Phil Boyer, AOPA's president since 1991, has been flying for more than 30 years.
As we enter another new year in the twenty-first century there is little question that technology and the Internet are changing the pattern of communications in our everyday lives. Therefore, both prior to and after September 11, AOPA has devoted significant time and resources to providing you with up-to-date aviation information in your home and office. Whether it is through this magazine, our toll-free telephone lines, or other means, your association has been the greatest single source of general aviation information. This has been vital to all pilots because of the changing airspace configurations the FAA has been dishing out on an almost-daily basis.
Throughout these past four months AOPA Online has been the primary carrier of airspace information. In many cases members have indicated that it has been more accurate and up to date than information from their flight service station briefings. AOPA's technical staff has interpreted every notam with "plain language" descriptions of the key points, and often we have added a graphical depiction of the airspace layout. The 10-nautical-mile-radius restriction around some 82 nuclear sites was not only a challenge, but also a demonstration of how AOPA works with its partners and members. When the FAA administrator called with the shocking information that a notam would be issued covering all these nuclear sites, I immediately asked if we could get the latitudes and longitudes in order to plot the restricted airspace. The answer was no, since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was concerned that would pinpoint their locations for the enemy. My question was, How could pilots avoid these areas without proper geographical information? The FAA responded with only general locations, such as 27 miles west of Phoenix. Upon realizing the problem this would create for pilots, I called the folks at Jeppesen, the leader in charting, and asked for their help. Working through the night, they provided AOPA with charts for every nuclear-site notam.
However, the morning these came online, members provided valuable feedback by phone and e-mail, correcting the FAA information based on the pilots' local knowledge of the areas. A team of AOPA staff members assembled in the conference room with sectional charts from around the country and checked out each member comment. The changes, when validated, were provided back to Jeppesen, whose qualified staff replotted the diagrams. In the end, we found a minimum of four public Web sites that also gave the latitudes and longitudes of the nuclear facilities that the FAA was told not to provide. Strange are the ways inside the beltway. Realizing that FAA airspace notams of all sorts were going to continue, your association began to look for a way to allow you to get information on the geographic area in which you fly, without checking AOPA Online every hour.
The answer was already in place. For more than two years AOPA has provided members with AOPA ePilot, an electronic general aviation newsletter that is in your e-mail each Friday morning, in time for weekend flying. In recent months the staff has segmented the delivery on a geographic basis. This prevents a member in California from needlessly receiving a list of weekend aviation events in Florida and vice versa. More than 200,000 AOPA members receive ePilot weekly.
Shortly after September 11 we began using this e-mail method to inform members of national and regional airspace restrictions. For instance, when a last-minute temporary flight restriction (TFR) was issued for the first game of the World Series in Phoenix, AOPA members in Arizona received a special ePilot with the details. In recent weeks the FAA has been issuing blanket waivers for specific airports or geographic areas, which can change at a moment's notice. We decided that the very best way to communicate these would be by e-mail. In the course of two days at the end of November, we sent out four special alerts by e-mail to four unique regions.
When necessary, similar e-mails will generally be sent to members within a 250-mile radius of the affected area. However, all notams and waivers sent to an isolated group are available in the members-only section of AOPA Online should you want to check alerts from outside your area.
Because your association recognized the important role e-mail would play in the future, more than three years ago we began encouraging you to supply us with your e-mail addresses. Never did I realize how vital a link the more than 250,000 e-mail addresses of our members would become. If you are not receiving ePilot and want to receive the new airspace alerts, simply supply your e-mail address through an automated link on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/epilot/) . You have my pledge that AOPA will not abuse your privacy with solicitations for products. I take this responsibility so seriously that any division or department within AOPA using e-mail must receive a signoff from my office.
Communicating during these difficult times has been our number-one goal, and communication to you about site-specific airspace issues that affect your flying starts with, "You've got mail."
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