24G hit CAP right on the head. It's not a flying club, although if you get involved with the right squadron you could do quite a bit of flying. We have an older 172 that 'rents' for 35/hr wet. You can't exactly 'rent' the airplane for personal pleasure, although you can use it for training and staying current. So if that just so happens to mean flying to grandma's house for that $100 hamburger (or veggieburger if your vegetarian like me) then so be it. We do a lot of incentive flights, and focus a lot on the cadet program. I've been in since I was 13, and will always be in. Some people take the military portion well beyond what they should, and can make it less fun...remember CAP is just an auxillary of the USAF, it is not the USAF.

If your looking to oneday become an officer, I personally believe CAP can only help. I don't know if it'll be a make or break situation, but you never know what kind of connections you can make. A lot of military members are involved. I don't remember the exact percentage now, but at one point 10% of USAFA cadets were former CAP members. There are also many scholarships available...

I could sit here all day and along with 24G explain what CAP is all about, but really the only way your going to find if you like it or not is to attend one of the meetings. If you go to the CAP headquarters site - www.cap.gov you can do a unit locator. Call up the squadron commander, or whoever the POC is and let them know you'd like to attend a meeting and are interesting in joining. They'll help you out and get you squared away. Some adults choose not to do anything with cadets and stay in a senior squadron, some love being around and helping cadets. I love being with the cadets, especially being female. Many of these cadets have dreams of being fighter pilots, airline pilots, engineers, paratroopers, you name it. They have big dreams, and I love that. Although some may never go that far...I absolutely love seeing youth have a dream. I make it a personal note to give all the cadets my number...if they ever feel the need to talk about ANYTHING, want advice, or really just want to hang out...they are always more than welcome to do that. I'm not much older then they are, so there's more of a brother/sister connection between us...they had the chance to fly on the C-130J a while back, and I was the loadmaster on their flight. They ate that all up! During leadership and aerospace education classes, we have everyone from fighter pilots, to aeronautical engineers come and talk to the cadets. They love it...

But like 24G said, it's so much more then that. As a senior member, which I'm assuming is what your interested in, you can really get yourself involved with emergency services. We have counterdrug and disaster relief. If your a pilot and meet certain time requirements, you can get involved as a mission pilot, observer, etc. or if your into camping/hiking - you could be on our ground team. There is so much to learn from being in CAP. You may even have the chance to travel to a former country as part of our foreign exchange program. It's a heck of a lot of fun.

It's much more than just a flying club...it's a buncha senior and cadet members who live and breathe airplanes and space.

Check it out! And if you have anymore questions, please definitely let us know.