Amarillo Composite Squadron - Public Page

03/26/2025

03/09/2025

Mark your calendars 12APR25 - Altus Air Show. We will be taking a CAP van there.

The Official Page for the 97th Air Mobility Wing for public information regarding the April 12-13, 2025, Altus Airpower Stampede Air Show and Open House.

03/02/2025

It was a good flying day for orientation flights in the TIgershark Squadron Cessna 172. Three Curry cadets had their first flight today. Congratulations Cadet Airman Rice, DeLeon, and Parrack. Thanks to Major Bowen for the flights.

03/01/2025

This past Tuesday, February 25, was PT and drill night. MSgt Bettag from PD Air Force JROTC joined us and assisted with drills.
Cadets participated in drill and PT tests! It was a busy and productive meeting!

02/25/2025

This months Saturday activity was a visit to the Amarillo Rick Husband International Airport control tower. Several cadets and senior members enjoyed the tour and then lunch at Shelby’s Diner afterwards.

02/20/2025

March 2025

1 Mar (Sat) - 1100 to 1300 clean up at HQ. UOD: ABUs. Lunch will be provided.

4 Mar- Aerospace (Flight Simulators); Potential Cadet Visitor Night; Cadet Staff Meeting UOD: ABUs

11 Mar - Off (Spring Break)

18 Mar - Character Development / Team Building; Cadet Wingman Course; Promotions; Promotion Board; and Membership Board UOD: Dress

22 Mar (Sat) - Visit to the aircraft museum in Slaton.

25 Mar - Drill and PT UOD: PT

02/15/2025

We had a great all members meeting on Tuesday evening with a character development lesson in a team-building activity.

The meeting started with a few promotions. Cadet Brown and Cadet Parrack both promoted to their first ranks of C/Amn. Cadet Thompson promoted to C/SrA. Cadet Forsman promoted to
C/SSgt which means he has passed his first milestone test, named after the Wright Brothers. Cadet LeGate has now completed achievement 12 of the program which means he got his second rank of captain. Congratulations cadets! We are proud of all of you!

Chaplain Carpenter lead a character development lesson on the core value of excellence. Excellence describes the nature and characteristics of someone. A key to excellence is to take ownership, be responsible and accountable for your actions.

2nd Lt Lewis and C/Capt LeGate led a Coast Guard Lost At Sea team-building activity. The cadets ranked objects like a shaving mirror, a sextant, army rations and water to see how well they could survive at sea as an individual and as a group. A member of the Coast Guard gave his own rankings. The closer the cadet was to the Coast Guard member’s rankings, the more likely they were to survive if they were ever lost at sea. It was a fun and interesting activity. The point was to see if the group decisions were better than working alone. All of the cadets enjoyed it, were engaged and worked well together.

02/08/2025

We had a very busy meeting on Tuesday with lessons on aerospace and emergency services.
C/SMSgt Lewis led an aerospace lesson on the Kerbal Space Program. This is an interactive game that simulates rocket launches of crafts that the user designs. He went over concepts, and demonstrations, about the center of gravity of various designs. This game is entertaining, but is educational as well. You can play it on a Windows or Linux computer or on Xbox.

Lt Lewis led an emergency services lesson on various saws for bushcraft. How to use wire saws, Swiss Army knives and a bow saws. Some are a lot faster to use than others.

Last thing on the agenda was uniform inspections. It is important for all cadets no matter their rank, to make sure their uniform is and ranks are worn properly, and their boots are shined.

01/25/2025

February 2025

4 Feb- Aerospace / ES; Cadet Staff Meeting UOD: ABUs

11 Feb - Character Development / Team Building; Promotions, Promotion Board, and Membership Board UOD: Dress

18 Feb - Aerospace / Leadership; Potential Cadet Night-- UOD: ABUs

22 Feb (Sat) - Tour of AMA control tower. UOD: ABUs. Details to be announced.

25 Feb - PT / Drill and Drill Tests UOD: PT

01/24/2025

We had a fun learning experience at our Tuesday night meeting.
The cadets participated in a hands-on aerospace lesson where they were taught basic mechanical fastening. There were three stations that each group of cadets rotated through.

Lt Lewis showed the cadets how to tighten stainless steel safety wire. They had to wear gloves while at this station to keep from cutting their hands.

SM Thompson assisted the cadets as they learned to use a cotter pin puller and pliers in his station.

SM Forsman showed the cadets how to use a torque wrench.

All of these ways of using mechanical fastening are used to tighten nuts, bolts, cotter pins and safety wire on aircraft.

C/Capt LeGate conducted a leadership lesson over team building activities. He wanted to get members of all of the flights engaged with members of different flights. He mixed the flights at random, and he had them introduce who the cadet was and some facts about that cadet.

01/18/2025

We had a great meeting on Tuesday evening.
Chaplain Carpenter gave the character development lesson and it was a good one. He talked to the cadets about integrity, doing the right thing when no one is looking. How do you determine the right thing? The word of God helps you determine the right thing and it is the ultimate standard to live by. He talked about how peer pressure can violate integrity. It is easy to shift the blame to someone else. If you do something wrong, just take the blame if you mess up. Integrity is one of the CAP core values.
It was a great lesson with great discussion among the cadets and senior members.
C/Capt LeGate gave a leadership presentation over The Great Man Theory which talks about the traits of a great leader and their life stories of how they became successful. The Civil Air Patrol Leadership book states, “Only those who shape history through their actions truly deserve to be called leaders. Whatever skills made them specially equipped to lead were awarded at birth. To learn what leadership is, students of the great man theory study the lives of great men.” Winston Churchill is considered the last great man because of his courageous and successful efforts in World War II. Although, with every leader there are failures, and with every theory, there are flaws. The 3 flaws are that the theory fails to focus on failure, it goes against the Air Force’s view of leadership, and it is a very poor theory. After the presentation C/Capt LeGate had a the cadets do a group activity over who they think is a great man or woman.
Three cadets promoted…C/Bishop2 is now a C/SMSgt, C/Rice and C/Brown both reached their first rank of Curry.
Thank you to SM Forsman and Mr. Rice for clearing all of the snow in the parking lot!
Join us next Tuesday as the cadets participate in a team building activity.

01/10/2025

Our first meeting of 2025 consisted of emergency services and aerospace lessons.

Lt. Lewis led the meeting with an emergency services lesson on cold weather precautions and preparedness. Some topics of his discussion were hypothermia, frostbite and safely starting fires. The main things to do if you think someone has hypothermia is to get them out of the cold. You need to replace their wet clothing with dry clothing, add insulation to their body and get them to a hospital. Hypothermia is a significant drop in body temperature. The most common cause is long exposure to cold temperatures.

Body heat is lost through BRACE: breathing, air convection, conduction radiation and evaporation. You need to always dress warm when you know that you are going to out in the extreme cold weather. Wool keeps you warm even when it is wet.

Frostbite happens when skin and tissue below the skin freeze. This usually happens with exposed body parts sent as fingers and toes. A mild case of frostbite can be treat with gradual warming.
A dead branch on a live tree is the best source of firewood. Always do a careful job of “laying a fire” when starting one.

Next up, Capt LeGate presented an aerospace lesson on The Ansari X-Prize. This aircraft was built to sustain high altitude flying and has to carry the weight of three adult humans. The Scaled Composites Company, based out of California, won a $10 million prize 1995 for building and safely landing this aircraft. It took three flights in 2004 and reached an altitude of 62.2 m. All three flights went well.

C/SrA Forsman and his father, SM Forsman both attend the North Texas Wing Winter Encampment in Wichita Falls. They both enjoyed their encampment experiences.