Welcome to the Cleveland Lakefront Thunderbirds Composite Squadron's website! The Civil Air Patrol is the official Auxiliary of the United States Air Force. CAP members are all volunteers. We have three primary missions: Aerospace Education, Emergency Services and Cadet Programs. The Lakefront Thunderbirds Composite Squadron 236 is the local unit serving the city of Cleveland and the inner ring suburbs. We are Cleveland’s Volunteer Airmen! Our Aerospace Education program promotes and supports air and space education, both for our own members and the general public. CAP educational programs help prepare American citizens to meet the challenges of a sophisticated aerospace society and understand its related issues. While CAP Emergency Services has long been associated with search and rescue missions, its work also includes disaster relief and communications, as well as counterdrug and homeland security missions. Search and rescue remains an important service provided by CAP members. CAP flies an average of 90 percent of all federal inland SAR missions, as directed by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC), 1st Air Force (Air Forces Northern) located at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida and coordinated through CAP National Operations Center at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, at a cost of $120-$160 per flying hour while saving an average of 71 lives per year. In addition to the SAR mission, CAP performs aerial reconnaissance for homeland security, provides disaster-relief support to local, state and national agencies; transports time-sensitive medical materials (blood products and body tissues when commercial resources are unavailable), provides air intercept training, impact assessment, light transport, communications support, and low-level route surveys for the Air Force. Finally, the CAP Cadet Program builds strong citizens for the future by providing leadership training, technical education, scholarships and career education to young men and women, ages 12 to 21. Thousands of young people have their first orientation flights through the cadet program, and hundreds have soloed in gliders and powered aircraft. Tens of thousands have attended CAP encampments throughout the nation. At a national encampment, CAP cadets gather from throughout the nation. They may learn techniques for search and rescue and disaster relief. They may sample possible career choices by studying with a university engineering or technology department. They may learn teamwork and leadership through competitions in problem-solving and physical endurance. Thank you for your interest in our Squadron and the Civil Air Patrol! Please click through the website links to learn more. Semper Vigilans, 1st Lt Randolph C. Ayers, CAP Squadron Commander |