Captain Vincent Monticello takes pictures of a field near Barton where the Tioga County Sheriff's Department had asked them to look for a missing person.
Photo Credit: SIMON WHEELER
They have planes and missions, but now they need more pilots to fly both.
In recent years, the South-Central Civil Air Patrol Group (CAP) has been increasingly tasked to help in disaster response, such as the April tornado in Danby and flooding in the wake of Hurricane Irene, according to CAP mission pilot Vince Monticello. This increased demand for their services -- mostly aerial photography -- has created a need for volunteer pilots, said Monticello, who is also an Ithaca police lieutenant.
"The biggest problem we're facing now is that we're short-handed," he said, adding that the group operates out of Ithaca, Binghamton, Elmira, Cortland and Oneonta. The aerial photographs they take of disaster areas give incident commanders valuable information to guide their responses to those incidents, Monticello explained.
CAP members have been answering calls to duty such as this since before WWII, according to the CAP website. More than 150,000 volunteers lobbied to have their planes and flying skills used for America's defense in the late 1930s, and the CAP was formed a week before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Overseen by the United States Army Air Corps, thousands of CAP volunteers logged a half-million flight hours rescuing hundreds of crash victims and performing other missions, including the sinking of two German submarines, the website said. Legislation after the war founded the CAP as a benevolent, nonprofit U.S. Air Force auxiliary with three main missions: aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services, such as search-and-rescue operations.
The 60-member South-Central CAP has trained ground search teams and three pilots, but only two of them are trained for aerial search-and-rescue missions, Monticello said. Nonetheless, their aircrews have flown their Cessna Skylane aircraft on aerial photography missions over Tompkins, Cortland, Tioga, Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Schuyler and Otsego counties, he said.
In addition to helping incident commanders assess tornado damage in Danby and recent flood damage in Owego, the photos allowed the state Department of Environmental Conservation to evaluate the strength of Broome County dams swollen with rain and runoff from Hurricane Irene, Monticello said. The aircrews photographed 17 Broome County dams in 2 1/2 hours, he recalled.
"We were able to do that very quickly and effectively, and get them those photos so they could do assessments," Monticello said. "They were very happy about that." The aircrews spent about three to four minutes circling each dam, photographing them from all angles, he added.
While flights by other organizations and aircraft for such missions can run up to $3,000 an hour, a CAP flight usually costs between $100 and $150 per hour, he said.
"It's a cost-effective way of doing aerial assessments," Monticello said. "All our members are volunteers. We're almost a volunteer fire department, but for aircraft." They can deliver supplies as well, he added.
The CAP's cadet program gives youths 12 to 18 years old things like aerospace education and orientation flights, Monticello said. In addition to taking advantage of educational opportunities and training CAP provides, pilots and others can get satisfaction from keeping their skills sharp and helping their communities, he added.
"I've been flying since I was in my teens," Monticello said. "To put that skill to a purpose, I find very rewarding."
For more information to join the South-Central CAP, e-mail ipd251@hotmail.com or go to www.gocivilairpatrol.com.
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