Member Benefits
Flying the Soldier
Paratroopers tend to regard airplanes as good for takeoffs only. So it was no surprise that Sgt. Joshua Ben, a youthful, former cavalry scout in the 82nd Airborne Division, cast a wary eye on AOPA’s 2009 Sweepstakes Let’s Go Flying SR22 before boarding it at Florida’s Orlando Executive Airport. Ben, 22, an Afghanistan combat veteran, won a [...]
Home again in the sweeps SR22
The Let’s Go Flying SR22 is tucked back in its hangar at Frederick, Md., after a coast-to-coast-to-coast journey that showed general aviation’s exciting new possibilities from the Chesapeake Bay to the Golden Gate and back again. The two-week odyssey spanned the Appalachians, Great Lakes, Northern Plains, Rocky, Wasatch, and Sierra-Nevada, scorching Southwest and soggy Southeast. The [...]
Peeing in airplanes
Airplane designers have gone to extreme lengths over the last 100 years to make airplanes fly faster, farther, and more efficiently. We’re now blessed with general aviation airframes capable of flying four or five hours or more at a stretch – far beyond the bladder capacity of most pilots and passengers. Do the designers mean for [...]
On to California
Four takeoffs, four landings, 16 flight hours, and about 210 gallons of avgas. Some aspects of general aviation flying are easy to quantify, but the 2009 AOPA Sweepstakes Let’s Go Flying SR22’s trip from Frederick, Maryland, to Watsonville, California, like any air journey, is much more than the numbers in a logbook entry. The modern, GA airplane’s [...]
A real cross-country flight
Pilots tend to revert to regulatory definitions—even when the terms we’re using are perfectly descriptive. This week, for example, the AOPA 2009 Sweepstakes Let’s Go Flying SR22 is going on a cross-country flight. Most pilots take that to mean 50 miles, the minimum distance required to meet the FAA cross-country definition. But [...]
Let’s Go Flying SR22 gets AmSafe airbag seatbelts
Pilots have long been known to harbor an incongruous mix of fatalism and optimism. We’re fatalists in the sense that we know aircraft accidents will happen. We’re optimists because we believe they won’t happen to us. Consider the case of airbags for airplanes. Even though seatbelt-mounted air bags have become standard equipment in many new airplanes—including new Cirrus [...]
The AOPA 2009 Let’s Go Flying SR22 draws a crowd
We expected enthusiasm. We expected sarcasm. And AOPA’s 2009 Let’s Go Flying Sweepstakes SR22 drew both during six days of nonstop attention at the annual Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In at Lakeland, Fla. Enthusiasm among AOPA members was obvious. The 2005 Cirrus SR22-G2 is the most technologically advanced, highest performance, and highest value aircraft AOPA has ever offered [...]
Launch of an all new sweepstakes
As pilots we understand the complex tapestry of emotions associated with guiding an airplane through the skies and safely back to a gentle landing—the romance, challenge, and utility of aviation. Over the past 15 years we’ve touched on them all with our annual sweepstakes project airplanes. Who doesn’t understand the romance of skimming over the [...]
Now with WAAS on board
When we at AOPA said we weren’t going to refurbish the 2009 “Let’s Go Flying” Sweepstakes SR22, we didn’t say we wouldn’t upgrade it. So, not being able to leave well enough alone, we brought the plane to Penn Avionics at Brandywine Airport in Pennsylvania in November and asked them for a [...]
2009 ‘Let’s Go Flying’ Sweepstakes Cirrus SR22 kicks off
There are no bad years to take part in AOPA’s annual sweepstakes–but this is an especially good year because the prize is simply extraordinary. The 2009 Let’s Go Flying Cirrus SR22 that some lucky person will win in 2010 brings stunning performance and unprecedented safety and utility to general aviation. All AOPA [...]
The Let’s Go Flying Cirrus SR22 will crisscross North America in 2009 |
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| June 27-28 | Greenbrier Valley Airport | Lewisburg, W.Va. |
| July 27-Aug. 2 | AirVenture Oshkosh | Oshkosh, Wisc. |
| Nov. 5-7 | AOPA Aviation Summit | Tampa, Fla. |
| Future events will be added to this schedule as information becomes available. | ||
