The AOPA Foundation Ambassadors aren’t volunteers, but all three recognize the importance of volunteers to the success of general aviation, whether it’s in a flying club or at EAA AirVenture, the biggest airshow in the world.
Saturday Morning Live
Prior to Covid and the restrictions it has introduced into our lives, I used to lead a Rusty Pilot seminar or two every month. Since March 14, 2020, my peers and I have been doing our best to continue to share a substantially similar presentation, albeit via a webinar format. But I’ve missed the face-to-face experience of presenting good educational material to a live audience.
Evolution, innovation, and then what?
Somewhere in the 1950s the idea of what an airport should be froze as if they were museum pieces, not viable centers of business and industry. That model, while once exciting and modern, is not practical to the world we live in today, more than half a century later. Nor will it be a desirable standard in the future.
Counting Zs…or maybe not
Being tired is nothing new for many of us. Being excessively tired may be a problem for many of us. As pilots, that lack of rest, or good productive sleep, is a real issue of concern.
Bad habits can bite you
During the oral portion of the flight reviews I asked how they gathered weather information prior to taking flight. Some variation of this question is common during the well-planned review. A good, safe, competent pilot should answer with something that involves a call to 1-800-WX-BRIEF, or the use of Internet based weather reporting and forecasting tools. The name Al Roker should not come into play. But it did. And that suggested a problem.
None for me, thanks
Take precautions when faced with risk. Remember that. It’s going to be central to this story.
Power to the people
Electric airplanes are here and while naysayers say they aren’t practical, batteries are too heavy and range is too limited, that’s not what will limit their use and popularity. It’s a ground-bound problem that nobody seems to be facing.
Long, winding, and unavoidable
So few have walked that short distance across the ramp, climbed into an aircraft, and flown away under their own direction that the average man or woman on the street just can’t conceive of what it must be like. They can watch it on video, but they won’t really understand what they’re seeing. They can ride along in the seat beside the pilot, and they’ll still miss 90% of what lights the pilot’s fire.
Misconceptions and outright lies we tell ourselves
We all have misconceptions in life. And some of us lie to ourselves rather than accept the truth for what it is. In the aviation world this same human tendency to discard accepted, proven knowledge in favor of a deeply held but poorly understood personal belief can lead to disaster.