Late February and the first week of March found me on the road with six speeches—plus testimony on Capitol Hill—over a span of 10 days, including two weekends. All of this is made worthwhile by the opportunity to meet with members, better understand how AOPA can assist them with their flying, and help to solve problems confronting pilots in specific regions of the country.
My first event was one that I have attended for the past 10 years. The Northwest Aviation Conference and Trade Show, held in the Seattle area, has an attendance of more than 15,000 pilots annually. What I like most are the discussions I have with individual pilots as I roam the exhibit area or after a speech.
Naturally, there were many asking a recurring question that I encountered throughout the trip: Who does AOPA endorse for president in the upcoming election? Historically, AOPA has never endorsed a candidate, realizing that there is much more to this decision than just a candidate’s view of general aviation. And, we have fared equally well with either party in the White House. In recent years, however, your association has published endorsements for Senate and House candidates. As a new initiative this year, after the party conventions, AOPA Legislative Affairs will send the final candidates a list of questions relative to their views on general aviation: funding, user fees, airports, etc. Their answers will be published in the October issue of AOPA Pilot and online at www.aopa.org.
Between conversations like this, I did have time to visit the robust exhibit area, and couldn’t resist the temptation to buy a new Garmin 295 handheld GPS (see " Pilot Products: Garmin GPSMAP 295"). Now I own two handheld GPSs—as do about 25 percent of the pilots that I surveyed the following week.
A hearing before the House aviation subcommittee, scheduled at the last minute, required my return to Washington, D.C., to provide testimony on your behalf for taking the aviation trust fund "off budget" and for continuing a general fund contribution. In what needed to be a hasty departure from Washington’s Reagan National Airport to make a scheduled AOPA Pilot Town Meeting (PTM) in Salt Lake City, I encountered something many of you have discussed with me. No flight plan was in the system, even though it had been filed by telephone with flight service 30 minutes earlier. This occurred twice during the trip, and it reinforces the work that your association’s air traffic staff is doing to get to the reasons for this inconvenience. When this happens to you, drop us an e-mail or note stating the time and station you filed with, so we can check out the specifics.
More than 325 pilots attended our meeting in Salt Lake City. Their big concern was the redesign of Class B airspace. Local users and AOPA have been working this issue. With mountains to the east and unique geography in the area, GA pilots need room to maneuver under, over, and outside this airspace. We see no reason that the ceiling needs to be raised from 10,000 to 12,500 feet, and confirmed that a majority of our members share this opinion.
After the Salt Lake City meeting, I moved on to PTMs in San Jose and Concord, California. The FBO at San Jose International treated us—and the AOPA corporate aircraft—like a Cessna 152 at a bizjet convention. For years your association has been concerned about the growth of this air-carrier airport at the expense of general aviation. That’s why our continuing battle to ensure a future for Reid-Hillview Airport has been so important. T-hangars have been dismantled at the south end of San Jose International, making room for a jet blast fence, and it’s obvious that the Silicon Valley crowd has supplanted traditional GA with what appears to be nothing smaller than Gulfstream Vs.
The Montana Aviation Conference is held annually, and this year record high temperatures provided shirt-sleeve weather for some 600 pilots who attended. I was impressed by the number of families in attendance. The Hansons have three children, two girls and a boy. All are in aviation, and the oldest two already have their private certificates. Courtney Hanson will be 16 shortly and has been taking lessons in preparation for her first solo on her birthday. A few weeks ago, in a Cessna 150, her instructor pulled back the power on takeoff to demonstrate an emergency. Unfortunately, nothing was there when he went to add power for the climb. A successful off-airport landing in a plowed field produced no injuries, but Courtney, looking at the damaged 150, asked if this meant she wouldn’t be able to take her scheduled lesson the next day.
Sunday evening, I found myself in Fargo at the Upper Midwest Aviation Symposium organized annually by the North Dakota Aviation Council. Once again, the pilot attendance was outstanding, and after my speech another common question came up from a nonmember (I hope I changed that) about his medical and the recent heart-bypass operation grounding him. I explained the checklist that our AOPA medical department has produced to organize all the tests and submissions, and make sure that they go to the FAA for the special-issuance certification. Besides being able to get valuable information on AOPA Online, I encouraged him to call our aviation specialists to assist in making sure his application was being processed in a timely manner in Oklahoma City.
Throughout the trip, AOPA members were proudly wearing the 25-, 30-, 40-, and 50-year recognition pins that we sent at the end of last year. Shame on us for not recognizing earlier those who have supported us for so long.
Over the week and a half, I had the opportunity to better understand what your association is doing right, and what we can do better. Most important, however, I had another chance to put faces, names, and experiences to some of AOPA’s more than 355,000 members.
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