Civilian Pilots Provide Target Practice

"I said, 'Can you assure me I won't be shot down?' " the Vienna resident laughed.

Kylie McDonald, 35, has been flying the missions for two years. The Centreville resident grew up in a military family and always felt the tug of national service.

"Now I'm getting a similar opportunity, even though I'm a civilian," said McDonald, who works for a company that provides aviation services.

Outside the room, in a pressed navy-blue uniform, sat Jane Davies, 52, of Springfield, who joined the Civil Air Patrol in 1969 as a "Star Trek"-obsessed teenager. She is commander of the patrol's D.C. area branch, or wing, which includes more than 200 adult volunteers and nearly 300 cadets under age 21.

Only a small group of them are allowed to fly the Civil Air Patrol's red-white-and-blue Cessnas, Davies explained. Other patrol members are trained in activities such as hunting for vanished planes or handing out relief supplies after floods or hurricanes. For decades, the roughly 56,000 members nationwide have helped out the Air Force or local governments with such tasks.

Now they are back doing homeland security -- "exactly what we did 65 years ago," Davies said, referring to the founding of the Civil Air Patrol by aviation enthusiasts at the dawn of World War II.

Nationally, the patrol takes part in a variety of anti-terror activities. Some pilots periodically snap aerial photographs of sensitive sites such as nuclear plants or dams for the government. Sometimes patrol members are asked to fly military officers or government officials over certain areas.

"We're not necessarily made privy to what they're looking at," said Rick Greenhut, head of homeland security for the patrol. "We're kind of the bus driver."

Perhaps the most exciting missions, though, are the exercises known as Falcon Virgo, which take place over cities such as New York and Washington. They are directed by officials from the 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, who coordinate air defense for the continental United States.

Details of the Falcon Virgo exercises are often secret.

"They ask us not to discuss it, for everyone's safety," McDonald said. The volunteer pilot simply informs friends she's "on a special mission for homeland security."

But this much is known: The exercises test Washington's air-defense radar system and the aircraft that might have to confront an intruder. Those include the Air Force jets that fly continuously over the capital, planes that scramble from Andrews Air Force base and Coast Guard helicopters.