EAA life membership value?

[flyingcheesehead]

Then convince the EAA of that.

But until you do, age has been chosen as the deciding factor. And SA largely ignores a large part of the vintage category.

It's not age as in "52 years old" it's age as in "Up through 1970". Because the real heyday of aviation was in the 1970s and production numbers were large, each year that they add represents a LOT more airplanes. And I can't really find much evidence that "Vintage-Contemporary" exists for any other reason than to show people that things haven't changed much in the last 70 years and ensure that Vintage parking at OSH is always full.

FWIW, in 2002 Vintage went up through 1966. By 2005 they expanded it to include 1967. In 2010 they suddenly bumped it to the current 1970. I'm guessing that with the economic collapse in late 2008 there were fewer airplanes at Oshkosh in 2009 and maybe the Vintage area had a lot of holes, so they expanded the definition to ensure it got filled up.

But let me ask: If Vintage was 1966 in 2002, that was only 36 years old. If EAA had chosen an age of 36 as the deciding factor, and thus this year every aircraft manufactured through 1988 qualified as "Vintage" and the Vintage area took up the entire South 40 as well, would that make you happy? I'm not really sure what you're after.

 

[Half Fast]

I'm not really sure what you're after.

I really don't give a rip about Osh parking.

This started with a discussion about EAA and SA reflecting members' interests. I disagreed and made the point that the EAA has categorized pre-1970 airplanes as vintage but gives almost no attention to planes from the 1960s. I'd bet that many EAA members own planes classified as "Vintage-Contemporary" and it would be nice to see articles about them from time to time.

 

[Dave Theisen]

With regards to Vintage, we are a few years away from having Homebuilt, Cirrus, and then everybody else.