Texas Wing - Civil Air Patrol
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News - Mission Observer Ground School, 26 August 2010
HOUSTON, Texas – On July 24, 2010, Captain Michael Turoff, commander of the Hobby Senior Squadron, hosted a Mission Observer ground school at the Million Air facility at Hobby Airport. Sixteen CAP members were in attendance, either as students or assistant instructors, for the purpose of learning and sharing the knowledge involved in performing the Mission Observer role, representing several of Group IV's squadrons.
They were: Lieutenants Colonel Robert M. Dean, Don Fisher and Allen R. Maxwell; Major Peter Dittmer; Captains Jerald Green, Kent Fortney and Ronald G. Rice; 1st Lieutenants Linda Merryman, Jayne Pace and Oliver Rodriguez; 2nd Lieutenants Dana Harrington and Charles Rowland; and Senior Members Jose M. Arroyo, David A. Gaines, Audrey Morrow and Gary Whitfield.
Capt. Turoff used the 313-slide Power Point Presentation dated February 2008 to cover the ground school fundamentals for the Mission Observer emergency services rating. The course took approximately eight (8) hours, as it included both theoretical instruction and table-top practice sessions needed to comply with the ground school training requirements for that rating.
Members who completed the training and had also completed the Mission Scanner rating requirement – a pre-requisite for the Mission Observer rating – were then eligible to start participating as Mission Observer trainees in any practice or real mission-related flight. Those who had not completed this prerequisite requirement were still able to take away from the course much of the knowledge and information they will need when they become eligible to participate as Mission Observer trainees.
Next on the schedule is a Mission Pilot ground school scheduled for Saturday, September 18, for which Capt. Turoff submitted a tentative OPS PLAN for a Pilot Continuation Training session in mid-October. The latter is subject to approval and funding in the next fiscal year.
(NOTE: Michael Turoff was promoted to Major on Aug. 1, 2010 – Editor)
Maj. Michael Turoff, CAP