Mandan, North Dakota.

For the week of April 3-8, the North Dakota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) focused on our biennial Search and Rescue Evaluated Exercise. A large part of Civil Air Patrol’s mission focuses on Search and Rescue and Disaster Relief. As an Auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, our non-combatant role is in service to our state.  To be sure we reflect positively on the Air Force, we are asked to demonstrate our skills in a week-long exercise.

During this exercise, North Dakota’s fleet of seven aircraft and our CAP vehicles is subject to inspection and our performance in both real world operations and search and rescue skills are evaluated. I am happy to share that North Dakota Wing held a successful exercise. We were complimented on the quality of care we demonstrated in maintaining our aircraft fleet and our Safety Officer received a Highly Successful rating for an exemplary demonstration of duty performance. Needless to say, as Wing Commander, I am pleased and proud of our entire volunteer force.

North Dakota is one of the smallest wings with seven airplanes and about 220 volunteer members. Nationally, CAP has over 550 aircraft and about 55,000 members. CAP is responsible for the largest fleet of single-engine aircraft in the world.

About the photo: In this day of tight budgets, we seldom have the opportunity to have our entire state’s fleet of aircraft together for a single photograph. Normally spread across the state and deployed for missions local to their area, Our inspection gave me the opportunity to capture an image of the entire fleet. If you look carefully, you’ll see the inspection team finishing up one of the last airplanes in the line. This image, captured with my Samsung S7 was shot at f/1.7, 1/2500 sec. ISO-50. The rule for Cellpic Sunday is simple. The image must be captured via a mobile device.

John Steiner