Civil Air Patrol’s aviation maintenance and management services are getting a digital upgrade — partnering with PLANELOGIX to help keep the world’s largest fleet of single-engine piston aircraft in the skies.
“Partnering with PLANELOGIX marks a revolutionary step forward for CAP aviation,” said Mike Valdez, CAP’s chief logistics management officer. “This modern maintenance information system will transform how we manage our fleet, making it more efficient, more responsive, and ultimately more mission-capable than ever before.”
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, maintains a fleet of 545 aircraft, which fly 100,000-plus hours annually while conducting missions as part of its core programs of Emergency Services, Cadet Programs, and Aerospace Education. Many of these missions are assigned by the Air Force, involving search and rescue, disaster relief, and support of military training.
“This system brings CAP in line with industry standards for aircraft maintenance,” Valdez said. “With PLANELOGIX we are enhancing our ability to deliver safe, mission-ready aircraft to our volunteer pilots across the country so they can execute our primary mission of serving America’s communities, saving lives, and shaping futures.”
Partnering with PLANELOGIX has been about two years in the making through recommendations made by the Aircraft Maintenance Improvement Team, consisting of representatives from CAP National Headquarters and CAP-USAF as well as CAP volunteers.
It’s the first development in a series of measures to come recommended to improve CAP’s airworthiness, including a review and revision of maintenance governance policies and directives, establishment of a quality assurance plan, and training for the organization’s aircraft maintenance officers and pilot/flight release officers.
Improving CAP’s airworthiness has been a main focus of Maj. Gen. Regena M. Aye, CAP’s national commander/CEO, since she took command Aug. 17, 2024, in San Antonio.
“As I said at the change of command, we own the future of our organization and airworthiness is a critical emphasis area in my commander’s intent,” Aye said. “We need to build a foundation for Civil Air Patrol to not only survive but also thrive in the future.”
She added, “CAP is the owner of the world’s largest single-engine piston-driven fleet of Cessna aircraft. … But having the biggest fleet is not enough — we want the best fleet.
PLANELOGIX, founded in 2014 by lifelong friends Rob Wilkes and Will Goldstein, has rapidly emerged as an industry leader in digital aircraft maintenance record keeping, offering Federal Aviation Administration‑compliant logbook backup, transcription, and tracking services. The company not only safeguards valuable paper logbooks but also enhances aircraft value and simplifies maintenance oversight through searchable, organized digital records.
Since 2019, the Logistics team at National Headquarters and CAP’s aircraft maintenance and pilot/flight release officers have used the Aircraft Maintenance Repair and Documentation application in eServices to manage the fleet. PLANELOGIX offers many more capabilities, including digital logbooks, or electronic tech logs, and configuration management.
“We are excited and humbled to be chosen by Civil Air Patrol as a partner in their mission,” said Goldstein, the company’s CEO. CAP’s attention to detail and dedication to excellence mirror our own at PLANELOGIX, and together we will bring unprecedented searchability to every aircraft record, ensure unmatched accuracy in maintenance tracking, and seamlessly unite their (electronic tech logs) and (maintenance information system) into one streamlined system.”
Goldstein added, “This partnership reinforces our industry-leading standard for managing and accessing mission-critical aviation records, and we look forward to working with a team that values doing it right over doing it fast.”
Wilkes, the company’s chief technology officer, said, “Our clean, complete data set and unwavering attention to detail give us the ability to catch errors and omissions before they become problems. By bringing that level of precision to Civil Air Patrol’s maintenance records, we’re helping ensure airworthiness compliance is stronger and more reliable than ever.”
Partnering with PLANELOGIX is going “to transform how we manage aircraft documentation, maintenance, and our fleet,” Aye said. “This is a tool that our dedicated Logistics team, (aircraft maintenance officers), and pilots will benefit from using. PLANELOGIX is going to improve the stakeholder experience also through easily accessible digital information and streamlined processes.”
Valdez said collaboration among the members of the Aircraft Maintenance Improvement Team led to the new partnership with PLANELOGIX and the aviation maintenance and management improvements planned for the coming year.
Chris Nester, who oversees fleet management for CAP-USAF, was one of the team’s original members when it was formed in 2023.
“Each individual on the team committed themselves to collaboration and cooperation,” Nester said. “We remained truthful and straightforward with each other throughout the process; we acknowledged, and then ‘owned’ the problems that we found, the situations or the systemic issues that were evident became our opportunities.
“The idea of a ‘we or they’ mentality soon was replaced by an ‘us and ours,’ and the (team) was born.”
After a year of root cause analysis led by Valdez and the team’s project director, Darrel Larson, the deputy logistics maintenance officer, “we were able to identify the processes for how CAP broadly needed to manage its fleet,” said Col. Leo J. Burke, one of several CAP volunteers on the team. “From that list, we were able to determine the requirements necessary for a commercial off-the-shelf solution for managing our maintenance,” Burke said.
Burke, a former Michigan Wing commander, now serves as the wing’s emergency services officer and director of homeland security. He’s also a CAP mission pilot.
“From a pilot’s perspective, we have to know and we have to trust that the maintenance has been done properly,” Burke said. “We need a mature tool that is able to track and help us manage all of the issues that could impact the work airworthiness of our fleet.”
Nester said the team “found its pinnacle” in the selection of PLANELOGIX to set up CAP’s new management information system.
“This selection will vector CAP for decades in modernized effectiveness and efficiency for maintenance,” he said.
“It is a pivotal step toward modernizing the CAP maintenance processes, leading to improved efficiency and effectiveness in fleet management.”
The mission information system “will provide us with better tracking of maintenance records, streamline communication among team members, and ensure compliance with FAA regulations, ultimately enhancing our operational readiness,” Nester said. “This partnership will empower CAP to maintain a high standard of safety and performance for the fleet.’
Burke likened the change in software to CAP’s 2006 switch to the Wing Banker program, which transformed accounting practices across the organization. “We will be able to ensure that every FAA-required maintenance issue for every individual part of every aircraft will be tracked,” he said. “On a regular basis, the FAA requires that we perform maintenance on a specific component of an airplane engine or airframe. In the future, this will be performed and track automatically by PLANELOGIX.
“Things like oil changes will expand into oil analysis. And that will give us the ability to determine problems in an airplane engine, before they become an engine stoppage,” Burke said, explaining that with 100,000 annual hours of flight time, CAP needs to replace an average of 50 engines a year.
“Today, we have to wait until an engine has run through its recommended time of service before we order a new one, and then we wait a month for that to show up,” he said.
“In the future, we will be able to predict based on monthly and annual utilization what specific engines will need to be replaced in what specific airplanes and what estimated timeframe. Then we can start ordering engines to arrive at the time they need to be replaced.
“This will cut down on units not having access to their aircraft.”
“Signing this contract with PLANELOGIX is a true milestone event for this effort that has been a long time coming,” Larson said.
“However, now the real work starts.”
He said efforts are already underway to bring about all the technology links necessary to set up the system, to integrate it with eServices for easy use by the volunteer, and to develop a detailed plan for onboarding.
“We will test the use of the system with the North Carolina Wing in January, where we’re sure we’ll identify issues we’ll need to resolve before full onboarding across CAP begins next July,” Larson said.
The entire onboarding of all CAP aircraft into the system will likely take much of the following year to complete.
“We’re very excited about the capabilities the PLANELOGIX system affords to all of CAP to better track and manage aircraft maintenance and status,” Larson said. “Airworthiness and aircraft availability to CAP’s critical mission set can only improve.”
