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Monday, May 23, 2005

Volunteers are our eyes in the skies

By MARK I. JOHNSON | News-Journal Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH — Sitting at the end of the asphalt runway on a recent Saturday morning, Mike Renuart revs the engine of his four-seat Cessna 182 as voices crackle in his headphones.

As Renuart breaks the static to announce his takeoff, the propeller bites the air and the aircraft surges forward. A few seconds later the plane leaps into the air.

Once airborne, one can understand why this 64-year-old Spruce Creek Fly-In resident loves to fly.

For the next two hours, Renuart and his co-pilot, Billy Enfinger of Orlando, cruise through the calm air on their way to Jacksonville as sunlight sparkles off the waves below.

They are call sign “Coast Guard 42705,” members of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary aviation program.

These unpaid volunteers frequently spend their daylight hours, and sometimes their nights, flying over the coast on the lookout for possible terrorist threats, illegal activity or an endangered boater.

“This gives me a chance to do something for my country. If I weren’t flying for the Coast Guard, I probably would volunteer somewhere else,” Renuart said.

A grandfather of three, as well as the father of a 17-year-old daughter from a second marriage, Renuart has been enamoured with aviation since he was a boy.

“My first airplane ride was as a Cub Scout when I was about 10,” he said. “It was a promotional flight with Eastern Airlines. After that, I said I have to do this.”

Unfortunately, his first attempt to soar almost grounded him for good.

Renuart joined the U.S. Navy in 1958 with the hope of becoming a pilot, but he was told his glasses disqualified him. So he spent the next four years as an aviation electronics technician and radar operator.

It wasn’t until 10 years later that his dreams of flight took off.

The stocky former competitive water skier was working at IBM and had a side business selling sporting goods when he got a chance to become an aviator, or at least an airplane owner.

A business partner suggested the pair buy a plane so they could expand their sales territory.

“I owned an airplane before I learned how to fly it,” Renuart said. “That was a Grumman American Traveler.”

While his friend flew, Renuart would work the radio. When asked why he didn’t fly himself, Renuart echoed what he heard in the Navy. He soon learned that did not apply in the civilian world and got his license.

That was about 32 years ago. He has since received ratings in multiengine; instrument flight, commercial and as a flight instructor.

Today, he puts that experience to work for his country.

He and his 250 fellow auxiliary pilots and aircrews spend thousands of hours flying over the Coast Guard’s 7th District from the Carolinas to the Caribbean.

While they are unpaid, aircraft owners do receive a portion of their fuel and maintenance in exchange for the use of their airplanes.

Coast Guard Lt. Chris Howard calls the missions invaluable.

“They help us pick up the slack,” said Howard, the auxiliary liaison for Air Station Savannah, which coordinates the volunteer air operations from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Melbourne.

But the auxiliary is no glorified flying club, he said. Members provide resources that, otherwise, might not be available, such as playing the role of an enemy aircraft trying to penetrate coastal defenses or helping to test a new satellite tracking system for ships making their way to American ports.

Maybe something as simple as flying a needed part or person from one base to another.

Most of the missions are like Saturday’s excursion — routine. Below, pleasure boats leave white wakes in the waves. Over the Port of Jacksonville, the plane flies past the USS aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy resting at its dock at Naval Station Mayport about 2,000 feet below.

Renuart follows the serpentine St. Johns River as Enfinger keeps a watchful eye for a wayward boater, an errant aircraft or a suspicious motorist in a place he does not belong.

Soon the wing dips in a sweeping turn to retrace their steps, back to the Atlantic and on home.

Sometimes there is more activity, a search for a missing airplane or checking out an overturned boat.

“We do about two or three of those (search-and-rescue calls) a year,” Renuart said.

“When we are flying, we are under Coast Guard orders and this is a military aircraft,” he said, which explains the military-green flight suit he proudly wears, an American flag on the shoulder.

In addition to his flight duties, Renuart is the 7th District’s senior flight examiner, responsible for ensuring auxiliary pilots remain current on their certifications.

“Mike has done more for aviation in the 7th District than anyone else,” said Enfinger, head of auxiliary aviation for the district. “Mike does this full time.”

Renuart estimates he spends half of his annual 200 flight hours behind the yoke for the Coast Guard. And that does not include the hundreds of hours on the ground he puts in helping to plan training programs, performing administrative tasks or attending meetings.

It is a duty he enjoys.

“With as much shoreline as we have in the United States, it takes everyone’s help to ensure an appropriate level of security,” he said.

Did You Know?

The Coast Guard Auxiliary, a volunteer civilian group, was spun off from the Coast Guard Reserve, a paid military organization, during World War II. The auxiliary operated primarily as a coastal patrol and port security organization.

Airplanes joined the auxiliary informally during the war, with the first mention of a pilot in 1943.

Public Law 451, passed by Congress in September 1945, added owners of aircraft and radio stations to the list of those eligible for membership in the auxiliary. Auxiliary aviators were particularly welcome in the late 1940s because the Coast Guard had lost most of its regular aviation component to postwar cutbacks.

Several auxiliary districts had air flotillas flying search-and-rescue missions by 1950.

Compiled by News Researcher Peggy Ellis

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