The Peacetime CAP
By
the 1960s and '70s, CAP was logging over 75 percent of the search and rescue
hours flown each year. The burgeoning civil aircraft fleet was the primary
impetus for the continued need for a growing CAP organization, but the CAP's parent organization, the U.S. Air Force, sometimes had to use Civil Air Patrol's search and rescue skills as well. When an F-111 fighter-bomber went down in the southwest, CAP members from six states were called up
in a 15-day search and rescue operation. CAP pilots flew over 80 percent of the 1,400 sorties flown.
On May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens in Washington exploded, devastating approximately 150 square miles and triggering massive mud-flows, floods and ashfalls. When the county sheriff asked the Civil Air Patrol for help, CAP members were quickly on the scene, establishing a 24 hour headquarters, plotting leads, aiding search and rescue missions, and updating weather advisories. CAP teams assisted in several out-lying command centers and
worked in ash cleanup crews.
During the 1990's Civil Air Patrol experienced an ever-increasing number of missions. Some of the notable natural disasters which CAP responded to include the San Francisco earthquake of 1991 and the Midwest floods and major hurricanes in the southeast during the mid-nineties. Today, Civil Air Patrol flys more than 85% of all federal inland search and rescue missions directed by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air
Force Base, Virginia. The many disaster relief efforts, together with CAP's ongoing search and rescue and counter drug missions, have substantially increased the flight hours and
man-hours that CAP provides to communities all across this nation and in Puerto Rico.
Also noteworthy, was a reorganization and restructuring of CAP's
national
headquarters in 1995. This resulted in replacing active-duty and civil service
employees
with a CAP Corporate staff. A small contingency of Air Force personnel was left
in place
to oversee CAP operations.