Waypoints: Inflection points

As AOPA member number 242, he was among the last to join who qualified as a charter member. He signed on only a few months after the five founders signed the incorporation papers at Wings Field outside of Philadelphia in May 1939.

I met Blomeyer twice. Once at the 1989 AOPA Convention in Orlando, where we celebrated AOPA’s fiftieth anniversary—yes, time flies! There we honored and photographed all of the then-living charter members. There are many smiling faces in that photo. By the time our seventy-fifth anniversary rolled around, the numbers had dwindled significantly; a couple of the members we profiled had died within a few months of the publication of our article about them in 2014.

Blomeyer was the guest of honor at a small anniversary celebration at Wings Field that June. The other charter members were too frail to attend. I enjoyed my reunion with him, learning more about his early flying days in the Midwest. He earned his pilot certificate in only 20 hours and went on to fly all manner of GA airplanes, declaring the Beech Staggerwing his favorite. Hard to argue with that.

His passing and AOPA’s impending anniversary seem like a good time to reflect on the past and to ponder the future of this wonderful activity we call “general aviation.” In 1939 they called it “miscellaneous aviation.”

While we continue to enjoy our freedom to fly, it’s important that we remember whence we came.The AOPA media team has spent a great deal of time over the past year reflecting and pondering as we’ve toiled on a book celebrating the decades and considering what might be next. Freedom to Fly: AOPA and the History of General Aviation in America tells the story of the men and women who pioneered flight in the years leading up to AOPA’s founding in 1939—a founding in response to the threats of restrictions from the impending entrance of the United States into World War II. From there, the storyline unfolds to reflect the dynamic growth after the war, the years when people with names like Cessna, Beech, Piper, Stearman, Boeing, and Mooney propelled their companies into American society, becoming household names for generations to come.

By the 1960s, aviation was as American as baseball and moon landings. By 1978, annual aircraft deliveries soared to more than 17,000. But by 1982, fewer than 4,300 piston airplanes entered service. At the same time, the pilot population began a much slower decline that continues today.

Through it all, AOPA grew, taking on challenges from Washington, D.C., the states, and around the globe. The book highlights the issues facing GA as society changed, birth rates plummeted, and the population aged. The deregulation of the airlines in 1978 began a trend that moved aviation from being a curiosity to being mainstream. It was wonderful that airline travel went from something affordable only to the elite to a means of mass transit, but unfortunately the trend took the shine off of the aviation experience. Today, “aviation” to most of the population means sitting shoulder to shoulder with a stranger in a sealed aluminum tube hurtling through the flight levels, the shades down, and a sanitized movie playing on a tiny screen on the seatback ahead.

As our book portrays, though, for those of us fortunate enough to be able to command a GA aircraft, the aviation experience is infinitely more interesting.

While we continue to enjoy our freedom to fly, it’s important that we remember whence we came, that we remember the opportunities and challenges faced by Blomeyer’s generation, and that we provide a roadmap for the generations to come. Freedom to Fly is that roadmap. Two hundred and eighty-eight glossy pages of beautiful new and historic photos, stories of the people and companies that changed the face of a nation—and the book delivers in time for the holidays. Preorders are available now.

As you can imagine, those of us who worked on the book are proud of it. We’re also excited to share the future with you as we participate in the next chapter of general aviation. Learn more about Freedom to Fly online.

Email [email protected]. Follow on twitter @tomhaines29