I'd like to try and clear up some myths.
AOPA UK is small, heavily influenced by its corporate members, and for many of us a lot less relevant than the big three: LAA, BMAA and BGA.
I attend meetings of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Members' Working Group of AOPA UK and can assure you that you are 100% wrong in the assertion that AOPA is heavily influenced by its corporate members. If you operate an aircraft administered by LAA or BMAA you heve to be a member and if you are a glider pilot you will be a member of a club that is affiliated to and pays dues to BGA. There is no such imperitive for membership of AOPA. Your opinions are usually well considered Ghengis but on this you're wrong. You're no doubt aware that I am also a member of LAA and have served on their National Council.
AOPA couldnt make up their mind whether to support the IMCr or not
Where does one start with a statement like that? AOPA UK in the person of the late Ron Campbell invented the IMCR. AOPA UK has always supported it.
their vindicative campaign regarding the 61.75 and certain individuals.
No idea where you get that from Fuji. I hold a 61.75 and have never come across any antipathy towards it from AOPA UK. I attend Board Meetings, the Exec Committee and the Members Working Group meetings and have never heard such a thing. If your reference to individuals refers to a DPE operating in Europe there was a situation where FAA Head Office in Oklahoma City said one thing, which was accurately reported in our magazine but subsequently found not to refelect what was happening in the field. That situation persists. Oklahoma City says one thing and the New York District Office actually does something different. In the UK we're used to there being one right answer. In the US the federal system seems to introduce some variation. For example FAA Head Office will tell you that you have to make an appointment and visit a FSDO in person. We now know that you can obtain or renew it outside the US without having to visit a FSDO and in my own case I was able to renew mine by meeting an FAA official at a local airport without the need to visit the FSDO. What was accurately reported in the AOPA UK magazine was what the editor had been told at the time by FAA Head Office.
their proliferate spending on offices in London does not support their claim.
Eh? AOPA UK owns that building, it was a gift from a benefactor and was not paid for by members. You've clearly not visited it. There's a shop on the ground floor which is let to Transair and produces some income, one office with room for 3 people on the first floor and two small offices and a toilet on the second. Palatial it ain't. There's no room to hold meetings. We used to hold them in an upstairs room at the pub next door, now we do it at the Victoria Charity Centre. The accounts are in the public domain, go have a look at them and you'll see you are talking nonsense. (I think you meant to say "profligate")
a history of being unable or unwilling to work with any of the other representative organisations in the UK.
A much peddled piece of misinformation. AOPA UK does indeed work with the other representative organisations, for example the NPPL is administered by NPPL Ltd, a joint venture between AOPA UK and other UK representative organisations. This particular misconception arises from EASA's "rules of audience". EASA will not talk directly to national representative bodies such as AOPA UK, BMAA, BGA, LAA etc. They will only talk to European representative organisations. AOPA UK is affilliated to an international organisation, IAOPA, the International Council of Aircraft Owner & Pilot Associations and together with the other European AOPA's is represented at EASA by IAOPA (Europe).
The other UK organisations were not part of an international organisation and have had to join together into European organisations to be heard. The fact that UK interests are represented by more than one organisation is a benefit, not a drawback. The suggestion that this separate representation indicates a difference of opinion between AOPA UK and the rest of the representative bodies is totally untrue.
I hope this helps to dispel some of the misconceptions.
Mike