Civil Air Patrol commander teaches search-and-rescue flying

At the controls of a Cessna Skylane four-seater near North Bend on Saturday morning, Long Nguyen held steady at 2,500 feet and headed straight toward the sheer face of Mount Si.

The view through the windshield was conifer trees and rock. Above, clouds scudded across and obscured the summit of the mountain.

Just a thousand feet from the wall ahead, Nguyen angled the plane sideways to follow the contours of the mountain and passed directly over the summit of Little Si.

In a state where aviation is a passion usually acquired through making planes at Boeing, flying jets from McChord Air Force Base or flying Navy planes out of the Whidbey Island station, Nguyen enjoys one of the purest forms of flying.

He's a lieutenant colonel and commander of the Seattle squadron of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a civilian, volunteer auxiliary unit of the Air Force.

His main role is teaching mountain flying for CAP search-and-rescue missions. Saturday's flight, with his deputy Capt. Brian King in the co-pilot seat, was a routine training mission to maintain proficiency.

All tech-ed out

Before takeoff from Boeing Field, Nguyen whipped out his iPhone and used the aviationweather.gov app to check the cloud cover and precipitation on the route ahead, as well as the wind speed and direction both at the airfield and the destination.

"Modern technology is awesome," said Nguyen.

Still, flying along mountain valleys with walls of rock left and right, ready to skim down to within 500 feet of the treetops if something is sighted, is a skill Nguyen doesn't take for granted.

"Flying searches is dangerous," he said. "It's the most dangerous flying. But also the most rewarding."

CAP airplanes are fitted with modern Garmin 1000 flight displays, featuring a big moving map GPS display that tracks other planes in the vicinity as well as mapping the terrain. But a mountain search pilot had better not rely on iPhones, GPS and flight instruments alone.

"The problem is, the mountain is still going to be there," said Nguyen. "If your head is inside the cockpit, eventually you are going to hit something. You need to read the mountain."

Beside him, King's role is to be co-pilot and observer on a search. On a real search mission, a third person in one of the back seats would provide an extra set of eyes.

Nguyen's role as pilot is solely to fly the plane safely where it needs to go, precisely crisscrossing an assigned quadrant 5 miles wide and 7.5 miles long.

Reading the mountain also means reading the clouds above, the water below and even the leaves on the trees. All may give the pilot clues as to the strength and direction of the wind and the proximity of updrafts and downdrafts of air that can create sudden turbulence and throw a light plane off course.

Streaks along the surface of Hanson Reservoir below or the movement and curvature of those clouds scudding the summit tell Nguyen how the wind is shifting. And flying over poplars or other leafy trees, he may see how the air is traveling over the slope.

"If the leaves are silver and flipped upside down, it shows the wind is blowing up the hill," he said.

Toward the end of the training mission, Nguyen switched to the radio frequency that receives signals from an emergency locator beacon, or rather a frequency used for practice emergencies. A colleague had placed a beacon somewhere in their quadrant, and Nguyen had to find it.

As the plane flew past the location of the beacon, a repetitive sound like some video-game shootout throbbed through the cockpit. Nguyen wheeled the Cessna in tight turns, circling to pinpoint the precise location, until he was satisfied he had it: a shopping mall in North Bend.

After that, he squawked "RTB" to his co-pilot: Return to base, at Boeing Field.

Joining the squadron

It was the Civil Air Patrol that taught Nguyen to fly. In addition to its search-and-rescue role, the CAP charter requires that it provide general aerospace education and also cadet training for teenagers.

The Seattle Squadron has 22 teenage cadets as well as 82 volunteer adults. Some of the pilots have years of experience. Others have 100 hours.

All have day jobs. King, 37 and originally from Ireland, is a Microsoft program manager for the software maker's educational products unit.

Now 43, Ngyuen attended Seattle Public Schools and went to intensive CAP flight summer camps as a boy. He first flew solo at 16.

Just seven years earlier, in 1975, he had arrived in the U.S. days after the fall of Saigon.

Because his father had worked for U.S. forces, helping to find soldiers and airmen missing in action, his whole family was evacuated. They were among the first wave of Vietnamese refugees to come to Washington that summer.

Today, he spends his weekends training his squadron. His day job is a freelance mix: He flies private planes for several wealthy families who need a pilot to ferry them to the San Juans or up and down the coast; he gives regular flying lessons and teaches mountain flying; as a volunteer, he gives aviation safety classes.

In his spare time, he takes aerial photos and has self-published two books of his work: "Wings over Seattle" and "Wings over Washington."

That mix means he flies pretty much every single day, mostly from Boeing Field and in a great variety of aircraft. For one client, he flies a powerful Cessna Citation CJ3 business jet and also a Beaver seaplane.

"In one day, I can be jumping into three or four different airplanes," said Nguyen.

"And I come out laughing, because I'm having fun flying."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

The information in this article, originally published August 16, 2009, was corrected. Brian King is the co-pilot of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) flight. King is both a captain in the CAP Seattle Squadron and director of program management in Microsoft's educational products division. An incorrect last name was given in one version of the article.