CAP Mission

Our Mission:

The CAP is tasked with three missions

1. Aerospace Education
• Provides support for more than 100 workshops at colleges nationwide each year
• Develops, publishes and distributes aerospace education curricula for K through college classrooms
• Sponsors premier aerospace education conference, the National Conference on Aviation and Space Education (NCASE)
• Provides classroom materials, teacher training and other educational aids at no cost to America's teachers and homeschoolers
• Serves as aerospace resource center for education through CAP's Web site at www.cap.gov

Civil Air Patrol Core Values Integrity, Volunteer Service, Excellence, and Respect

2. Cadet Programs
• Includes almost 25,000 members ages 12-21
• Encompasses multi-step program that includes aviation and aerospace education
• Offers orientation flights in powered and glider aircraft, and flight training scholarships
• Provides about 10 percent year's new classes entering military service academies
• Provides enlistment in Air Force at higher pay grade for cadets who have earned the Gen. Billy Mitchell Award
• Provides activities and competition for cadets at local, state, regional and national levels
• Provides an International Air Cadet Exchange program
• Provides college scholarships in several disciplines

3. Emergency Services
• Conducts 95 percent of inland search and rescue in the United States, as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and other agencies
• Performs aerial reconnaissance for homeland security
• Saves an average of 100 lives per year
• Provides disaster-relief support to local, state and national disaster relief organizations
• Transports time-sensitive medical materials, blood products and body tissues
• Provides damage assessment, light transport, communications support and low-altitude route
surveys for the U.S. Air Force
• Assists federal agencies in the war on drugs
• Conducts orientation flights for Air Force ROTC students
• Maintains the most extensive communications network in the nation