The Oregon Trail Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution honored La Center resident Jadon Santarpio with its National Defense Silver Outstanding Cadet Medal on July 17 at the Portland Air National Guard Base.
Santiarpo said the award was both humbling and unexpected.
“It was quite the honor, and I’m proud to have it,” he said. “I wasn’t actively going out trying to achieve the award. I was just trying to do a good job and be a good cadet commander for the squadron.”
Santarpio is a second Lieutenant in the Columbia Composite Squadron of the Oregon wing of the Civil Air Patrol, a U.S. Air Force auxiliary. With that ranking, Santarpio is in the top 15% of Civil Air Patrol cadets. He has earned nine promotions in his five and a half years with the Civil Air Patrol. In his current position, he runs the youth side of the program for the Columbia Composite Squadron, currently made up of 38 youth cadets and 34 adults.
While running the youth side of the program, Santarpio recently led an aerospace activity, which he included in his top three favorite moments of being a member of the Civil Air Patrol’s cadet program.
“I led an aerospace activity, and just to see how happy the cadets are and how much fun they had, that was really encouraging,” Santarpio said. “We built Magnus effect gliders. So, if you take a sphere or a cylinder and you spin it backwards, it’ll have the characteristics to generate lift. And so we basically built a glider that uses that backwards rotational effect.”
Santarpio said the Magnus effect is similar to baseball pitchers and soccer players putting spin on a ball to make the flight path less predictable.
Santarpio has also recently achieved his pilot’s license at the Cascade Air Flight training program in Kelso. He explained that he is eyeing a future in the aviation industry, especially with the growing need for commercial airline pilots.
“They’re desperate for anything aviation. So maintenance, manufacturing, dispatch, air traffic control, they all need these roles to be filled, but I definitely am aiming towards pilot,” Santarpio said, adding that joining the military is also an option.
Santarpio said he would need 1,500 flight hours to get an airline transport pilot certificate, which would allow him to fly the larger aircraft used by cargo and passenger airlines.
“So, 1,500 hours is not easy to get because flying, technically, is very expensive,” he said. “So right now, my next step would be to get my instrument rating, which allows me to fly solely based on the aircraft instruments in the cockpit. Right now I have a V.F.R. rating, which is visual flight rules. It means that I can only fly in certain weather conditions [because] I have to be able to see outside.”
After achieving his instrument rating, Santarpio’s next step would be to pursue a commercial rating, allowing him to be paid. To achieve that rating, he would need an additional 250 flight hours, which equates to a time equal to 10.417 days at the helm of an aircraft.
Santarpio said he would also like to become a flight instructor to accumulate 1,000-1,500 flight hours. He added that certain college degrees can shorten the required flight hours to become a commercial pilot. Santarpio was recently awarded a Cadet Wings scholarship by the Civil Air Patrol, which will help offset the cost of his aviation education, as well.
Along with his aviation life and cadet officer duties, Santarpio is currently training and serving on the Color Guard for the Columbia Squadron.
“He is one of a very few cadets who trains once a month with the Honor Guard at the PANG base,” according to an Oregon Civil Air Patrol release. “He marched in the Portland Hollywood District Veterans Parade in November as a member of the Columbia Color Guard, and in May helped retire a U.S. Flag at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park near the Oregon Zoo.”
Santarpio recommends interested youth join the Civil Air Patrol cadets path at age 12. The program teaches and opens up more opportunities than just aviation, he said.
“Well, I’ve grown exponentially leadership wise, and being given the responsibility of cadet commander has definitely pushed me in ways that I could never have imagined,” Santarpio said. “When you’re 12, you’re not necessarily sure what you want to do, but also with Civil Air Patrol, you get out of Civil Air Patrol what you put into Civil Air Patrol. So if you’re active in the squadron, if you’re going to outside-of-squadron activities, if you’re doing community service and you’re promoting that, that all adds up.”
