By Yonah Lempert Luecken 

Special to the Homer Independent Press

The Homer Civil Air Patrol Cadets completed a Drone Academy June 25 through 28 at the Homer Airport. The Drone Academy was an intensive four days of training, with cadets earning professional grade certifications for drone pilots and technicians. 

Senior member Adam Greenwald, one of the adults who supervises the CAP Homer Cadet Squadron, said, “Our cadets . . . after this drone academy, have taken the first step toward becoming qualified to participate in real Air Force auxiliary operations, not just as a trainee sideline cadet part, [but] as a mission pilot.”

The CAP is the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. It started in 1941, as a national volunteer organization to assist with search and rescue missions, emergency services, aerospace education and disaster response. The cadet program was added in 1942. Youth from age 12 through 18 are eligible to join.

Cadets studied rules and technical specs for the first day and a half of the academy, as well as how to troubleshoot potential problems, before they were able to begin flying the drones.

“It was extremely well put together,” Greenwald said. “I was impressed with how well organized the whole training was.”

Before participating in the academy training, cadets had to complete five online Federal Emergency Management Authority courses. Greenwald said the courses were the same course they’d have to take to be volunteer firefighters.

“I took them in the military, same exact FEMA courses that these cadets had to take,” he said.

On the academy experience, Cadet Hugh Traugott said it started out as very rules intensive.

“And then we moved into more of the actual flying. A lot of regulations you had to learn . . . ’cause a lot of air traffic is right there. And, obviously, those drones that we have can go pretty high.”

The online training took a lot of work, Cadet Hadassah Vance said.

“But once you actually get the online learning and the hands on with the drones, so much fun,” Vance said. “And the instructors made it very easy to learn. They were very nice to you. Clear instructions, and it was just great to be a part of.”

Cadets learned how a search and rescue team flies a search pattern and how to analyze drone-taken images.

“You fly a pattern and it takes pictures at intervals across the pattern,” Greenwald said. “And then you download them, and it knits them all together, and you can have . . .  a huge, huge photo of an area, and you can run all those photos through software that will search for specific colors down to one pixel. So if there’s a person who is wearing red in the woods, you’ll find that red pixel.”

Having cadets with drone certification and experience expands what the Homer CAP is able to do. Greenwald explained, “Now that we’re getting into . . . the drone side of things, we’ll be able to play a heavier role in the search and rescue exercises that they do quarterly, and those are Air Force auxiliary missions.” The missions are run by the CAP Alaska Wing in Anchorage.

After the 7.1 magnitude earthquake of 2018 in Alaska, the CAP began concentrating on improving emergency communication systems so that CAP would be better able to assist if internet and cellular capabilities are lost statewide.

The Homer CAP Cadets are one of 12 Alaska squadrons that participated in a 2025 natural disaster simulation where high frequency radio use was used for communication. 

Greenwald explained that it is “. . . imperative that the outlying areas have the infrastructure to support Anchorage in the event that something like that happened. Homer is in a unique position to be able to communicate fairly easily with Kodiak, and even . . . to Juneau. So, Civil Air Patrol put a lot of focus on getting communications here. And the drone program will just further enhance our ability to participate in those exercises.”

Homer CAP cadets meet weekly, with meetings focusing on developing leadership skills, aerospace knowledge, physical fitness and character development. Cadets learn map reading, navigation, leadership skills, radio communications, how to be part of a search and rescue ground team and other skills.

“Now that they’ve got all these certifications, they’ll find that it’s gonna be a lot easier for them to do anything, anything in emergency response or public safety types of fields,” Greenwald said. 

The Homer squadron had been discontinued in the 1990s and was restarted about three years ago by CAP Lt. Col. Douglas Stark and Sandy Stark, along with Todd Martin and Andy Rothenberger, a teacher with the KPBSD Distance Education Program. 

Greenwald described the newly started program as “a highly valuable community asset.” He said, “It gives them such a great start in leadership and business, and maturity and everything else . . . There’s a ton of opportunities for getting training in all kinds of fields. And a lot of times, it gets paid for.  There’s financial aid for pretty much every part of civil patrol  for the cadets . . . from uniforms to pilot’s license.”

Cadets can participate as much or as little as they choose. 

“You can join and just hang out and do very little. Or you can join and learn a lot,” Greenwald said. “And get yourself a ton of education and training that you can use later.” 

One cadet in the Homer squadron is working on obtaining a pilot’s license.

The Homer Squadron is open to all local youth, and adults may join as senior members. Adults must complete a background check and an interview with the squadron commander. For more information, go to the CAP website.