any other pilots would be allowed to help
search. Her response was " when the cowboys jump in their planes and
start searching we will ground all of our planes". This was just days
after one of "their" cowboys killed himself and two others in Northern
Wyoming looking for a lost hiker. Now granted, during a search every
one needs to be on the same page for safety there is nothing lost by
getting pilots together, make a plan for the CAP to search a given
sector and the others to each work different sectors. The more eyes
looking down the greater chance of a find, and at the end of the day
that's what search and rescue is all about. Her arrogent answer that
day has sealed the deal for me stay far away from the CAP.... Just my
two cents worth....

off my soapbox.

Ben

On Nov 7, 4:45 pm, "R. Gardner" wrote:
I saw her speak several times, but I missed that one! Ya know even the best
politician screws up sometimes. I hope someone straightened her out there
seems to be enough bad press already going around. But back to the
question, I believe I saw there were several non-CAP planes in on the
search.

Ron Gardner


If that was the case, my faith in the system is somewhat restored.
The Civil Air Patrol is a GREAT concept. It is the way that it's run
that ruins it. One has to remember, all the CAP planes are owned by
the US Air Force, as in they belong to all of us. The higher ups seem
to forget that quite often..

Safe flyin guys. !!

Ben

On Nov 7, 2:21 pm, "NW_Pilot"
wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in ooglegroups.com...

On Nov 7, 4:01 am, B A R R Y wrote:
NW_Pilot wrote:

Yea, The only ones that have lasted in the US have been ones that could
afford to keep with the times and technology.

And are willing to work short contract stints.

The main reason businesses go for short term contracts (which are
usually more expensive) is because is damn hard to find programmers
out there to hire. Its a very, very tight market for employers.

-Robert

It's almost as bad as the airlines there are programmers out there but no
one wants to pay the labor rates! So they outsource it to the u.s. prison
system or overseas to a poor third world country where people work for
almost nothing.


Man, that's certainly not what I'm seeing. Companies are paying at
least 6 figures now plus benefits if they can get someone. I just
interviewed a programmer with years of C and C++ experience. I asked
her what the keyword "virtual" means in C++ and she didn't know. I
asked her what they keyword "static" means in C in different places in
code and she had no idea. Its a very tough market out there to find
programmers who have done more than just write scripts for their IT
department.

-Robert

"F. Baum" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Nov 5, 10:54 am, "Gatt" wrote:

I'm just curious what thoughts or experiences people have with regard to
the
CAP.
..
Much of your experience will depend on who is running the wing and who
they let in the door. Good luck!

Thanks for the insights information (everybody.) I'm still waiting to
hear from the unit commander, who hasn't returned my e-mail, and information
from the CAP which will probably come in the mail any day.

-c

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
t...

Some of the old apps include 30+ years of undocumented work arounds, and
are based on many distributed, custom versions obtained via mergers and
takeovers. These are the basic daily operation systems for the
corporation. The vendors who sold the original applications either no
longer have access to the talent, or they demand way-insane, got ya' by
the short ones, consulting fees to help define the problem to be solved in
SAP.

You -just- described the future of my workplace. There's one person who
wrote the app, hasn't documented it and the company now relies on it. They
can't fire him because they replaced an industry-wide standard with a
software monopoly owned by one employee who spends all day long looking up
parts for his car. If he gets hit by a truck tomorrow there will be nobody
to support the application that interfaces thousands of customers.

We've been telling them that for three years, but...I don't know if it's
some MBA method that has been getting taught or what...management everywhere
seems to be a bunch of bobbleheads; they nod their heads at whatever you say
all day long, acknowledging what a big problem it is, but they never
actually -do- anything about those problems. When everything falls apart,
they take their severance, find a job elsewhere and move one. SNAFU.

-c