South Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol, responded to a request from Lawrence County to assist in a missing person search in the remote Iron Lake area of the Northern Black Hills. The missing teenager was found safe in Sturgis, well outside the area of the last known position.
72 members signed in for the May SAREX, making it one of the biggest SDWG SAREX events in recent memory. Primary mission activity was May 20 in Sioux Falls. Of the total signed in to the mission, 20 participated in the earlier Wing Cave horse search training on the same SAREX mission number.
Col. Mike Beason, South Dakota Wing Civil Air Patrol (CAP), was invited to be a member of the first national training class for a new category of photography drone aircraft. CAP uses drones, formally known as small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS), for aerial mapping, damage assessment, and missing person searches. CAP’s new hybrid drones take off and land vertically, like a rotary UAS, but fly like a fixed-wing UAS.
South Dakota Wing was part of the effort to find a Mustang horse that broke free from a wilderness camp in Wind Cave National Park on May 2, 2023. The search allowed wing members to refine their air-to-ground visual search from fixed-wing aircraft, photography drones, and ground team searching. The horse was located in apparent healthy condition on May 9, along Highway 385 in the park
South Dakota Wing was on hand when educators gathered in Rapid City this week for the Technology in Education (TIE) conference. CAP members were there to inform educators about the opportunities for aerospace and STEM educational resources offered by CAP.
Close to 60 members of South Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol, spent the day April 15 capturing photographs of rivers and streams to simulate flood photography missions for local government. CAP crews performed air, ground and drone photo sorties along Rapid Creek, French Creek, The Cheyenne River, the Bad River and the Big Sioux River.
Members of South Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol, will refine their skills in air and ground disaster relief photography Saturday (April 15) at a series of locations around the state. The photography will focus on GPS-tagged images where waterways are out of their banks and bridges are threatened.
Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cadet Keon den Hoed is the 224th CAP youth member to earn his private pilot's wings under CAP's Cadet Wings flight scholarship program. Den Hoed, 18, is a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel in Sioux Falls Composite Squadron. The total value of den Hoed's scholarship from CAP is $13,300.
South Dakota Wing hosted an online Intermediate Training Leaders of Cadets (TLC) class this weekend. Twenty-five CAP members, from seven of the eight Civil Air Patrol regions, attended, including a few who were both renewing their qualifications and instructing modules.
Two South Dakota Wing teams brought home eight first- and second-place awards in ten categories this weekend in Civil Air Patrol’s North Central Region Cadet Competition.
