Safety Spotlight: Wishes Do Come True

That gift would transform our lives for the next 38 years (and counting), and inspire an aviation vector for my brother and me. We became career pilots and general aviation enthusiasts, eventually earning our flight instructor certificates. We taught our own sons to fly, both of whom earned their private pilot certificates. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving!

On my first day at AOPA, I sent Dad a picture of him and me from 1980. We were beaming in our AOPA jackets, mine red and his blue. We were proud to be pilots, and to be part of AOPA. Neither of us could have dared wish then for the life that flying would bring. I would go into the Air Force; fly F–15s and Beech King Airs; and culminate my career as commander and flight leader of the Thunderbirds.

After the Air Force, I led business units in the information technology industry, focusing on understanding customer needs in a complex field and delivering solutions that would bring tangible value. I kept flying GA and bought my first airplane, a Piper Cherokee 140. The sky kept calling, and fortunately, one day, so did AOPA.

In these first few weeks as executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Institute, I’ve found AOPA to be even more than I had imagined: an organization filled with people passionate about aviation and committed to the mission to protect our freedom to fly. I flew RVs in formation one recent sunny morning with fellow staff, and conversations with co-workers naturally turn to aviation, where and what we’re currently flying, and what we must do to advance our industry. Those are ever-present topics not just in formal meetings, but also in the hallways and at the coffee counter at AOPA.

Richard McSpadden became executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Institute in February 2017.Aviation has come a long way since my early flying days, and some of the most dramatic advances have been in safety. The GA accident rate has declined by nearly half since the early 1980s. Recently we achieved a fatal accident rate less than 1 per 100,000 flight hours—a milestone that once was considered unachievable. There is more work to be done in advancing safety, and progress will be more difficult with each new milestone. The AOPA Air Safety Institute is ready for the challenge.

We’ll tighten our alignment with AOPA’s You Can Fly initiatives, which are showing impressive results in adding new pilots and returning rusty pilots to active flying. Safety isn’t a “bolt-on” that’s added after training and operations. Safety is baked in and becomes a natural and subconscious manner of aeronautical decision making and risk assessment, both hallmarks of excellent (safe) flying. Safe flying and good training go together, so we will work to instill from the start an effective safety mindset in new and returning pilots.

ASI material is accessed more than 2 million times annually, but that’s not enough. We believe pilots who access ASI materials are safer pilots, so we’ll work to reach more of them by refreshing content, modernizing delivery platforms, and expanding topics. Our goal is fresh, relevant content available to pilots in the manner they choose to consume information, when they choose to consume it.

We’ll also continue collaborating with other parts of the aviation ecosystem to capitalize on investigations, lessons learned, and new technologies, and we’ll make recommendations on procedures and flying techniques to enhance safety.

We’ll need your help. Give us your feedback; tell us your stories; help us with ideas on how to reach more pilots; and drop into AOPA headquarters at Frederick Municipal Airport in Maryland to visit with us.

A job focused on aviation safety, working with a talented and dedicated team. Who could have dared to wish for this?

For years, Dad wrote a newsletter for a Navion group and he would close by stating: “Go fly your Navion.” Turns out, that’s good safety advice. The more we fly, the better we fly, the safer we fly.

Thanks for the warm welcome. Now, go fly!