A few days back I wrote an editorial piece entitled 'Lift/Thrust/Drag/Gravity vs Apathy' -- and at my invitation, several hundred of you responded. Like some other recent "Barnstorming" editorials, this piece produced some of the best and most insightful responses I've seen yet... even though some of them concern me.
Here are just a few of those responses...
Joe D: Jim, I’m 35 years old, father of four, and husband of one. I’m a CEO of Real Estate Company that has had plenty of government fights over the years. I always win the war but often lose a battle. I owned a DA40, DA42, and now a Cessna Mustang. I envisioned myself going for the top job at AOPA or NBAA one day soon as I agree that our community needs a burst of young energy and a new way approaching the old problems. I don’t need a job for the money as I have already had plenty of success in life but real change comes from a position of power. If you have any ideas then I’m all ears.
You can google me or read some of the articles below and see the war stories along the way. The only reason I have been able to get such a head start in life is because my father was successful in high tech. His success was my launching platform to accomplish so much by age 35. I feel fortunate to be a user of aviation in our great country but freedoms slowly erode if no one is fighting for them. I also achieved my private license six years ago so I’m also well aware of the deficiencies in training. I have over 1200 hours of piston time and 500 of turbine.
I’ve been on your website almost every day for the past few years and I feel your frustration. I look forward to hearing back on any thoughts.
Chris B: Jim, leaders are great - but it will take the passion of every person involved in aviation from engineers to design new cool stuff to the local weekend pilot to get his or her friends excited. Tom is right - golden gen 3 is around the corner, but we are going to have to bring this one in with force because frankly our modern society pulls people in too many directions. There is no cure all or magic bullet. New fancy airplanes are great, but if you can't make a living flying or being in aviation they are useless. Your shiny new airplane is useless if your neighbor doesn't think it's safe or is too loud and uncomfortable and won't fly with you. Kids still like to sit at the fence and watch airplanes take off and land. It's up to us as an aviation community to make it accessible and viable if we are to survive.
David S: I don't think it's "apathy", but rather a sense of hopelessness. What are people to do? We say, "Get involved! Get involved!" Where? How? Do we stand on a Soap Box and shout to the masses? That will get you arrested for disturbing the peace, or branded a loony by the Liberal Left. Do we revive Aviation "Town Hall" meetings? You might bring in 20 or 30 folks to participate on a given day. Too limited and too narrow. Do we use the Alphabet Organizations? They are not listening. And, they have become too political. So, what is the solution? People who love Aviation -- pilots, mechanics, casual observers alike -- need a new voice. We need a true "grass roots" organization -- what AOPA once was, but has since lost. Only an organization that isn't full of Prima Donnas and listens to its members, and uses strength in numbers (votes) to protect the everyday pilot, can revive participation. People want to feel valued. They want to know someone is listening and making a
honest effort to protect their interests. If people don't feel valued, they won't participate.
Bob M: No leader(s) can turn around an organization that has outlived its original purpose. GA was once an exciting pursuit of young people who (1) could afford it, and/or (2) saw it as a way to make a reasonable living. Three out of four flight schools in Western NY, including my own, closed this past year, largely because of #1 and #2 above. In short, GA is simply aging itself into oblivion.
Jay B: Too many people in the aviation community have the attitude that being a pilot makes them somehow super-extra special. They have this notion that I worked hard to become a member of this exclusive club and anyone not in the club must prove that they deserve to be a member of the club. I had to fight my way into "insider" status, so you must also fight to gain our acceptance. This attitude seems to pervade at the lower levels of the community, the grassroots, at EAA chapters, at FBOs with young instructors -- exactly where the attitude of exclusivity frustrates aviation wannabees. In other words, the problem is one of being exclusive instead of being actively inclusive. That has to change to nurture any hope of a turn around.
Roland D: It's a real good sign to see so many folks replying here; Jim has never been one to gloss over the challenges because therein lie the opportunities for us to make the days ahead the best we have ever known. The old guard gave us a bright future, handed us a legacy; some have been worthy of the baton passed to them, others, well....
Not by doing the same old thing and practicing the same denial and keeping the same code of silence will we dig out a win; no, it takes a systemic change, kind of a positive viral effect, from within. Just talking about it and acknowledging that there's work ahead is a huge step; otherwise we fly this thing into the ground without anyone calling a stall a stall, and we smack the dirt with the stick full aft, or hit the ridge oblivious as to why...
We can dig it out. We can recover lost airspeed, regain altitude, and we can do greater things than we've dared dream of, but only if we first can recognize what has happened and take decisive steps; crews have flown all the way to impact talking about what was wrong, not taking the right steps because they were caught up in the symptoms rather than recognizing the cause and being primed to correct for it.
The future of aviation will not be decided by those who have pulled it down, as long as we are prepared to take the stick and fly it out of this mess ourselves. Most groups and many companies have become soulless, disconnected and corporatized to the point where they exist to justify their existence, and little more. The future does not lie in looking their way for leadership; it starts from within.
Jeff G: Chiming in as a non pilot who has used GA and would like to use it more. GA will always have a recreational and enthusiast component -- but to thrive, it has to compete as a form of transportation. I think that is possible but the challenge spans many disciplines.
Andy B: Clearly, the things that worked in the past aren't working now. If they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I am certainly not defending AOPA, because there have been many things they have done that I don't agree with. However, they did do a study in the not too distant past to find out why student pilot certificates were not getting converted into Private Pilot certificates. One of the findings was the sense of elitism that the students dealt with in their training. As an active flight instructor, it stung a bit to see that. I work to try to overcome it now. I will also say that I have ended my association with groups that I feel have that attitude in my area. I don't have any real solutions, but I am certainly willing to work on the problem.
Rich D: You can help aviation but you can't fix it by focusing on aviation. I know that's what everyone wants to do but the reality is aviation is a byproduct, a symptom of a country with a serious case of liberty and energy. Golf, cars, boats, you name it are all having the same problems as aviation. Aviation is not dying from aviation diseases. It is dying because people have allowed filthy scum to corrupt the country and pollute the minds of our children and they stood by thinking our country was so great it always would be. But now people despise freedom and risk. Aviation was born from an excess of freedom and risk in the same way a kids jumps off a roof with a sheet on their back because they have so much energy. You will never fix aviation without first fixing our nation. Why do you think we have so much of it here and elsewhere they do not??? Because aviation is a byproduct of a free and healthy nation.
Thomas T: I believe we're on the cusp of the Third Golden Age of Aviation. In fact we're probably well along into this new Age. But just as the Second Golden Age (late 1960s through about 1980) was tremendously different from what the world calls the Golden Age of Aviation (the 1930s), so two will the Third Golden Age be significantly different from the Second.
There's no way around the cost of personal aviation, there never has been--at least for the prevailing mode of long-range transportation. It's always been a matter of what the government subsidizes, directly and indirectly. Follow the current government subsidy (tax deductions and credits for business aviation) and you'll anticipate the nature of the Third Golden Age.
And just as the original, low-cost home built movement served the niche of recreational aviation for those who could not afford the First and Second Golden Ages, so too will there be ways to fly recreationally even in the Third. It just won't look like the industry we idolize from an increasingly receding, almost mythical Second Golden Age.
It's all very exciting, actually--history in the making.
ANN's Daily Aero-Term (04.30.24): Runway Centerline Lighting
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