OSHKOSH, WI – Following completion of his training, C/SMSgt Michael Vriezen flew N98887 on a cross country ferry flight with Flight Instructor Capt John Thompson, returning the aircraft to its home base in Madison. 

C/SMSgt Vriezen completed a week’s training program thru Civil Air Patrol (CAP) at Whittman Airport, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he learned to fly.  He was one of seventeen student pilots at the flight academy and took instruction from Flight Instructor Lt Col Lavern Syring. 

Ground and flight instruction with certified flight instructors for the past week prepared the student pilots to take the controls of the aircraft and fly by themselves for their first solo flight.  Weather was a large factor in flight training the past week, preventing several students, including Vriezen, from flying each day as planned.

Vriezen is the son of David and LuAnn Vriezen of Waterloo, Wisconsin and has been in Civil Air Patrol, the official Auxiliary of the United States Air Force, for several years.  He and his father, Capt David Vriezen, are members of the 153rd Madison Composite Squadron where he is Basic Flight Commander in the Cadet Squadron.

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