Beagle
I am not going to pursue this particular discussion as I know well
of your involvement with AOPA and your opinions. I guess I would expect nothing less than for you to support them. That is fine with me and I have no intention of making it personal. Martin has a job to do and I just happen to think he doesn't do the job very well which means that an important organisation like AOPA UK doesn't have the support it enjoys or deserves.
Unfortunately Fuji, you are the one who posted what Beagle described as a "nonsense rant" and it needs pursuing in order to refute it.
I am a member of AOPA and nothing more. I don't want to start an argument, but I can't think of how to counter the personal attacks you have made on Martin and AOPA's role in the IMCr in any other way. I think you both have some sort of grudge and elevated self-importance. In my opinion, Martin and AOPA (and Beagle!) have done absolutely sterling work from day 1 in support of the IMCr, and any positive outcomes are due to their efforts, as well as the supportive role of the CAA/DfT and other pilot organisations. I would guess your contribution, on balance has been zero, because anything positive that your long-forgotten petition achieved has probably been negated by your endless criticism of AOPA on pilot forums for years since. I agree that AOPA doesn't have the support it deserves. I would attribute that to several factors on the whole
- useless apathy amongst many GA pilots
- unrealistic expectations of what a small voluntary organisation can achieve
- the egocentric view of "if it doesn't conform to my exact preferences in instance X, Y or Z" then I will stroppily refuse to join
In addition, I would add that a certain kind of anti-AOPA grudge-holder can be particulary vociferous on pilot fora, and I suspect this has some minor effect on negativity entering the collective pilot psyche. You are such a grudge-holder.
I value many of your interesting contributions on fora, but not your anti-AOPA campaign. If you have your doubts, the more constructive way would be to engage directly with the AOPA Member's working group etc, and stop rubbishing AOPA whenever the opportunity pops up. Of course, we are all entitled to an opionion, but when the number of times I have read an opinion of this sort from you approaches the 100 mark, as it probably does, I start to think it is vindictive, egocentric and unfair.