Have Something Worth Saying?
The CAP Roundel is looking for contributors who have ideas, experience, and perspectives worth sharing with the Civil Air Patrol community.
Modeled on professional military journals such as the Marine Corps Gazette, Field Artillery Journal, and Proceedings, our goal is to provide a place where CAP members can examine meaningful issues, share what they’ve learned, question established practices, and propose ways to improve the organization.
We’re interested in people who think seriously about CAP: how it operates, how it develops its members, how it accomplishes its missions, and where it ought to be going.
You don’t have to be a commander, a senior officer, or an accomplished writer. Good ideas can come from anywhere in the organization.
What We’re Looking For
We welcome substantive articles addressing any aspect of Civil Air Patrol’s missions, programs, leadership, and operations. Some examples include:
- Analysis and Commentary: Thoughtful examinations of CAP policies, programs, practices, organizational trends, and emerging issues.
- Proposals for Improvement: Well-reasoned recommendations for changing how we train, organize, lead, manage, and accomplish our missions.
- Lessons Learned: Experiences from missions, activities, training, and organizational initiatives that offer useful lessons for others.
- Best Practices: Effective methods, techniques, and approaches that other members or units could adopt.
- Leadership and Professional Development: Perspectives on command, leadership, volunteer management, recruiting, engagement, training, and organizational effectiveness.
- Emerging Challenges and Opportunities: Developments in aviation, emergency services, aerospace education, technology, and society that may affect CAP’s future.
- Professional Debate: Responses to previously published articles, alternative perspectives, and constructive challenges to conventional wisdom.
We’re particularly interested in ideas that may not fit comfortably within CAP’s official channels. Some proposals aren’t ready for implementation. Others may challenge longstanding practices or recommend changes that aren’t especially popular.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth discussing.
Professional journals have long provided a place where such ideas can be examined on their merits, without requiring approval through the chain of command before the discussion can begin.
What Makes a Good Article?
We’re looking for thoughtful, substantive contributions, not news reports, publicity pieces, or complaints without constructive purpose.
A good article should give readers something useful to consider. It might explain why a particular practice works, examine a problem from a different perspective, identify an emerging challenge, or make a convincing argument for change.
We encourage authors to:
- Make a clear point and support it with reasoning, evidence, or relevant experience.
- Explain why the subject matters to CAP and its members.
- Offer useful conclusions, recommendations, or lessons.
- Address differing perspectives fairly.
- Write clearly and directly, without unnecessary jargon or academic formality.
We don’t expect every article to propose a solution, and we certainly don’t expect everyone to agree. Reasoned disagreement is part of professional discussion.
Our standard is straightforward: Strive to educate, not impress.
Article Length and Format
We’re primarily interested in long-form articles that examine a subject in some depth, rather than brief news items or blog posts.
As a general guideline, we’re looking for articles of approximately 1,000–2,500 words, although shorter or longer submissions are welcome when the subject warrants them.
Articles should be written for an informed CAP audience, but should not assume that every reader has specialized knowledge of the subject.
References and supporting information are encouraged where appropriate, particularly when making factual claims or proposing significant changes. Formal academic citation styles are not required.
You Don’t Have to Be a Professional Writer
Some of the most valuable knowledge in CAP comes from members who have spent years doing the work, solving problems, and developing effective practices—but who may never have considered writing an article about their experiences.
We want to hear from those people.
If you have an idea but aren’t sure how to develop it into an article, get in touch. We’re happy to discuss proposals, review outlines, and work with prospective authors to develop worthwhile material.
A short description of your idea is a perfectly good starting point.
Editorial Review
The CAP Roundel is an independent, professionally oriented publication. Submissions will be reviewed for relevance, clarity, accuracy, substance, and professional standards.
We welcome criticism of policies, practices, and organizational decisions, including arguments that challenge established positions. We do not publish personal attacks, unsupported accusations, or material intended simply to provoke controversy.
Editorial review is intended to help authors communicate their ideas effectively, not to require agreement with a particular organizational viewpoint.
Acceptance and publication are subject to editorial discretion. Authors may be asked to clarify, revise, or support portions of their submissions before publication.
How to Contribute
We’re currently seeking articles and article proposals for our initial publication and future issues.
If you have a completed article, an outline, or simply an idea you’d like to explore, please contact us through our Contact page.
Tell us briefly what you’d like to write about, why you think it matters, and what other CAP members might learn from it.
We also welcome recommendations of people whose experience or ideas deserve a wider audience.
Help Build a Professional Resource for CAP
Civil Air Patrol has decades of accumulated experience among its members, but too much of that knowledge remains confined to individual units, activities, and personal networks.
The CAP Roundel exists to make that experience and those ideas available to the broader membership.
Not every article will interest every reader. That’s fine. If an article helps another member solve a problem, reconsider an assumption, improve a program, or develop a better understanding of CAP, it has served a useful purpose.
If you have something worth sharing, we’d like to hear from you.