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Throwback Thursday with 1st Lt Roger Aylstock

October 1, 2020

Welcome to our eight installment of our Throwback Thursday feature. If this is your first time vising our Throwback Thursday feature, be sure to check out the others by clicking the Throwback Thursday link in the “Categories” section to the right.

Today we feature 1st Lt Roger Aylstock in pictures from just a few years ago. 1st Lt Aylstock is TX-435 Squadron's Information Technology Officer and Public Affairs Officer.

Roger joined CAP when he was 12. He grew up near Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in Fairborn (Dayton), Ohio and joined the squadron on base there. 1st Lt Aylstock rose through the ranks and ended up as Cadet Commander with the rank of C/Capt. The image below is of him receiving the Amelia Earhart Award from the WPFAB Base Commander. Because of his receiving the Amelia Earhart award as a cadet, that made him eligible for the rank of First Lieutenant as a senior member.

 

1st Lt Aylstock as a brand new cadet in CAP.

 

1st Lt Aylstock as a C/MSgt

 

WPAFB had an airshow each year. One of the duties that was available for the CAP squadron was to help man the photo booth that was setup to take pictures of kids in a T-33. The CAP cadets would help the kids in and out of the cockpit. Here is 1st Lt Aylstock helping at the airshow.

Here is then C/1st Lt Aylstock at his squadron commander’s desk. What is that strange black contraption on the desk?

His local CAP squadron was where 1st Lt Aylstock was first exposed to general aviation and gained a love of flying. “In the summer, we would go out to the flight line on Saturdays and wash the CAP plane (a Piper J-3 Cub). The senior members would then load one of us into the front seat of the J-3 for a trip or two around the pattern”, said 1st Lt Aylstock.

1st Lt Aylstock was also selected to travel to Cape Kennedy, Florida twice with members of his squadron. The first trip was on a C-119 “Flying Boxcar” cargo plane. The second flight was to watch the liftoff of Apollo 13. That flight was interesting as it was aboard the KC-135 that housed a Apollo Command Module and would take astronauts for zero-g weightless training flights.

1st Lt Aylstock was also award a flight scholarship through CAP that paid for private pilot flight lessons through his solo flight. He soloed in a Cessna 150 at 7.9 hours and totaled 9.2 hours before he ran out of money and could not continue his flight lessons. 1st Lt Aylstock said, “Not finishing my Private Pilot’s License (PPL) was one of my biggest regrets. There wasn’t much of a support system back then. I wondered how different my life would have been if I had access to the large number YouTube videos from pilots and instructors encouraging student pilots and the current Senior members so willing to help student pilots.”

 In 2018, 1st Lt Aylstock came across his original logbook and with his wife’s encouragement, decided to fulfill a life-long “bucket list” item and started working on his PPL. He passed his PPL checkride September 10, 2019 and recently passed his CAP Form 5 checkride and is a CAP VFR pilot. He is working towards becoming a Transport Mission Pilot, Mission Pilot and finally Orientation Pilot. “My goal would be to be able to provide orientation rides to cadets and expose them to the flying possibilities open to them and maybe provide a little payback for the Senior members that took the time to take me flying. Cadets now have so many interesting opportunities in Civil Air Patrol”, said 1st Lt Aylstock.

 

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