President's Perspective

The freedoms of general aviation

"The airplane really is a magic carpet." I was talking to the pilot of a Beech Bonanza during the dedication of the new AOPA Pilot Facility at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. He was one of about 100 pilots who had flown into First Flight Airport at the memorial in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, or nearby Dare County Regional Airport in Manteo. He and his wife had flown up from Greenville, South Carolina, a little more than two hours' flight time in the A36.

"We're going over to Charlotte [North Carolina] as well this weekend," he continued. "The only way that we could do this is in a general aviation airplane. Isn't that amazing?"

Amazing indeed. And it made me think. After you have been flying for thousands of hours, you sometimes forget a bit about what makes general aviation flying so special and what a rare freedom it really is. This trip from Frederick, Maryland, down to North Carolina had me grumbling a bit. Weather had forced me to change my plans at the last minute. The forecasts called for the North Carolina airports to be fogged in that morning, and I needed to be at First Flight for a noon ceremony. So I made the decision to fly down the night before.

But talking with the excited pilots the next day at the birthplace of aviation helped me to remember, again, what a rare privilege and freedom we aviators have.

The flight down was interesting, to say the least. There were thunderstorms and lighting all around us, but we were able to pick a safe path through all the nastiness. We did it with tools developed for and by general aviation.

My personal Cessna 172 and the association plane that I fly are equipped with examples of the kinds of innovations that are coming out of general aviation. Both contain different brands of thunderstorm detection devices, a multifunction display, and datalinked weather; the association airplane also has onboard weather radar.

The Stormscope was originally developed by a general aviation entrepreneur, Paul Ryan, who-in the best tradition of the Wright brothers-saw a need and figured out a way to meet it. What he created was an affordable (at least when compared to radar) thunderstorm avoidance tool that would work in just about any aircraft.

Multifunction displays, with associated datalink receivers, can depict all kinds of weather data using a datalink system developed for general aviation. I could call up the METARs for all the airports along the route. Even more useful was looking at the Nexrad weather radar images for the entire region. These images from the National Weather Service's powerful ground-based radars provide a much better picture than you can get from onboard weather radar, and they are similar to the radar images that you can get from the weather section of AOPA Online. Being able to see near-real-time Nexrad radar in the cockpit allows you to make much better strategic decisions about your flight path.

My right-seat partner on this flight was a retired airline captain. He was amazed at the information that I had at my fingertips. He didn't have anything like it during his career. Even today, most airline pilots can't get the kind of datalinked information in the cockpit that is now becoming available to general aviation. AOPA is working with the FAA and the industry to make datalinked weather and traffic information universally available and to bring down the cost of the avionics, so that they can be installed in more GA cockpits.

Despite the looming thunderclouds of security restrictions, we still have remarkable freedoms here in the United States. Unlike anywhere else in the world, people of average means can become pilots. And once you're certificated, you can choose where to go and when to go. You can pretty much choose your own route. And you're responsible for making the decision about whether you can safely accomplish your flight.

Entrepreneurs are free to dream and develop the things that make flying better and safer. It is no accident that ever since the Wright brothers, most advances in aviation have come from the United States, and many have come from general aviation.

But freedom is not free. We must constantly strive to protect our rights and freedoms as aviators. There are those within the government and the media who have forgotten that freedom of movement is fundamental to our basic American rights. It takes the united effort of pilots through AOPA to battle attempts to restrict our freedom.

Yes, the airplane is a magic carpet. But unlike Aladdin, our magic carpets require training, skill, judgment, commitment, and passion. The price of our freedom is not free-but it is worth every cent.