SUN ’n FUN always marks a big time of year for many of us who fly elsewhere throughout the country.
It marks the end of the season where our priorities are making sure the engine heater is plugged in, the snow and ice are chipped away from the hangar door, and weight-and-balance includes the weight of a parka.
We can now look ahead toward calm evening flying, open hangar doors, and the company of friends who have projects we can “inspect.”
Those idyllic images are what come to mind when we think about grassroots flying.
Those kinds of warm, friendly experiences make it all worth it, because being involved in aviation has always been a challenge. It’s the kind of challenge that we accept, though, because we have a passion to fly that binds us together.
The Experimental Aircraft Association’s founder Paul Poberezny often talked of making sure the “little guy” had a place in the national aviation conversation.
When asked who the little guy was, Paul never missed a beat, saying, “The little guy is anyone who pays his own way.”
As he often did, Paul brought truth and unity to a diverse community.
We in grassroots aviation fly everything from ultralights to jet warbirds, but we share the idea that an individual should have the access and freedom to pursue flying, just the same as those who see aviation as a purely commercial venture.
That’s important as we face many of the issues that challenge recreational aviation today.
One of the most recent and most important was the battle over privatization of the national airspace system.
EAA quickly stepped into that debate when legislation was introduced in late January, because there was a dire, immediate threat to our access to the sky. Such key issues as aeromedical reform would become moot if we didn’t have access to the airspace system in the first place.
EAA members saw that threat as well, as thousands of letters and emails went to Congress. Soon, the House leadership dropped the bill from possible floor debate. The issue is far from dead — we must remain vigilant to measures that would have negative consequences to our individual ability to fly.
Note that I wrote that “we” must remain vigilant — not just EAA headquarters, or GA’s Washington lobbyists, or those who follow such goings-on closely. When you hear an airport friend say that someone has to do something to protect and build aviation, remember that someone is us.
Each one of us has a responsibility to our greater flying community. As much as we’d sometimes like to hide in our hangar and only emerge on calm, sunny days to go flying, we can’t. We all must be engaged to ensure we have those future flying days.
That can mean being engaged when issues demand it to protect grassroots flying.
It also means more of the fun stuff: Sharing our passion for flying with others. That’s where I can get back to talking about fun things.
This year, EAA’s Young Eagles program will fly its 2 millionth young person. Think about that — what an incredible accomplishment! And it happened because the idea that “someone” should fly kids became a program where “we” fly kids.
It’s even more gratifying when I meet some of the early Young Eagles from the 1990s who are now flying Young Eagles, too. They were the next generation of aviation we wanted to reach 24 years ago. Now they are reaching the new next generation. We’re going to celebrate this remarkable achievement at Oshkosh in July.
There are other ways we can protect and grow grassroots flying. For EAA, it means everything from Eagle Flights and SportAir Workshops to AirVenture and our great chapter network.
Beyond that, though, we must remember that although at SUN ‘n FUN and Oshkosh it looks as if there are many of us, we are a small community. We must think of our ourselves as grassroots aviators first, ahead of whether we are homebuilders or warbirds or ultralighters or vintage fliers.
Only then can we have the freedom, as Paul was also fond of saying, to explore that great ocean of air above us.
The issue isn’t private / non-private, or even profit / nonprofit. It’s not really even about user fees, in the end.
It’s who controls it? Not “has a voice”, but controls it. The proposed “privatized” ATC would be controlled by a club of specific, incumbent airlines. If they did not use their power to limit access for private aviation AND new airlines, they’d be fools – and they’re not fools.
It’s about whether it has meaningful competition, or not. The FAA isn’t the way it is because it’s a government body; it’s that way because it has no competition. A privatized monopoly would not serve us any better – probably worse (see the point above).
While everyone focused on user fees, a club of incumbent airlines very nearly got monopoly control of the airspace: you HAVE to use their services; there’s NOTHING to limit pricing or ensure service quality (unlike the FAA’s oversight of Lockheed’s FSS services); and they’d rather you weren’t there at all.
Let’s stay sharp. They’re not stupid, and they’ll be back.
P.S. Their primary goal is to improve ATC service for themselves. Shutting us down, and excluding new airlines, are secondary. We don’t have to assume the airlines are our enemy. In some respects, they are, but compromise should be possible; we’d like better services too (or, often, we’d like to be left alone to do our own thing!).
I’m an EAA member. I’m not against privation with proper safeguards in place. I think after a break in period the FSS system improved under Lochheed.
Suggest all pilots and EAA/AOPA members pay very close attention to what “our” associations testify to before Congress. The plan to privatize the National Airspace system is a co-ordinated effort, and has been ongoing for many years. “Our” associations often havent testified as you might assume.
The first objective of this plan was to privatize flight service. Expensive contracts were let, and FSS was privatized, even though most of us now use some form of web based briefing system. This objective is now complete.
The second objective has been to add as many privatized towers as possible, even at airports that dont need a tower. “Our” associations have been very helpful to the proponents of airspace privatization for this objective. This objective is easily disguised as something that is good for GA. ‘Look we got you a nice new tower’. To which we should be replying, “do I need even a tower at this airport? How about we spend my tax dollars on hardware updates that will impact the parts of the system I use.”
The last objective, which is still in play, is the privatization of ATC overall. Rep Schuster and Airlines for America made their first play to bring that into reality this legislative season. Read the editiorials written by the leaders of “our” associations when Schuster first tried to push this through. Those pieces are very accepting of ATC privatization and talk about ‘everything running better as a business’. Fortunately, the GA population responded very negatively to this threat, and EAA and AOPA quickly “ran to the front of the column” to “lead” us.
This isnt over, the airline interests will try again, and EAA/AOPA will probably be doing all that they can to socialize the idea that ‘privatization isnt all bad’. There is a lot of money at stake here, and EAA/AOPA are now run by people who are, personally, very friendly toward the idea of privatization. Suggest all GA pilots and stakeholders be very vigilant and pay close attention to what is being said before Congress, supposedly on GA’s behalf. The price of our freedom to fly is eternal vigilance.
Your assertion appears to be at odds with Pelton’s statement. Should your thesis be correct than I’d appreciate your specifically referencing those editorials “our” associations published in support of privatization.
Just go to Airservices Australia to get a good preview of what is to come…