New England Aero Club honors ASF's Landsberg
 Cynthia Bloomquist, wife of ACONE President Ken Bloomquist, presents the Presidential Award to Bruce Landsberg. |
The Aero Club of New England (ACONE) last night presented AOPA Air Safety Foundation Executive Director Bruce Landsberg with its Presidential Award, honoring "those who have made significant positive contributions to aviation." ACONE is the second oldest aviation club in the world; Landsberg is only the fourth recipient of its Presidential Award.
The Club recognized the Air Safety Foundation's many safety programs, along with Landsberg's 13-year contribution to the club's annual Crash Course Safety Seminar. Each year, Landsberg has presented a special version of one of the Air Safety Foundation's live seminars. These seminars are available free to all pilots at locations around the country.
Landsberg is a national leader in aviation safety, currently serving as the co-chair of the FAA-industry GA Joint Steering Committee on reducing general aviation accidents.
He's led the Air Safety Foundation for 13 years, after having been recruited from FlightSafety International by AOPA President Phil Boyer. Boyer, who introduced Landsberg last night, joked that he had just gotten even for the "torture" Landsberg had put him through in FlightSafety's Cessna 340 simulator while he was an instructor there.
Under Landsberg's leadership, the Air Safety Foundation developed - and persuaded the FAA to streamline - the 16-hour flight instructor refresher course, allowing instructors to renew their certificates in one weekend session. The Air Safety Foundation, in conjunction with Jeppesen, later developed an online flight instructor refresher clinic.
In the past decade, the AOPA Air Safety Foundation has significantly expanded and improved its free safety seminars, adding interactive multimedia presentations that entertain while teaching.
The foundation also pioneered interactive online safety courses, including the award-winning Runway Safety course, which the Air Safety Foundation developed after the FAA asked for help in reducing runway incursions (Last year, the number of runway incursions declined 3.3 percent from the preceding year.) The foundation also has developed a wealth of safety publications, all available for downloading or through the mail.
In the past 13 years, the number of general aviation accidents has decreased 22 percent, due in part, to the work of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation.
April 29, 2005
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