There is sometimes a vast disparity between how we see ourselves and how others see us. Generally, we’re kind to ourselves. We understand our inner angst, pat ourselves on the back for being so compassionate, and bear the scars of our emotional baggage with considerable grace. Then again, we may be perceived as bitter, wimpy, and consistently afraid of commitment.
A fascinating example of this tendency can be found in Bernard Goldberg’s 2001 expose “Bias.”
The subtitle of the book says a lot. “A CBS insider exposes how the media distort the news.” That’s powerful stuff. It’s incendiary. 
Some claim brilliance can be found in those pages. Others suggest the author has an axe to grind and is merely lashing out at an industry that has not always been kind to him.
Is the truth somewhere in between? Probably. Does this have anything at all to do with the general aviation community? Absolutely.
We all hold a bias of some sort. It could be positive and have some benefit to us. Or it could be negative to the point that it’s a burden.
It might be worth considering whether we as an industry, or you as an individual, carry an unconscious bias that affects your dealings with others.
On Sunday, July 12, Doris Kearns Goodwin was a guest panelist on Meet the Press. During a discussion on the topic of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, she said the following: “We as journalists have a responsibility to question is this the kind of person who could truly be a leader? A person so quick to anger. A person who yells at other people. A person who bullies. A person who is loose with the facts, saying lots of things that aren’t true.”
She reiterated her position moments later, expanding on them by saying, “We as journalists have a responsibility to figure out which candidates are likely to be our leaders.” She then went on to offer this impression of Trump, an active candidate: “I can’t imagine him as a presidential leader.” Meet the Press host Chuck Todd responded quickly, “No, I don’t think anybody can…”
What Doris Kearns Goodwin is saying is, in effect, that the public cannot reliably make up their minds on important political races without the press leading them to the right candidates. She and her peers need to point us to the palatable candidates who are best suited to lead the nation. That’s bias. An unflattering bias that doesn’t bode well for those of us who don’t make our living in the television studio.
Now, remove Donald Trump from that discussion. Remove Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Chuck Todd, the NBC network, and its affiliates. Just stick with the question of bias and ask yourself this question: Is our industry guilty of this tendency of attempting to elevate ourselves above the general population, as if we’re somehow better, smarter, or more capable than they are?
If your answer is yes, that’s good. Recognizing a failing is the first step toward correcting it. For those of us who see the problem, we can brainstorm, get creative, and find solutions that will open up the local airport to the wider public.
Maybe we can even find a way to bring aviation to our communities where they already congregate — at the mall, or the grocery store, or in schools, both public and private.
We can make progress with that. You can. Yes, you can do something in your neighborhood quickly and inexpensively. All it takes is an idea and the initiative to make something happen.
The more pressing problem general aviation faces is rooted in those who don’t see the bias. Our industry is populated by hundreds of thousands of terrific people who love the science and art of flight.
But if we’re honest with ourselves, we must face the reality that we have thousands of peers who see gloom and doom on the horizon. They bemoan the death of general aviation, even as they are exposed to success stories of new breakthroughs on an almost weekly basis. It seems no amount of good news can sway them from professing a drab, dreary, lifeless future for our industry.
You know these people are among us. You’ve seen the negative comments they leave on blogs. You’ve heard their cries of anguish and woe while gathered around a coffee urn at the FBO. And you’ve seen the results of their self-fulfilling prophecy in the empty tie-down spaces and vacant hangars at the airport.
To turn the tide — and yes we absolutely can turn this tide those of us who have a song in our hearts, a smile on our lips, and still harbor even a glimmer of the dream that flight offers — we have to band together and start telling our story with loud, strong, clear voices.
We have to stand up rather than shrink into the shadows, minding our own business. It’s time to rock the boat. It’s time to create a change in attitude that will expand our number and improve our future for the long term.
In my next column I’ll share with you a positive change you can be a part of. Something you can do now, in your community, that will have an undeniably beneficial effect.
Until then, let’s all check our bias at the hangar door. We’ve got work to do.
“Idealistic, very naïve, and emotional immature perhaps – If one (adult?) wishes to believe in Santa, the Good Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, they probably best stay off the BEST reality show on TV – Shark Tank!”
I must not know what a pollyanna it, because I precious few of what I’d call pollyannas in the GA community, and lots more naysayers.
We haven’t seen what Jamie’s proposal, and there’s no telling whether his ideas or anything else can stem the deline of GA. But a surefire formula for failure in any area of life is to sit around and do nothing but criticize and blame your troubles on other people.
And getting things done isn’t easy. Anything worthwhile takes a lot of hard and frequently unglamorous work. For example, the Third Class Medical isn’t going to go away by itself. It’s going to take lobbying Congress and pusing legislation, maybe for years. But that’s the way the real world works.
Personally, I think the GA community will get the most bang for the buck by increasing student pilot completions and getting the new pilots to stick with flying. Easier said than done, but it’s an important part of boosting the long-term health of GA.
(Apologies for the careless editing in the first two paragraphs. Hope the meaning is clear.)
It is a great article, but it is so totally wrong and off the wall as to be almost criminal in nature, it is a fraud, just like the rest of the smoke and mirrors used to portray GA as a thriving, growing, progressing industry.
Only a fool, and there are a lot of them out there, beleive that the same old rose colored glasses and pollyanna attitudes will make GA better,
Airports are and have been failing at an ever increasing rate, pilots numbers are in a free fall, students starts are in the toilet, they want to privatize ATC, A/K/A bring on the user fees, but the great sage from Florida continues to spew his Kool-Aid, while the rest of us cannot find airplanes to rent, or airports to go to in order to learn to fly.
Jamie, get out of FL, go out to the real world and take a good look, without the rose colored glasses, it is not great, it is getting worse and it makes me so sad.
The people who could have changed it 40 years ago refused to make the hard choices necessary, the people who could change it today aren’t any different.
John … being a card carrying ‘realist,’ I’m not sure I’d go THAT far but … I do want to add a supporting comment to your premise.
I’m from FL myself but spend half of my year near OSH. In FL, one would think that aviation IS in great shape. Lotsa airplanes, much flying and etc. Problem is, much of it is being done by foreign students with deep pockets who don’t speak good English. And, even there, empty hangars are beginning to sprout routinely. Most of the active pilots are older guys. Seeing a twenty something taking flight lessons is a rare event in most small airports.
At my northern outpost, the airport is one of the nicest GA airports I’ve ever seen. I have often said that if there was a GA airport in heaven, that’s what it’d look like. Fifteen years ago, there was a modicum of activity. Now, most airplanes are for sale, hangars can’t be given away, the EAA Chapter exists to try to pay for a hangar that shouldn’t have been bought and the only bright spot is that there is an IA on the field. If you want to get a flight review or flight instruction, you have to drive 40 miles. And … rent an airplane or LSA … fuhgetaboutit. And this is not an isolated location, either. There are a few hotbeds of activity — there always were — but taken in the aggregate, GA is dying a very slow death by a thousand paper cuts.
With so few changes, the FAA could change much of this but … hey … gotta be safe, remember. I suppose when the last pilot hangs up their headset, 100% safety WILL be achieved. “Sad!” Indeed.
Well done, Jaime. I hope you’ll write more articles. I’ve been a pilot for 47 years and have loved working in various types of aviation through the years. I agree there are nay sayers in this world, but the rest of us love what’s happening with innovation today and hopefully into the future, I can’t wait for a revision to the third class medical regulations to help get more pilots back into the air, including me.
Keep up the good work!
Jamie … there’s a lot to be said for being positive and proactive vs negative and a naysayer on any subject matter. Your point is well taken. But … you forgot the third leg of the stool … REALISM.
Airports aren’t going relatively unused (by historical standards), tie down spaces aren’t empty and new airplanes aren’t selling in numbers like 1978 because things are rosy in aviation. The number of active pilots hasn’t dropped by a third since 1980 because there’s nothing wrong in aviation. The number of new pilot starts is not making up for the folks who are giving aviation up … for good reason. You want us to believe that if only we would sing the ‘Company’ songs to those who look skyward while we feed them our koolaid, everything will be OK. Realism by any other name is — well — realism. You’re confusing naysayers with realists.
One only has to look backward just one year to the “Meet the Boss” talk given by the Administrator at Airventure 2014 to realize ‘something isn’t right.’ Mr. Huerta told a forum audience eagerly awaiting and hoping for an announcement that the third class medical relief sought by SO many would be enacted. Instead, they got nothing. He promised that it would only be around 90 days that the DOT would act and we’d know the FAA’s verbiage. He begged the audience NOT to use Congressional methods to achieve their desired goal. Well … here we are a year later and we are no better off than we were 365 days ago. I’ll be brutal. It is my considered opinion that Mr. Huerta lied to us. OH! I forgot … it’s ALWAYS about “safety.” Yeah … right … got it. Even the EAA is now moving forward on the PBOR II method as their primary method of achieving the goal of ‘the masses’ of its members.
You wouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist walking the aisles of Airventure during that magical week to realize that there IS widespread interest in aviation. The dismal percentage of primary student starts who actually achieve a pilot certificate tells us much, however. In the intervening time period, those who do make the effort to start find out how steep the climb up the aviation mountain is, how much it will cost them just to remain current IF they finish and that without aircraft ownership, aviation isn’t very useful. It’s kinda like a new boat owner finding out that going round and round on a lake gets old fast. Once their initial enthusiasm meets realism, most don’t finish for a very good reason. They find out … the truth. Aviation is a wonderfully special avocation or vocation but the price of entry and upkeep is not worth either the cost or the effort for most. Economics is a very powerful disincentive.
There are only two sources of pilots … finding new ones or keeping those that we already have. The ‘audience’ above falls into the later — and presumably more rabid — group. They are the ones who have already made the economic commitment and have the ‘fever.’ Don’t believe me? Go to the Light Sport Expo at Sebring and look around at who is in attendance. At the above forum at OSH, I did just that and found the same thing. Mostly older white guys who love aviating and just want a little help to stay in the game. Well, a lot of help we got from the good Mr Huerta! You know what they say about cash talking …
Conversely, take a look at the EAA’s Young Eagle’s program. We’re moving in on having given two million FREE rides to all manner of youth and what do we have to show for it? Not much. Once in a while, EAA provides a great story of someone who went on to subsequently do something great in aviation but there aren’t enough of those to make up for the people who are falling off the other end of the actuarial table. THAT is why the number of active pilots is dropping by more than ten thousand per year. REALISM!
For a moment, I’ll take Maria’s tactic and try to be optimistic and provide solutions. If the FAA would do away with the ridiculous third class medical for recreational day VFR fliers — either by itself of via PBOR II — and raise the MGTOW of a light sport airplane to a nice round 2,000 pounds (thereby justifying the absolutely ridiculous cost of LSA’s for some), we’d be able to keep many of the existing pilots who are aging and only want to enjoy occasional day VFR flights. If they’d get the edict they were given to re-write FAR Part 23 done, maybe new airplane designs which have reasonable performance numbers and affordable prices might ensue? When a new C172 costs north of $400K, it ain’t gonna happen. That $200K Carbon Cubs and Super Legend’s ARE selling also says much. When the performance meets the cost, the airplanes will sell. That’s realism, Jamie.
I wish aviation realism weren’t so harsh. When I’m up by myself on a cool and calm early evening cruising around the ‘neighborhood’ enjoying a spontaneous flight, it’d be tough to figure out why everyone wouldn’t want to do that. As soon as the wheels touch back down on the earth, realism restarts. “Emotional baggage” is … by another name … REALISM ! I spend summers in a community where the airport IS supported by the local community and the locals DO come out to pancake breakfasts and Young Eagle flight days. So why don’t more of them take up aviation. Realism, Jamie, realism.
One of the reasons Donald Trump’s methods and message IS resonating with the masses is precisely that instead of hot air, he’s saying what NEEDS to be said. The same thing applies to aviation. Unless and until we realize there are major problems with aviation, singing the Company tune is not going to magically invent more pilots. Good on ya for a positive attitude but … that ain’t enough.
Great article for sure.
We GA people must, of course, address the negatives, but with proposed solutions, at least responses to ameliorate them, not the too frequent, hand-wringing, shoulder-shrugging invocations of “the government” – sometimes spelled “guvmint” – “the FAA,” “bureaucracy,” “red tape” and, inevitably, “lawyers.” Having worked in government (aviation departments and airport authorities) and with the FAA, I know good results can be achieved.
And, as Jamie indicates, accentuate the positive. Look forward to the next column…..
It seems Doris Kearns Goodwin and her fellow reporters are terribly remiss. If she questions; loose facts; capability to be a leader; quick to anger, where was she when obama was running for office. Obama has never fulfilled promises susch as “Transparency” in government. Theobama administration has never been transparent, yet she gas the gall to question Trump or anone one else. I suggest she gets a job at a fast food place, because she appears to qualify only for “do you want fries with that” type of questions. Well written article? Only if you live in her world!
I e-mailed NBC with the same message….no response. I was truly disappointed in the biased reporting on Sunday-appears the entire show was to advance the Agenda of the left and no reports unless it advances their agenda. Not a Trump fan, but there are a lot of Latinos that are frustrated with the system of Illegal Imagration–especially if they followed the laws to gain access to the US.
It goes without saying the murder of a US citizen in CA by a person who was deported multiple times gained no traction in the media.
It is just sad. I applaud your comments as I thought I was the only person stunned by the MTP airing. Well explained.
Justin-ERAU 1992
what a great article!