I’d been reading this between the lines for a while (and perhaps I was the last to work it out), but Bill Hamilton’s left GA for dead.
Bill has been doing some posting on the “Australian General Aviation Forum”. In one thread Bill states among other things that:
One very very well known aviation identity is of the view that things in Australia aviation will have to get much worse, before they get better. Before who ever is left wakes up. But perhaps they will never get better, will people just walk away, will GA slip below some critical mass where it can't recover. …
Is it all doom and gloom ?? Not if you get out of GA, and get into ultralights.
…
Thanks to many factors, GA may be dead on it's feet, but GA is not aviation, think about getiing [sic] into where it is all happening. And it's all fun.
Cheers,
Bill Hamilton
[Bill’s emphasis]
Could any other AOPA director (snarek? gaunty? Marjorie Pagani?) let us know whether Bill’s view is consistent with AOPA Board policy?
The September/October 2003
Flight Safety Australia magazine includes, at page 41, an advertisement exhorting people to “join AOPA now”, so as to “keep General Aviation flying”. Bill’s view seems to be that GA is dead, GA is not aviation, and people should get out of GA and into ultralights.
I have to say that if Bill’s view is not consistent with AOPA Board policy, I think he was a
teensy bit hypocritical in wearing his AOPA board member’s hat when he crossed the Rubicon.