JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas –
A retired Air Force colonel relied on his experience flying
Civil Air Patrol missions and his background as an Air Force weapon systems officer
to pilot his aircrew to victory in the CAP’s first-ever Texas Wing Flight
Competition Feb. 28 in San Marcos.
Roger Corbin, who manages the Air Force Occupational
Analysis Program at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, joined retired Air Force
Lt. Col. Mike Duc, who served as mission observer, and Navy veteran Jan Wagner,
who was the aircrew’s mission scanner, to represent Texas Group 5 – the San
Antonio region – in the Civil Air Patrol event.
“It was challenging, it was exhilarating and it was gratifying
to actually be tested in a high-tempo, real-world environment under time
restraints,” he said. “We flew three missions and the scenarios were like they
are in a real search-and-rescue disaster environment.”
Corbin, who is a lieutenant colonel with the Civil Air
Patrol’s David Lee “Tex” Hill Composite Squadron based in San Marcos,
attributed his aircrew’s success to their flying experience, teamwork and a
solid flight plan.
Duc was an Air Force pilot, Wagner retired as a Navy chief
petty officer after 26 years of active duty and Corbin’s background as a WSO
included membership in an aircrew that won the Gen. Jerome F. O’Malley Trophy
as the Air Force’s Top Reconnaissance Aircrew of the Year in 1986.
Corbin said the all-day event, which featured one team from
each of five groups of the CAP’s Texas Wing, included a pre-flight inspection
on an aircraft that had been purposely altered, a closed-book written test and
three flying sorties.
The sorties comprised a search for an emergency locator
transmitter beacon, a photography mission and a route competition that required
aircrews to plan a specific route and determine how much time would elapse and
how much fuel would be used during the flight.
Corbin said his aircrew, which flew in a Cessna 172,
experienced equipment malfunctions during the ELT mission, which involved
finding a practice beacon that was planted in the Texas Hill Country.
“We should have received steering information via needles
displayed at the pilot’s position to follow, but did not, so we had to rely on
aural tones in our headsets to evaluate signal strength,” he said. “Through a
series of turns, and by using varying signal strength as we either flew away
from or toward the beacon, we were able to locate the beacon and then visually
identify the simulated crash site that had been outlined with a colored panel
on the ground.”
During the photography mission, aircrews had one hour to
return with four photographs of a dam from each cardinal direction, Corbin
said. Wagner served as Texas Group 5’s photographer.
“The one hour included the team’s internal briefing,
paperwork, the sortie, the sortie return and loading the four chosen
photographs on a computer,” he said. “Points were lost for each minute after
one hour and the photographs were judged on photo quality, aircraft position
and cardinal direction.”
Corbin said everyone involved in the competition was
“ecstatic” about the outcome.
“It was a real-world simulation,” he said. “I believe this will be an annual event.”
Texas Wing Group 3, which represents the Dallas region,
placed second in the competition and the Houston region’s Group 4 placed third.
Corbin, whose own airplane is a 1946 Stinson Voyager, said
the Civil Air Patrol joined the Air Force Total Force in August. The CAP was
already conducting most of the Air Force’s search-and-rescue missions.
“The Civil Air Patrol serves a wonderful function when it
comes to search-and-rescue and recovery missions as well as damage assessment
in a disaster,” he said. “It’s a volunteer resource, and the Air Force is
calling on it more and more.”
Corbin said he has participated in a variety of CAP
missions, including flying a Texas Department of Transportation engineer for a
flood damage assessment last May in Wimberley.