Adios AOPA...

Zeldman said:
My experience when I needed a lawyer, AOPA gave me some names close to me, I called one, and I was never sent a bill. That was 11 or 12 years ago, I hope it hasn't changed since then.
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I saw nothing in their offer that paid for the attorney, but I'll admit to not having looked at their fine print in a while.

He may have done it gratis for personal reasons. Or he's just awful at time tracking. ;)
 
airdale said:
@tspear, @ZeroPapaGolf, turning AOPA into a member organization instead of a sinecure for insiders only takes three actions, none of which require a change in the bylaws:
  1. Publicize and hold the annual meeting of the corporation in conjunction with a member event where a large number of members will attend, like a convention. At the meeting, then, the members can ask questions of the board and the employees and can offer motions from the floor. Publish the minutes of the meeting on-line or in the magazine. The way the insiders vote the proxies on member-proposed motions will be very informative to the membership as a whole.
  2. Restrict the proxies so they cannot be used for election of directors.
  3. Open the BoD elections as follows: Announce each upcoming election in the magazine and provide complete information on how candidates can be nominated by petition. Approximately 3 months later (driven by the nomination schedule and publication lead time) publish bios and position statements from all BoD candidates, both the candidates proposed by the BoD nominating committee and those nominated by petition. Bind into the magazine a mail ballot and encourage all members to review the candidates' bios and position papers before voting.
Sounds difficult? It's not. NRA does it every year with a membership over ten times the membership of AOPA.

It might take a few annual meetings and a few election cycles, but in the end the members will have retaken control of the organization.

Oh, and if you believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, you might also believe that the insiders will do anything remotely like this.
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Easy enough, attend each AOPA regional fly-in, hand out proxy cards naming yourself or someone else you trust. Get members to sign up, then attend the annual meeting. Drop all your proxy cards on the table and make the changes you want. Until then... shrug.
As for NRA, yeah, it is run by insiders. Check history, and see when was the last time there was a substantial change in the board or in management that was "initiated" by members.
(Oh, former NRA member, and I attended the annual meeting).

Tim
 
denverpilot said:
I saw nothing in their offer that paid for the attorney, but I'll admit to not having looked at their fine print in a while.

He may have done it gratis for personal reasons. Or he's just awful at time tracking. ;)
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No you get some hours free. I forgot how many, but I think it was like ten hours. If I followed the details from the aviation attorney I used, the system is like insurance. The lawyers make claims to AOPA, AOPA pays the bills based on the "premiums" paid by the members who elect coverage.

Tim
 
tspear said:
No you get some hours free. I forgot how many, but I think it was like ten hours. If I followed the details from the aviation attorney I used, the system is like insurance. The lawyers make claims to AOPA, AOPA pays the bills based on the "premiums" paid by the members who elect coverage.

Tim
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I went and looked it up.

https://pilot-protection-services.aopa.org/pps-plan-details

The assumption here is that one could get all of those things, not just one of them, in a year. But who knows. It doesn't say on the web page.

If you look at it with a statistician's eye, you'll see that legal things that large numbers of pilots could actually use, like aircraft purchases, is limited to half an hour of time.

Stuff like full appeals to the NTSB looks better but is limited to 50 hours, and you're going to pay 20% up to a rate of $210 an hour.

They don't say if the attorneys good enough to go before the NTSB charge more than that, and if it's a team, 50 hours will be gone in a heartbeat, since they'll include paralegal's time, etc.

I chuckled at "NTSB Judge". There is no such thing. That's an Administrative Law Judge and they don't work for the NTSB. You'd think they'd get the terminology right in their web page.

So, it looks like it would take the "sting" out of certain things, for sure, and for a reasonable cost. But you'd pay them about $4000 over a lifetime (I went with 40 years for that number) at the "Plus"/career level and likely never get more than a few half hour sessions to look at aircraft sales paperwork.

What percentage of pilots are violated for anything? How many at each level shown?

There's the number you need to determine if it's worth it.

I was actually doing some NTSB lookups the other day. The complete docket since 2000 wasn't even 1000 cases as I recall. And nowhere near all of them were pilot enforcement.

For the stuff that was even FAA related, about 2/3 of it was mechanics and entities being fined for mechanical infractions, it looked like to me.

(I was hunting for a particular case, but the little table will search by FAR violated, so if someone is bored, have at it.)

If you remove the blatant stuff and you're mostly coloring within the lines, the chance you're going before the full NTSB or even an ALJ is down around 0 percent for high values of 0. ;)

Especially with the recent guidance that enforcement isn't as good as re-training.

For the non-pros that deal is even worse. You pay half of what the pros do and see nearly zero cases in the case history for Private pilots.
 
Hey, I never said it was a good deal :D
From what I recall of the Foundation annual report, the legal plan breaks even most years, or has a slight profit that contributes to the bottom line.
The impression I had was it was a good deal for a pro pilot, or those who aspire to be pro. For us other poor bums, not worth it. I bought it two years, the years I was buying/selling a plane. The math worked in my favor...

Tim
 
tspear said:
Hey, I never said it was a good deal :D
From what I recall of the Foundation annual report, the legal plan breaks even most years, or has a slight profit that contributes to the bottom line.
The impression I had was it was a good deal for a pro pilot, or those who aspire to be pro. For us other poor bums, not worth it. I bought it two years, the years I was buying/selling a plane. The math worked in my favor...

Tim
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Makes sense. Was the half hour enough to cover what was needed in the airplane paperwork?

I both know plenty of people who've written their own things for aircraft sales and operation and have had zero problems, and lawyers who say they'd be in trouble if certain things happen, who'll gladly sell you a stack of papers a mile high and charge way more than half an hour to conclude an aircraft sale.

I was surprised they limited it to only a half an hour. You'll need that service far more than you'll need NTSB defenses over a lifetime of flying.

I didn't see any offer to review emolument contracts or anything like that for pros either, another thing you'd probably find way more useful.

For the non-pros, I also didn't see any offer to review rental agreements and club rules and insurance plans for the low tier. That'd be way more useful than anything they've offered that tier.

Heck, they could even give the schools and clubs a rating on quality of setup for pilots or if the contracts they have the pilots sign is in their best interests or the club's, or even, and publish it in the magazine after they built a database of players. That'd be interesting.
 
No idea on the time the lawyers spent reviewing it.
I just did not get a bill. In both cases, I have dealt with enough lawyers over the years that I drew up in a bullet point list all the major points, considerations... The end result was neither time did they have any questions for me. They put it in a template contract, made sure of no conflicts, put all the correct leagalize stuff in there and done.
The sale/purchase in my case were little more complex because we wanted to a remote mechanic to perform the pre-purchase inspection, negotiated buyer responsibilities, cut offs, solutions... (in both cases, the other party was an A/P).

Tim
 
The legal plan is a Joke. They cover consultation plus a few hours. You still Gerry a hefty bill.
 
FloridaPilot said:
People are more concerned about 69 bucks A YEAR while the cable companies (among others) are ripping them blind..MONTHLY
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Blame the (sports) programmers, that's where the bulk of the cable billing comes from.
 
Who has read the most recent financials? Including compensation documents?

After you read those do you approve of how they are using your funds?

It's a personal decision - if you like how they run/manage the association fund it. Otherwise move on.
 
GLMS_NC said:
Who has read the most recent financials? Including compensation documents?

After you read those do you approve of how they are using your funds?

It's a personal decision - if you like how they run/manage the association fund it. Otherwise move on.
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Not the most recent, I read in detail every two or three years. I did it last year.
And yes, they still get my money....

Tim
 
When I see these threads, I always have the same thought: If not AOPA, whom? If not EAA, whom?

General Aviation as we've known it is dead. We are a tiny, insignificant fly speck on the butt of the nation's consciousness. Most citizens dont even know that we still exist. AOPA and EAA are the only groups trying to raise awareness of our continuted existence. They are the last vestiges of a bygone era, being held up mostly with the momentum given to them by the (now gone) WWII guys.

Enjoy it while it lasts. They still get my money.
 
Jay Honeck said:
When I see these threads, I always have the same thought: If not AOPA, whom? If not EAA, whom?

General Aviation as we've known it is dead. We are a tiny, insignificant fly speck on the butt of the nation's consciousness. Most citizens dont even know that we still exist. AOPA and EAA are the only groups trying to raise awareness of our continuted existence. They are the last vestiges of a bygone era, being held up mostly with the momentum given to them by the (now gone) WWII guys.

Enjoy it while it lasts. They still get my money.
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You are confusing the missions of AOPA and EAA. AOPA's mission is to defend business jets. EAA's mission is piston aircraft.
 
Datadriver said:
I take that as a no ;)
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Here are the ones I recall. One with the foundation annual report, a second one with the AOPA annual report, a third one from the Young Eagles program.
So overall, not much.

Tim
 
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