Aiglon:
As I took over publishing AOPA's magazine General Aviation almost two years ago I suppose I'm largely responsible for spreading AOPA's message, so if it's not getting through, the blame is mostly mine.
The question is, have you read the magazine? I have written dozens of articles on AOPA's work - and it never ceases to amaze me just how much work they do, with badly limited resources. The magazine is hardly unreadable. I have had many compliments on its design, its content and its news value. Since Philip Whiteman joined he has added his own particular strengths to the mix, and I submit that it stacks up well with any other magazine in the sector.
AOPA is the only organisation that is independent of the CAA or any other external influence, and has the lobbying power to make a difference. In the UK and in Europe, it punches way above its weight. Martin Robinson is IAOPA's European vice chairman and is on the EASA advisory body, where with Mark Wilson of GAMTA he fights off some of the crazier nonsense that would otherwise be enshrined in law. Ask Mark Wilson about that. Through Pam Campbell AOPA is also fighting on the JAA level. An enormous amount of work goes into simply watching out for bright ideas coming down the pipe from these organisations, working out what it means in the real world, and heading it off.
AOPA's voice is listened to at the CAA, where it speaks up for general aviation as well as for countless individuals who run foul of the authority, and who are grateful for AOPA's backing when they are called in. We have published several letters in my time from such people. Sometimes their livelihoods were at stake.
AOPA has backed members who were faced with major criminal prosecutions, and we have helped to win their cases. I wrote recently about Donald Campbell, who ran out of fuel and crashed at Shoreham... the CAA went after him, and AOPA helped get him off.
AOPA was instrumental in establishing the NPPL and in running it. Thanks to Mike Cross, it has helped to improve the Notams delivery system. AOPA has taken up members' complaints about engineering organisations and has won rebates in many cases. I have written about a well-known rock star who won a £15,000 payback through AOPA for work on his plane. AOPA and GAMTA are establishing a joint approach to such problems, for mutual benefit.
Through Ian Perry and others, AOPA has restored the licences of many members who had their tickets pulled by the CAA on medical grounds. AOPA's Charles Strasser has fought and largely won a campaign to wipe out landing fees for emergency diversions. And of course, always, always, there is the battle for airfields, with literally dozens under threat over the past few years. David Ogilvy and Anna Bloomfield have fought and won almost as many as they have fought and lost. But they fight, and over the decades they have built up an unparalleled store of experience with which to do down the planner and the Nimby.
AOPA is engaged with the country's security agencies (at their request) trying to make sure common sense prevails in any anti-terrorism action that affects GA. Enormous effort is going into staving off things like compulsory Mode S transponders or the proposal that GA pay for LARS, but it's difficult to present "nothing happening" as a result. But believe me, it is. And if you think sitting on committees and listening to all this is fun, you should go and sit on one of these committees.
Uninterested in "mundane" issues? That's crap. AOPA people are buried to their necks in bureaucratic minutiae, fighting for breath under the pressure of CAA change, JAA change, EASA change, security issues, airfield closures, members' problems. This industry is under pressure as never before, and only AOPA is doing a decent, cohesive job of fighting for the rights of people like me. And you.
AOPA is not always doing all this work alone, but it is the only major organisation that does not rely on a CAA dispensation for its revenue, and when you don't pay the piper, you don't call the tune.
Finally, let me compare AOPA UK with AOPA US. AOPA US has almost exactly 100 times as many members as AOPA UK. Virtually every US pilot is a member, private or professional. It has enormous lobbying power and financial muscle, and partly as a result, US GA is in much better shape than it is in the UK. Here, we have the GAAC, hosted largely by AOPA in the hope of getting everyone to speak with one voice. The GAAC has, count 'em, 73 member organisations. All talking at once, and none being heard.
In the last year I have interviewed people as diverse as the Met Police commissioner Sir John Stevens and Cessna's Russ Meyer II, Cabair's Steve Read and the CAA's John Hills, and they all say one thing. Join AOPA. Speak with one voice, loudly.
If I knew a better hole, I'd go to it. But there isn't one. Get in, stay in, pay your money, and read the magazine.
Pat Malone