AOPA President Phil Boyer serves more than 400,000 general aviation enthusiasts.
As most of you read this, the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight will be upon us. Many will take this as an opportunity to look back and celebrate. And there is much to celebrate. At 10:35 on the morning of December 17, 1903, powered flight was still just a dream. Twelve seconds later, it became a reality. Less than a quarter-century later, planes could cross the Atlantic in a single hop. In less than half a century, speeds increased to allow flight faster than the speed of sound. What we now call general aviation has gone from the daredevil barnstorming days of "The Great Waldo Pepper" to safe, reliable, fun transportation that takes families on vacation, sales representatives to far-flung territories, and busy executives to meetings hundreds of miles away and home again in a single day.
But while everyone is looking back and celebrating, as your AOPA president it seems incumbent upon me to look ahead and ponder.
The obstacles the pioneers of aviation's first hundred years faced were largely those of technology, yet general aviation's obstacles in the next hundred years may well be those of regulation and public perception.
As they lifted off that December morning, Orville and Wilbur Wright could have had no idea of the daunting array of rules and regulations pilots a century later would face. Federal Aviation Regulations Part 91 alone, which governs most of the flying we general aviation pilots do, runs more than 60 closely typed double-columned pages.
Every pilot has to pass stringent medical examinations to be eligible to fly. The knowledge and skills a prospective airman has to demonstrate to get a private pilot certificate would make a 16-year-old trying to get a driver's license blanch. There are classes of airspace, communications requirements, and since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, pop-up flight restrictions that carry dire consequences for violators.
Since AOPA was founded 64 years ago, your association has worked tirelessly to protect GA pilots from overly intrusive or burdensome regulations. That work has become even more important in the heightened security environment of the past two years. But we haven't been content to stand still. Recently we added new leadership to our AOPA Legislative Affairs office on Capitol Hill. Four full-time lobbyists work to make sure our nation's legislators consider and understand general aviation when setting policy. Back at your AOPA headquarters we've reorganized our Airports department and, after the devastating loss of Chicago's Meigs Field in March, won a major victory last month in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was another case of a mayor wanting to turn the 75-year-old waterfront airport, Albert Whitted Field, into a park. Our efforts relied heavily on new job alignments to allow a high-level AOPA manager to work on special airport problems and devote the time and resources necessary to work with local groups — and win! Our airport "SWAT" team had less than 30 days to get St. Petersburg residents to vote no on a park and yes on keeping the local airport.
AOPA is the only aviation organization in the country with a full-time staff member assigned to do nothing but work on the technical standards and operational needs for future equipment for lightplane cockpits. With the title of senior director of advanced technology, this AOPA employee's job is to see what's on the drawing board and guide its development. AOPA works with manufacturers and regulators to make sure that GA pilots reap the benefits of new technology without being required to add expensive avionics unless they provide a user benefit.
As your representative I often find myself being far too reactive in efforts to avert some unneeded regulation or fee. As we begin the next hundred years AOPA must become more proactive. AOPA's Airport Watch program ( www.aopa.org/airportwatch/), which brings the basic concepts of a neighborhood watch to face growing calls for GA airport security measures, is a prime example of doing something proactive, rather than waiting to react.
Trying to explain to a nonflier the term general aviation is both deceptively easy and frustratingly hard. You can say that GA is all aviation except for military and scheduled air carriers, but that hardly helps the nonflier understand the true scope of GA. That's why AOPA launched the GA Serving America Web site ( www.gaservingamerica.org). From law enforcement to aerial application (crop-dusting), medevac to overnight delivery, GA Serving America explains all aspects of general aviation.
As we move forward into the second century of powered flight, it's going to be up to all of us to protect our interests as general aviation pilots. I pledge that AOPA will continue to look for innovative solutions to problems before they occur. What it comes down to is this: If we don't do a better job of educating the general public about general aviation and how they benefit from this form of air transportation, then we're going to spend all our time putting out fires instead of lighting the way for the next generation of pilots. I doubt any of us will be around to celebrate the second century of powered flight, but you and your association, working together, can certainly work toward a better understanding of general aviation in the first decades of the next hundred years.
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