Attendance for this years Operation: Wolverine was impressive. Many Cadets and Senior Members from thoughout Michigan Wing showed up to participate. The Weather wasn't very 'air friendly' until 1300L when the ceiling lifted and we actually had seen some blue skies. Winds were gusting out of the west 20-25 to 30-35 throughout the day, so that made taking off and landing a bit challenging.

Capt Jo Hendrix from the Traverse City Composite Squadron and I went up in the afternoon as 'Highbird'. We made it to 6k feet and flew in circles and figure 8's for aprox. 2 hours. While I'm still working on my Mission Scanner rating, this gave me a chance to try out the Mission Observer role. Some folks were rather impressed my radio abilities considering my experience level, so that's good. Capt Hendrix remarked a few different times what a good job I was doing and what a pleasure it was to fly with me. So that was nice.

The day ended around 2400L with some night mission GT's out doing the usual. I brought my tent, but was never able to set it up; which was just as well since it was so darn cold out. Everyone was made to come inside anyways. So I setup the air matress and sleeping bag and down I went around 0030L and was back up just before 0630L this morning.

Most of the aircrews are out, so I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs for right now and posting to the blog to kill time. Hopefully I'll be able to get up and at least get one MS-T excercise completed for my SQTR. Hopefully.
(Photos after the break)
 
 

So, theorhetically I'm going to be up in 5 hours so I can shower and pack up the CAP van to head to Lansing, MI with 10 more members to attend Operation: Wolverine, the first funded SAREX of the 2009 season. Operation: Wolverine is unique in the sense that it is cadet run and managed.

Not only will this be my first time to a SAREX since I was a cadet 20+ years ago, it'll be the first one since I rejoined in 2006. I'm in training status for Mission Scanner. I got everything signed off for preliminary tasks in 2007 and haven't done anything with it since then. I'm hoping that by the end of the year I can have my observer wings. Hopefully.

Either way, I'll be with my cadets, we're suppose to be presented with a LONG overdue Unit Citation by the Wing CC, so that'll be good. All in all, it should be a good weekend.

 
First Post! 05/14/2009
 

So I've had this 'usafaux.us' domain since the great Tedda, of 'Civil Air Portal' and now Swivel Chair Patrol fame was kind enough to let me take over.  If you've ever seen a 'PortalPerson', this is the Tedda in question.

Anyways, I've maintained the domain due to the fact that myself, as with a few others in the online CAP community have had e-mail addresses through the subdomain of @cap.usafaux.us. Which I still have plenty of address space available if anyone wants an address, just drop me a line and let me know. I've always wanted to get a CAP blog going, but it's kind of like playing 'Double-Dutch', you need to know when to 'jump in' with both feet.

So now is that time. Between all of my 'real world' duties and my CAP duties, I'll do my best to drop in here and post some commentary. I've also added a forum for those of you who would like to get some discussion going around some of the topics I bring up here.

I'm always up for new ideas for the site, so if you have something you think I should do, or talk about, let me know!

 
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