President's Perspective

On the road again

My greatest reward in this job is the opportunity to spend time with fellow aviators and experience the unique bond that all pilots seem to share. After all, that's one of the most rewarding aspects of being a pilot, and it's something I've enjoyed since my student pilot days in California. That's where I joined my first flying club, the Sacramento Valley Pilots Association. More than 7,000 flying hours later, I still enjoy hangar talk, hanging around airports, and learning from the experiences of other pilots.

Weekend flying also provides these opportunities, of course. When Saturday rolls around, if I'm not working, my wife and I enjoy the ability to fly our Cessna 172. When the warmer weather returns, I may go it alone in my vintage Waco open-cockpit biplane. Either way, I'm likely to end up at a local airport, and it seems there's always another pilot to talk with.

But these weekend excursions are unlikely to provide the amount of interaction experienced at an AOPA Pilot Town Meeting (PTM). During these popular, interactive multimedia presentations, I provide the latest news that affects your flying. These meetings also give pilots a chance to hang out with one another. Find a meeting near you, come on out, and meet other local pilots. Ask them questions. Afterward, please introduce yourself to me, and let me know how your flying is going--after all, you're the future of aviation.

Last year, I reluctantly put my Pilot Town Meetings on hiatus. The importance of the FAA funding debate dictated that I remain close to Washington, D.C. Although the issue of long-term FAA funding still has not been resolved (see "AOPA Action," p. 12), in early January I took great pleasure in kicking off my 2008 Pilot Town Meeting schedule with a swing through Florida, speaking in Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg. Later in January I addressed pilots in Denver; February's schedule included presentations in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Sacramento, California. This month I'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dallas and Houston, Texas. Some 24 meetings are planned through the end of the year.

I'm glad to be back on the road, hearing from members and pilots directly. My continuing interchange with pilots all over the country gives me insight into the wide range of pilot concerns today. This knowledge enables AOPA to respond effectively to the needs of our members--and all of general aviation. It also helps me direct our advocacy and defense of general aviation toward the areas that matter most to you.

Not surprisingly, the news that pilots most want to hear is the status of user fees and tax increases on general aviation. And audience participation--through enhanced polling, in which pilots can vote using electronic gizmos--is providing your AOPA staff with additional information for use with Congress and other audiences. Polling showed that many pilots at the Florida PTMs were not using--or were unaware--of the flight service feedback hotline (888/358-7782, or 888/FLT-SRVC) created by the FAA and contractor Lockheed Martin at AOPA's behest. If you're in the early stages of your training, you may not have learned about the flight service system--but you will as you're introduced to cross-country flying, if not sooner.

Pilots sometimes tell me about local airport problems, and I take the specifics back to AOPA staff who follow up with the members to work on the issue. Some are simple, while others quite complicated. We can't always solve them, but we do work especially hard on issues that could set precedents at other locations around the country. Other members are looking for suggestions on how to get more enjoyment from their flying, often wondering how to get a nonflying friend or spouse to share their enthusiasm. My response to these questions almost always calls on my own past experience. Although my wife, Lois, is now a private pilot, she flew with me for some 2,500 hours as a white-knuckled passenger; I mentored her as a student pilot through AOPA Project Pilot.

During my 17 years as your association's president, these Pilot Town Meetings have enabled me to talk with thousands of pilots--more than 85,000 through the end of last year, in 383 sessions. While they require a lot of hard work, I wouldn't give them up for anything. There's just no substitute for direct, pilot-to-pilot communication with the people AOPA represents. When I hear members express their ideas and opinions in their own voices and meet them face to face, I get more than basic information--I also get the real sense of their concerns, their intensity, and their dedication to aviation.

Pilot Town Meetings are scheduled throughout the year, and chances are that there will be one near you. Check the schedule and come join us. I'd enjoy the opportunity to meet you.