It was about 1981 or ’82, and I had owned my 1964 Mooney for a couple of years. Keen for any excuse to fly, I volunteered to pick up a couple of workmates at Norfolk International Airport (ORF) and ferry them back for a business meeting in Richmond.
Over the past couple years, there have been several high-profile midair collisions. An airshow accident in Dallas, a traffic pattern crash in Denver, a collision in Arizona, and a Blackhawk and CRJ collision in Washington, D.C., among others. While the average number of these accidents per year hasn’t gone up despite how it may seem, this heightened awareness of midairs is an opportunity to examine how we can avoid them.
From student pilot ID requirements to ATP test requirements and everything in between, AOPA is deeply committed to making it easier, safer, and less expensive to become a pilot.