Two CAP-related features in March issue of 'Air & Space' magazine

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The March 2010 issue of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine features two full-length stories with ties to Civil Air Patrol. Both are stories of interest to CAP's 59,000 members. "Don't Cross That Line: Would A Fighter Pilot Shoot Down A Private Airplane?" deals with the sensitve subject of homeland security, specifically the protection of American airspace  through U.S. Air Force F-16 "intercepts" of suspicious aircraft flying illegally in the nation's "no-fly" zones. As Craig Mellow's Air & Space article points out, CAP's "low-and-slow" aircraft are often "targets" for F16s during exercises that train fighter pilots for real-life scrambles, which happen nearly every day. The Air & Space article takes a hard look at some of the more recent real-life scrambles and asks the hypothetical question "What if?" "The Other Harlem," meanwhile, features a 1930s Chicago airport where one of CAP's pioneering women, Willa Brown, learned to fly. Brown, the first black woman to earn a commercial pilot's license in the U.S., was married to Cornelius Coffey, the founder of Harlem Airport, for a time. Their small cottage near the airport doubled as a CAP unit. She later became CAP's first African-American officer and was a pioneering activist for equal aviation career opportunities for blacks.