Communications Exercise Involves 4 Regions, 28 Wings

This map shows the targeted airports.

More than half of Civil Air Patrol’s 52 wings conducted a U.S. Department of Defense-style communications exercise March 4-5 involving a post-hurricane scenario in the eastern half of the U.S. 

Using only HF radios for communications for Operation Starlift, participants from 28 wings responded to a National Headquarters request for a flight over specific airports to see if they were operational in the wake of a simulated hurricane affecting the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Southeast regions.

The goal of the exercise, according to Maj. Chuck Brudtkuhl, was to receive the traffic on HF radio, fly the mission, and report back to NHQ within six hours. 

“Everything was carried out in a timely manner,” said Brudtkuhl, the communications operations division head for CAP. “{For the most part}, we completed our response in less than six hours.”

Lt. Col. Linda Kotula, CAP command and communications exercise analyst, said 24 of the 28 wings involved were able to collect their traffic from the National Traffic Net within the objective of one hour. Four were later than the one-hour goal, but three of those still replied within the six-hour target.

Kotula said 313 members participated in the exercise, which involved 46 incident commanders and aircrews. The crews uploaded 87 photos of 26 airports in the four regions.