JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – June’s Positively JAX winner is flying high.
The Jacksonville Composite Squadron Florida Wing Civil Air Patrol is influencing the next generation and also helping keep everybody safe when disaster strikes.
Captain Lieutenant Halderman, who earned that title through the Civil Air Patrol, is 16 years old and already completed his first solo cross-country flight.
“Ever since I was like 8 or 9, I’ve wanted to fly. And it’s just honestly, it’s an out-of-this-world feeling,” Halderman said.
Halderman joined the Civil Air Patrol’s (CAP) cadet program at 14. This program has been the starting point for many of the nation’s astronauts, pilots, and engineers.
CAP, a civilian arm of the U.S. Armed Forces, offers this cadet program as one of its three missions.
“We are here, rain or shine. The only time we do not deploy is when it’s going to hit us directly,” the Jacksonville Squadron’s Public Information Officer Captain Chuck Vaughn said.
Emergency services is another crucial mission.
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Vaughn has been a CAP volunteer for 11 years.
Nationwide, there are more than 1,700 units, helping with search and rescue missions, assessing and photographing damage from above, and offering comfort during disasters.
These volunteers are critical in crucial times.
“In fact, we did 95,000 images in just a few weeks after the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, just us. So we put almost 300 hours on a brand new Cessna,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn’s passion for flying began at 16, just like Halderman. This passion supports CAP’s final focus, aerospace education.
“I take it back to when I was learning to fly in 72. I was 16 years old. I’m flying an airplane all by my lonesome. From here, they’re everywhere. And knowing I’m controlling a hunk of metal in the air, making it go where I want it to go. Landing it taking it off and doing it again,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn and all the volunteers are using their experience and love of flying to help others.
“It’s definitely different because everybody in here is in here because they want to and not because they’re getting any compensation for this,” Halderman said.
It comes naturally, and from a bird’s eye view, the 383rd Jacksonville Composite Squadron is Positively JAX in more ways than one — serving America, saving lives and shaping futures.
To learn more about the CAP program, visit this website.
Click here to submit your nomination for our Positively JAX award.