Traron Squadron

I recently attended the CAF Winter Staff Conference in Midland and had an opportunity to have some very interesting and useful conversations with Bob Stenevik concerning a couple issues important to TRARON and formation flying in the CAF. Bob has been instrumental in trying to streamline the rules by which CAF pilots flying CAF aircraft can practice formation flying away from official formation clinics. These new changes will be instrumental in helping the new and aspiring formation pilots to get some instruction before they arrive at a sponsored clinic and that will give the new pilots a better chance of acquiring their card in a more efficient manner. TRARON will work with Bob to identify formation pilots that are qualified to act as instructor pilots at the squadron or wing level. More outside training should them be available so the new guys will have a step up when they attend their first organized clinic.

The second issue is even a more important and far reaching change to TRARON policy. In the past 8 years, TRARON clinics have had to be strictly confined to CAF members only, and that has kept our attendance at many clinics way down from what they might be. Pilots from other organizations could not attend TRARON clinics without joining the CAF and many people found that requirement to be unacceptable. Being forced to spend an additional $225.00 along with the registration fee and the hotel and gas bill was just more than many people were willing to do. In an attempt to try to address this problem, Jim Munn and I met with Bob Stenevik and Greg Hizer of Air Capitol Insurance to discuss the aformentioned policy. They were very receptive to the discussion, and in turn, discussed the situation with Steve Brown. Together, they made the decision that we could finally open our clinic registrations up to members of other FAST signatories. There are a few requirements that the non-members must meet but they are really no different than what CAF members bringing their own aircraft must meet. I will enclose a copy of Bob's letter confirming the change in policy so that you will have the requirements in hand before you talk to you friends about coming to one of our clinics.

One thing you must keep in mind when talking to non-CAF members, if they desire to get a formation card from TRARON, they will have to join the CAF and TRARON. If they don't want a card from TRARON, we will be able to forward any Formation Proficiency Reports or Check Ride Forms to the FAST signatory of their choice in order to get a card from that signatory. They do need to be a member of at least one FAST signatory and they will need to get the endorsements to their insurance policy that Bob outlines in his letter. The endorsements are usually free to the policy holder, but they must be requested enough in advance to allow the insurance agent to request the endorsements from the insurance company and get a written response. It is best to give at least a couple weeks to get everything taken care of. These endorsements are usually only good for a length of time that corresponds to the weekend of the clinic rather than a year long, permanent endorsement. As always, prior planning is important since no endorsement-no participation.

Let your friends in other signatories know of this change and encourage them to join us at a clinic in the future. We encourage anyone flying an aircraft that fits our charter of low wing, bubble canopy, military type aircraft to join us. The aircraft needs dual controls, including dual throttles. We will include the older military type craft such as the PTs and BTs that are open cockpit to attend and we will do our best to offer qualified instructors to these aircraft types as well. We do not encourage people flying aircraft not meeting these specifications to attend a TRARON clinic. There are other FAST signatories and formation organizations that will give instruction in non-qualifying type aircraft that have instructors more qualified to train in these type planes.

The second attachment is the language that is required to be added to your insurance policy by your insurance underwriter in order to qualify you to attend the clinics as a non-member of the CAF or as a CAF member flying your own airplane.

I hope you will all be as excited about this policy change as I am. I think that this will allow us to serve a much bigger segment of the warbird community as well as encourage some new members to join our great organization by showing them what we are all about. In my opinion, we will get a lot more new members by including others than we would ever get by trying to force them to join in order to attend.

Keep 'em flying

Rick

TRARON Lead