Arriving soon, a big production

Arriving soon, a big production
AOPA's Airport Directory is in the mail

More than 4,000 miles of paper. Some 4,500 pounds of glue. More than 440 tons of books delivered to the post office and now on the way to you. No doubt about it, AOPA's Airport Directory 2005-2006 edition is a big production.

( See a 30-second video of it rolling off the presses - broadband | dial-up).

It's also a big value. That's because AOPA members in the automatic annual renewal program along with those who requested the Airport Directory with their membership renewal get the $39.95 book for free. It should be in your mailbox by mid-February. (It does take the post office a while to deliver more than 359,000 books....)

More statistics? OK, 696 pages listing 7,000 public-use and private-use landing facilities.

Listings for more than 29,000 restaurants and hotels near those airports, along with local attractions, and aviation businesses such as fixed-base operators (FBOs), flight schools, and taxi service companies. There are 5,400 FBOs in the book.

Icons appear next to FBO listings to show you at a glance if the business offers AOPA's 5% FBO Rebate Program, has a Meteorlogix weather station, is an AvFuel dealer, and if its repair stations are members of the Aircraft Electronics Association.

New to this issue are toll-free flight service station (FSS) telephone numbers for nearly 5,000 public-use airports. This allows you to call the individual FSS instead of your home-base FSS by default when you dial 800/WX-BRIEF on your cell phone.

While the print edition of the directory comes out every two years, you can use AOPA's Airport Directory Online to supplement the printed version's wealth of information.

Print out the latest digital instrument approach charts and kneeboard-formatted airport diagrams and information sheets.

The online directory is updated every business day to ensure that you have the latest information at your fingertips.

February 4, 2005