Does UK AOPA provide free legal representation and, if so, how exactly is this limited?
I am a member of US AOPA, which is worth it for the magazine (a very modern mag, nothing like the UK stuff) which I read alongside the U.S. "Flying" mag, and for the access to their staff on questions on FAA rules. But then I fly under "N" so it makes sense.
I'd like to think that UK AOPA is strongest in local lobbying against airfield closures and such like. Once you move outside specific issues behind which all of GA would be united anyway, it gets more debatable.
I don't wish to reopen a rather tired debate which has been done to death many times but UK AOPA has long been suspected by many to be primarily a voice for the UK flight training business. This was wrapped up with a very ambivalent attitude to N-reg/FAA operations in the UK, which are for obvious reasons almost universally hated by UK flying schools. However, AOPA has recently been firmly (at least, overtly) in support of N-reg and that's a big plus. They are firmly against a Euro-wide "recreational" (i.e. sub-ICAO) PPL as proposed by EASA and I am not sure what to think of this position one way or the other; personally I don't want the IFR ops to get screwed. I am sure 99% of UK PPLs don't give a damn about flying IFR abroad.