Bill Blunk

 

CFII, A.C.E. (Aero Club of Enid) founder, CAP, in his spare time he works at VAFB

Civil Air Patrol

 
I am the Operations Officer for the Enid Composite Squadron of the Oklahoma Wing of the Civil Air Patrol.  A composite squadron is made up of both Senior Members and Cadets. Our squadron has 26 senior members and about 20 cadets.  We are always looking for more volunteers.  For senior members it only cost $53 to join.  And if you are interested in flying for proficiency for cheap, as a member, you can rent the airplane for $15 per tach hour plus the gas.  Yes there are restrictions, but the flight instruction is free and you would be hard pressed to find a better maintained C172.
 
Things have been good for the CAP this year.  Nationally, the CAP has over 530 Cessnas and in the year 2000 there were no major incidents envolving CAP airplanes.  These airplanes flew well over a 100,000 hours last year.  For the Oklahoma Wing, we were awarded the best wing in the southwest region and very soon we will be adding a fairly new Cessna 182 (1999, 2000) to our fleet.  We already have 5 Cessna 172's (1984 or newer) and one 2000 model Cessna 172 in the Oklahoma Wing.  These airplanes get exchanged frequently among squadrons and sometimes Enid may get the new C172 or possibly the C182 in the future. 
 
As the Operations Officer, I oversee the day to day operations of the CAP airplane (1985 Cessna 172) assigned to our squadron.  This entails maintenance, scheduling, flight release and coordination during simulated or actual search and rescue missions.  I am a Captain in the CAP.  Major Joe Smith is the Squadron Commander.  We have a few LtCol's in our squadron, that have just joined.  I am also a CFII, MEI and CAP flight instructor.  In addition to that, I am a qualified mission pilot, cadet orientaion pilot and flight release officer.  Hopefully soon I will be a check ride pilot.  We have 4 CFI's in the squadron and 2 check pilots (one of which is a mission check pilot).