Ga. 'sundown patrol' aircrew keeps watch over coastal area

 

 

The Brunswick Senior Squadron’s Cessna 172 soars on sundown patrol.


(Editor’s note: The following article originally appeared as part of a spotlight on area aviation in the May-June 2010 issue of Golden Isles Magazine, based at St. Simons Island, Ga. In addition, an article on similar patrols by CAP members in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico and North Carolina can be found on pages 2-4 of the April-June issue of Civil Air Patrol Volunteer. )


Amy Carter
Editor
Golden Isles Magazine

GEORGIA — They see what God sees, which must be a huge comfort to the stranded boater who thinks God only knows where he or she waits.

Five days a week, just before sunset, Civil Air Patrol takes to the air to search the vast marshes, creeks, rivers and sounds of the Golden Isles – and a lot of empty space in between – for anything amiss.

“We’re up here looking for trouble, looking for problems,” said 1st Lt. Andy Jones, operations officer for the Brunswick Senior Squadron.

“We always check out anything that doesn’t look right – boats on the sandbars, forest fires, boats not where a boat would normally be,” said Capt. Bill Cozine, the unit’s commander.

Not long after those words are spoken, a small aircraft passes fast and low beneath the CAP plane, seeming to skim the marshes between Darien and Sapelo Island. It is only after several moments of watchful flying that Jones and Cozine determine that the flier is making a pass over the landing strip on Hird Island.

And so the patrol continues.

The typical patrol flight lasts an hour, covering much of Glynn County as well as southern McIntosh and northern Camden counties. The pilots check in with the U.S. Coast Guard upon takeoff and landing, often taking assignments from the Coast Guard when something needs a look-see.

“They have given us things in the past – run over to the Turtle River Bridge and see if there’s a boat there,” Cozine said.
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The plane they fly is equipped to hear distress radio beacons sent by emergency transponders carried on both boats and airplanes.

The Brunswick members are continuing a tradition begun in 1942, when civilian fliers based at the McKinnon-St. Simons Island Airport flew regular sorties in search of German U-boats off the Georgia coast. Jones, the unit’s historian, said the St. Simons Island base was the sixth formed in the nation. Today, CAP operates as the auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force.

As they fly 120 mph at an altitude of 1,000 feet with at least three sets of eyes on board, there isn’t much these pilots don’t see. A brush fire burning on Sapelo Island, beachcombers walking a sandbar and fishermen at anchor in out-of-the-way creeks are all in an hour’s flight.

Cozine joined CAP six years ago, and he’s as gung-ho about the mission today as he was then.

“The reason was because I love flying and then it kind of got to be the good that we could potentially do,” he said. “That’s the part that keeps me doing it.”

While not all members are pilots, all can be trained to fly missions in back-up roles. Typically, a patrol crew will include a scanner, an observer and the pilot.

“We have 26 members. The youngest is 32 and the oldest is late 70s or early 80s,” Cozine said.

Members train constantly for their mission, even when flying the sundown patrol. And while it’s flying with a very serious purpose, it’s also still flying and all that that implies.

“When I come to the airport everything that has bothered me the whole day goes away,” Cozine said. “Your mind clears out and all your thoughts are about flying.”