Photo by Capt. Carlson


Group 5 conducted Squadron Leadership Schoon on the University Park campus of Penn State University the weekend of May 31, June 1. Under the direction of Capt. Erin Long, participants engaged in lessons on leadership, communications, professional development, officership, and creative thinking and problem solving.

Pictured from left to right: (front) 2nd Lt Shawn Weller, 2nd Lt Jason Swavely, Capt. Mike Swavely. (rear) 1st Lt Rich Brnik, SM Bob Montgomery, Maj Maurice Connor, 1st Lt Brian Bonner, 2nd Lt Damon Baldini, 1st Lt Ron Gardner, Capt. Jim Blow, 1st Lt. Bob Jacobs, SM Paul Rech, 2nd Lt Jacob Magnin, Maj. Sandy Brandon, Capt. Erin Long. Not pictured, Lt Col. Larry Larson, 1st Lt Rob McCoy.

Due to several conflicts, the June Group 5 staff meeting that was scheduled for Saturday the 7th has been postponed.

We will have a brief staff meeting at the Group 5 SAREX on Saturday the 14th. The SAREX location will be Mid-State airport. All Group 5 squadrons are expected to participate in this exercise, beginning at 0800. Please send your unit strength information, and requested member training assignments to Group 5 HQ no later than Friday 6 June.

Maj Roy Long
Group 5 Commander

A full day of safety seminars covering a wide variety of topics. This free event will include tower tours, safety seminars, and static displays. Saturday June 14, 2008 at 10:00 AM

Featured speakers include Bob Miller, CFII, ATP, JJ Greenway, Chief Flight Instructor for AOPA and Ian Walsh, VP and General Manager of Textron Lycoming. Rain Date: June 15, 2008. If in doubt, contact FAASTEAM Rep. Larry Diffenback at lldieffenbach@comcast.net or 570-322-1973. Are you registered on www.faasafety.gov?

Williamsport Airport
400 Airport Road
Williamsport, PA

Contact: Larry Dieffenbach
570-322-1973
lldieffenbach@comcast.net

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Squadron Leadership School! Here are the details for the weekend! Registration will be from 0800-0830 on Saturday morning in 201 Keller. Keller Building is the tall brick building directly across from the Nittany Parking Deck next to the Nittany Lion Inn.

The course will begin promptly at 0830 and will go until approximately 1630 on Saturday. Sunday we will begin at 0830 and hope to be done by 1430.

Please remember to bring your $20 course fee in cash. This makes it easier to purchase lunch, etc.

Uniform
Acceptable uniform options are blues (class C, no tie is fine), or corporate combos. No BDU’s or flight suits will be worn.

Optional Walking Tour and Dinner
All are welcome to come on the walking tour of the Penn State campus after class on Saturday. The tour will end at the Tavern restaurant in downtown State College where we are setting up a reservation for those that want to attend dinner with others from the group. Please send me an email if you are interested in dinner so that I may give the restaurant a more accurate reservation number. The meal charge is not included in your course fee (sorry!).

Directions
For those of you staying at the Penn Stater you can take a complementary shuttle between the hotels. If you would like to drive it is a short (5 minute) drive down Park Avenue. Exit the hotel toward campus (this will be Park Ave.). Turn left onto Allen St. Take your first right onto Fischer Rd. The parking deck is ahead on the left and Keller is on the right.

Driving directions to the area can be found at:

To Keller Building (and Nittany Lion Inn): http://www.pshs.psu.edu/NittanyLionInn/nldirections.asp

To Penn Stater:

http://www.pshs.psu.edu/PennStater/psdirections.asp

Please feel free to contact me via email or cell with any questions!

Thanks,

Capt. Erin C. Long, CAP

Director, SLS - Group 5 - PAWG

Airplanes converging on final approach can find themselves in precarious spots. On a few occasions they’ve flown so close, they’ve gotten stuck together.

On May 15, a Piper Cherokee landed on top of a Stinson at Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke, Texas. The Piper was carrying a flight instructor and a student while only the pilot was aboard the Stinson. The Piper was apparently landing while the Stinson was starting its takeoff, according to press reports. The final approach path is obsured by trees. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.


Photos by Rex Lake

Most midair collisions take place close to airports and in good weather conditions. That’s why you have to be especially careful on final approach. This brings to mind two other accidents in recent years where, as they say, airplanes swapped paint in the landing pattern.

In 2004 a Cessna 152 and a Cessna 172 Skyhawk collided on approach to Cincinnati West Airport in Harrison, Ohio. The two aircraft became locked together in flight at 300 feet agl and spiraled into a gravel pit. The pilots and a passenger in the Cessna 172 suffered serious injuries.

And in 1999, a student pilot and her CFI survived a freak midair collision involving a Piper Cadet and a Cessna 152 in Plant City, Fla., Municipal Airport. The two airplanes locked together and landed safely.

For more information visit: http://www.aopa.org

I encourage everyone to periodically check this website to take advantage of everything AOPA has to offer to all professional and student pilots alike.

Important Message from the PAWG Commander

Recently, Pennsylvania Wing underwent a Compliance Inspection (CI) by National Headquarters, and obtained an overall rating of Satisfactory. Despite this success, deficiencies were identified in our safety program which caused the Wing to be grounded until our members had completed the 10-Second ORM pamphlet and certification. Thanks to your prompt attention to this requirement, I am pleased to announce that the grounding has been lifted, and we have been reinstated for training and operational missions.

I must point out that this reinstatement is probationary for a period of one year. This means we must perform at an exceptional level every day, both in our compliance with operational directives, regulations, and procedures and in our proper completion and maintaining of required records and paperwork. It also means that we are subject to no-notice inspections of our vehicles and aircraft, and all associated documentation. Not only must we perform in a safe and efficient manner, we must be able to prove that we did so.

This third-party review can only serve to make our operations, which were already being conducted safely, even more productive, and better for all concerned.

Once again, our aircraft are flying and our vehicles are rolling. As long as we continue to play by the rules and put safety first, we will be free to perform the important missions we conduct for the Civil Air Patrol, the Commonwealth, and for America.



Mark A. Lee, Col, CAP
Commander

The national board recently approved training requirements for NIMS compliance and an announcement was made a few weeks ago to encourage members to begin training as soon as possible. Achievements and tasks to track the NIMS requirements to complete IS-100, IS-200, ICS-300, ICS-400, IS-700, and IS-800 are now available in Ops Quals, and reports will soon be available. The achievement entry tools available in Ops Quals can be used to enter completion of NIMS training. The training will be validated at the unit level. Some members may have completed this training in the past but it will all still need to go through the Ops Quals validation process to make sure the training has been completed per DHS requirements. Once the tasks are validated, the achievement will automatically post to the 101 card for tracking. (Contact: HQ CAP/DO John Desmarais - jdesmarais@capnhq.gov)

Attention all PAWG members:

As of now 869 people have completed the ORM course. This means we are still short by 2,200 people. As of now all extra curricular activities in PAWG are halted until further notice. This includes the Color Guard Competition. I urge all members to go the PAWG web site for more information.
As you may be aware, The United States Air Force has issued the directive that ALL PAWG field operations cease and desist for the time being. What started out as a grounding of aircraft and corporate vehicles has grown into a full scale suspension of all special activities in the wing other than regular scheduled meetings. The current mandate is that Wing-wide complete compliance with Operational Risk Management (ORM) certification be achieved within the ranks of ALL active members. If you have received the email notification or been briefed on a squadron level regarding the ORM mandate be advised that it is very serious and must be acted upon immediately! Failure to comply jeopardizes the entire membership's ability to serve in any capacity. Participation is simple as reading the document (http://www.pawingcap.com/docs/10-secord-risk-management.pdf) and sending a confirmation email to safetyinspection@pawingcap.com with your CAP ID and Name in the subject line.

The deadline is this Sunday by midnight to achieve the remaining 2,200 personel. If we fail to do so, it may include regular scheduled squadron meetings being temporally suspended. Please encourage ALL MEMBERS ACTIVE AND INACTIVE to take the 10 second ORM course if you would like to see PAWG activities continue.

All,

Unfortunately due to the inability to move corporate assets at this time it has been decided to postpone indefinitely the Color Guard Competition schedule for this weekend. Once we have a more solid outlook on when these restrictions will be lifted we will begin to search the calendar for a suitable date to reschedule.

I apologize for the inconvenience, I know a number of squadrons worked hard to prepare their teams for this event. Please continue to encourage all your members to comply with the ORM requirements in order to avoid further set backs in operations and cadet training. Until that is completed it will continue to be PAWG's #1 priority.

If there are any questions, feel free to contact the Project Officer at 267-688-0421 or by e-mail at bjcuce@gmail.com.