Remind me. Bicycle incident?
What exactly was the Bicycle incident? I remember a Baker from the 70's and 80's era. And a King Air. Were there two Bakers?
Censorship on the Red Board got so heavy-handed at one point that they closed/deleted a thread about folding bicycles (that could fit in GA airplanes) as "non aviation related"... That resulted in a large number of people defecting here, the Purple Board, and other places.
Canceled my membership. I can’t remember the last time I opened the magazine or cared about anything they said in public.
This! They used to have a huge list of member benefits.
They gave away a very nicely refurbished airplane each year (and wrote about the process all year long and talked about the costs, giving some great publicity to really good shops, STC developers, and showing some real world cost information). You could do a reasonably good airplane valuation with their version of Vref. There was a flight planner that was pretty decent in the pre-ForeFlight days. There was a credit card that got you a substantial (5%!) discount on avgas as well as purchases from Sporty's and other aviation companies. There was a great online forum (whose first shutdown led to the birth of PoA). There were tons of services available to pilots, discounts with travel related companies, flight training scholarships and loans, aircraft purchasing resources, and it was all $39 a year which felt like a really good deal at the time. Heck, there was even an annual "big" fly-in and convention that moved around - I went to one of the last ones, the very last one was in 2013.
Now, the majority of the benefits are gone, prices have gone up, and I no longer feel like I get much benefit at all from AOPA. I do feel like we need to have an advocacy organization as we are only about 0.5% of the population in this country, but I don't think AOPA is it any more. EAA seems to be much more effective and has really eclipsed AOPA in terms of relevance to GA pilots, even those of us on the certified side of things.
But seriously, I question whether one organization can simultaneously pursue the interests of both grassroots owners and bizjet operators. Those interests just diverge too much, and sometimes oppose.
How so? The main thing for any of these orgs is just keeping airports open. Yes, it's true that the bizjet operators care less about unpaved and shorter paved runways, but organizations like the Recreational Aviation Foundation and the Seaplane Pilots Association have done a lot to keep access to the solely-recreational landing facilities open.
I don't really see how the bizjet types have interests that *oppose* ours, and frankly, the amount of money they contribute is the only way the rest of us get listened to. Splitting us up means that if there are opposing interests, they'll win and we won't.
I've kinda wondered about that, too. That's why I'm wondering if the membership numbers are just to gain legitimacy to an agenda that really only serves a few hundred people, not thousands. If the people who care about having their own jets have a bit of self-awareness, they'll perhaps realize that the average Joe, or really the representative for the average Joe, doesn't care if there are airports to land their private jet at.
Right, but those are the *same* airports we land at in many cases. And the fewer airports there are, the less useful the remaining airports AND our airplanes are! The number of airfields this country built in the run-up to and during WWII is the reason that we lead the world in aviation activity.
The reason we have so much opportunity to fly around in little planes in this country, in my view, is because we have so many close to normal people doing it. The fewer people flying piston singles, the worse the environment is going to be for everyone.
This... But sadly, piston single activity is WAY down, and it's going to take a herculean effort to save it.
avbrief.com
