Phil Boyer has served as president of AOPA since 1991.
This summer has been a bad time for the public's perception of general aviation. Newspapers, local stations and network prime-time news programs, and cable television have interspersed misinformation with an occasional fact about our passion for lightplane flying alongside their coverage of Congressman Gary Condit. Such coverage of aircraft accidents is not new, but when it's concentrated in such a short span of time, the public's perception about the safety of small planes continues to erode.
It all started with a series of three dead-stick landings on the highways of South Florida. Paraphrasing the headlines, planes were "falling from the skies." Next came the record-setting $480 million award against Cessna for an alleged seat track failure in a Cessna 185. Then, for two days in a row, retractable-gear aircraft had problems lowering the wheels — and this was news? For hours MSNBC, CNN, the Fox News Channel, and local stations showed the airplanes circling, as their pilots worked to diagnose the problem and to burn off fuel. As is the case with almost all landing-gear failures, both turned out to be nonevents, except for the insurance company of the Cessna 172RG whose one main gear did not deploy. The Beechcraft Duchess landed on all three wheels; the crisis had been caused by a faulty indicator — hardly worth calling in experts to comment for two hours while the aircraft circled.
If all this wasn't enough, the staff of ABC-TV's Primetime did a disservice to all pilots by making up their mind ahead of time about vacuum pump failures and failing to get all the facts. AOPA's Communications Division had been in touch with ABC and supplied the show with information. The producer told our staff the story was postponed for Gary Condit coverage and pledged that I would be interviewed during this delay. We gave them various dates, including my availability if needed during a weeklong personal vacation. To our surprise the story aired without our research, leaving the impression that all small planes might crash because of faulty vacuum pumps. In fact, 90 percent of GA flying is VFR, where a pump failure is not a factor. AOPA Online carried both pre- and post-Primetime coverage of our side of the story. Several of you read these comments and wrote letters to my former employer (I'm sorry to have to admit it) using facts from our AOPA Online rebuttal.
All of this reinforces the public's poor perception of general aviation safety. And when it gets real close to home and personal, I become most aware of just how deep-seated these perceptions are.
None of my three grown children ever had a desire to learn to fly. None of them grew up making a trip — short or long — without flying to the destination. We never went through a thunderstorm or ever had a really bad experience, so my premise is that it was just a way of life they took for granted. My hope has been in my children's children. When they get to fly with their grandparents it's not commonplace, as it was for their parents, and the special nature of flight seems to spawn a desire to pursue it when they come of age.
About a year ago, I met the 16-year-old schoolmate of my oldest daughter's son. Let's call him Scott. He was excited as could be about aviation and looked forward to learning to fly. Coming from a single-parent household, Scott worked several part-time jobs to earn the money for lessons at an airport some 35 miles from his home. His goal then, as it is today, was to get a college degree and pursue a career with the airlines. He's as focused, driven, and clean-cut as any high school senior I have ever met. Recently, after turning 17, Scott obtained his coveted private pilot certificate — and, like all of us, wanted to carry passengers. His mother was one of his first "victims," and she must have come away realizing how lucky she was to have a son who so early in life achieved such a major accomplishment.
Next, Scott turned to his peers, offering to rent a Cessna 152 and take my grandson flying around the local area. Upon receiving the invitation my grandson called home and asked my daughter if he could go. Rather than an instant yes, he received the answer all teenagers must hate: "We'll discuss it later!" Then the phone at our house rang, with a request for advice in this situation. Shockingly, the daughter of AOPA's president, who had flown in small planes since before she could remember, was reluctant to let her son fly with a new pilot certified under the toughest of standards by a federal agency!
I was less concerned with my family members, and more sympathetic to what this new pilot may have been feeling. To think of going through what Scott had in order to get his certificate, and then be turned down offering a ride to one of his best friends. Would this change his attitude about aviation? My daughter and I are negotiating a checklist that she may present to the new pilot, dictating the parameters of an introductory flight with passengers. I'm still not sure my opinion will prevail. If it doesn't, you can be sure that the next time I visit her city, I'll rent the 152 and Scott can pilot me as a passenger.
Your association will do more of what we did with ABC's Primetime vacuum pump story. We pledge to continue to offer the facts to you and the media, hoping that if the media ignores them, you will do your part to counter biased and sensationalized reporting. Each of us informing friends, neighbors, and business associates can make a difference in thinking about little airplanes.
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