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Aerial Ballet with Reapers: Texas Wing’s Skies of Satire

In an unprecedented display of modern aerial choreography, aircraft and flight crews from the Texas Wing have tapped their finest performance skills to assist the Texas Air National Guard in what can only be described as a mesmerizing routine of flood recovery operations. Their pièce de résistance? Escorting the ever-dramatic MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles as they prance across the Texan skylines.

The Federal Aviation Administration, ever the stickler for detail, insists that these avant-garde pieces of flying art come with their own entourage—a ground-based or airborne observer—to compensate for the bird-watching limitations on the Reapers’ low-budget cameras. Cue the Civil Air Patrol, stepping in with the enthusiasm of a theater troupe performing for their biggest crowd yet.

As the curtain rises at Ellington Field, the Reapers, with all the grace of mechanical ballet dancers, take off and sashay to an operating area 45 miles off the Texas coast. There, their CAP guardians flutter around, desperately squinting so as not to mistake a seagull for a 747.

Once reaching the dizzying heights of 18,000 feet, the Reapers pirouette towards the Hill Country of central Texas, tracing the contours of the Guadalupe River. Their cameras, a veritable trifecta of technological prowess, capture intriguing glimpses of wayward debris piles and other artistic compositions below. These frames are dutifully relayed to the ground command post, which swoons over the imagery like patrons at an art gallery, deciding whether to send in the critics (or rescue teams) for a closer look.

The Reaper, after an exhaustive day of showmanship, waltzes back to the ocean, rejoins with its CAP partners, and bows graciously upon return to Ellington.

In this week-long gala from July 5-12, Civil Air Patrol graced the skies in 13 sorties, proving that not only is their aerial prowess striking, but their cost efficiency is a hit at merely $1,900. With an encore expected through July 16, the Texas Wing aircrews aim to complete a round 20 sorties, critiqued by Maj. Wally Zane, director of chase operations, who confidently boasts, “We are the only current, proficient, ongoing chase program in all of Civil Air Patrol. Our members volunteer from six in the morning until late at night, driven by nothing but the sheer thrill of the sky-dance.”

As the U.S. Air Force auxiliary and esteemed partner, CAP plays its part gloriously in helping First Air Force strike a note against nonmilitary threats and providing humanitarian assistance with the flair of a well-rehearsed opera. This noble cause is executed by CAP teams across Texas, whose well-trained aerial reconnaissance and search-and-rescue talents extend both above the clouds and firmly on the ground.

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