Speaking at a Business Lunch

[WorkingHard]

I have been asked to speak, at short notice, to a group of business people on the subject of GA. My GA tends to be UK and Europe business travel and of course some occasional pleasure flying. I would appreciate any anecdotes etc that I may use together with anything you feel should be put across the assembled throng. i only have 20 minutes so have to be brief.

Thanks in advance.

[BroomstickPilot]

Hi WorkingHard,

It might be worth contacting AOPA and see what they suggest. After all, even if you are not an AOPA member, you are going to have access to an audience that they might like to be able to make some points with. Between you and AOPA, you may be able to agree some useful points to make.

Broomstick.

[Fuji Abound]

There is always the story of the pilot and his cast iron balls that might just get a chuckle without being too technical. It is also a reminder that most light aircraft are not pressurised and that there are therefore some unexpected joys of GA compared with flying commercially.

It goes something like this.

Mr X had done enough flying to reckon he was pretty cool, calm and collected. Moreover his current aircraft had a rather nice autopilot fitted. He had therefore got into the habit when taking friends of setting the autopilot just after take off and leaving it to climb to cruise altitude, as he thought, a real professional would do. To add to the professionalism he had also taken to making himself a box of sandwiches so he could open these up once in the cruise and munch away on cheese and lettuce.

On this occasion he had also made himself a nice hot thermos of coffee. So as he settled down in the cruise out came the sandwiches accompanied by a wide grin to his friends and passengers as he relaxed into munching on them. Next came the thermos and with an even wider and more relaxed grin he preceded to unscrew the cap.

Of course he hadn’t bargained for what happened next. Out came a stream which rapidly turned into a torrent of boiling hot coffee that proceeded to land all over his knee board and lap.

Of course he grabbed his b**lls as he let out an anguished scream that dissolved the smile as rapidly as it had first appeared to the accompaniment of his friends dissolving into laughter.

As he quickly attempted to regain his composure he thanked God for the autopilot!

(Of course he had forgotten the effect of the lower pressure at FL100 on the now pressurised thermos of coffee!)

Hat, coat, etc .. .. ..

less original but if all else fails there is always Paddy and Murphy heading in to the short runway at Dublin for the first time .. .. ..

Of course maybe you werent looking for something light hearted to end your twenty minutes.

[Cricket23]

or there's the quick fire one-liners from the tech logs. You know the sort of thing:

Tech Log: Bugs smashed on windshield
Enginner: New bugs on order

Tech Log: Heavy Landing, pls adjust auto pilot
Engineer: Auto pilot not fitted on this aircraft

etc, etc. A quick search on these forums will turn up loads.

I guess it depends on your auidence and what you want to get across. You could finish it with a brief ILAFFT. Plenty of those on here.

Good luck.

C23