Someone should create an AOPA competitor

A lot of these lobbyist groups is fear mongering. Looking at you NRA. What would you like the AOPA to do first that would help GA?

I would like them to advocate for a less restrictive light sport class. Really, what's the difference if the plane hauls 2 people or 4 people or can cruise 20 knots faster? Would also like to see the certification process eased a bit. Lycoming has had that IE2 engine sitting there but what can it go in? Dynon has their autopilot ready to go... But only in a couple planes. They just got the PA-34 certification, but not the PA32 despite the 34 being a twin Six. If things were easier, you wouldn't see companies go to Europe or experimental market first. I don't think easier or simplified would mean unsafe.
 
UngaWunga said:
The mandated expense is just another thing killing small GA. Small GA is being priced out.
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I fly an old cheap C150, make less than 50k per year, and installed a sky beacon myself. If I can do it, you can too.
 
I wrote this up when the thread first came out and I haven't posted it but here goes.. it's not a rant.

Couple thoughts
(1) I stopped supporting AOPA a long time ago. The organization seems angry, defensive, and self aggrandizing. Because they're doing something largely intangible, like "advocating for our pilot rights" it's hard to say how much benefit they've had, or measure them against any kind of metric as far as being able to tell how successful they are. But their fear tactic way of keeping people to pay is quite low brow. What I can say is that after 20 years of flying I have yet to perceive any value they offer. They came to our flying group once for a photo op and that was it, frankly, it felt like they were just trying to get a photo op with planes and used us. Did they funnel students and pilots our way? I haven't see any evidence of that. Where were they when my friend (a paying and believing AOPA member) needed help resolving a labor dispute with his Mooney? Are they able to gently persuade some governmental action.. perhaps? Do they spend a lot of time patting themselves on the back and hosting banquet dinners... yes.

(2) Giving them some competition would be great, in a way, EAA already does this. People seem to leave AOPA and join EAA, since EAA seems closer to the actual joy of flying and by virtue of getting people involved in aviation EAA seems to have the side effect of giving us some voice just visa vie adding pilots to the mix. Someone extra, like a real grassroots advocacy group, that would be great. Instead of the government getting the same old usual emails from their AOPA folks they now have other organizations also pushing. There isn't just one environmental group out there lobbying...

(3) Their war on FBOs doesn't make sense and is not one I'm interested in supporting. They had that misleading narrative showing a dude paying $1,660 just for putting gas in his C182 (that didn't even include the cost of the gas!). I almost exclusively use FBOs and I've never had to pay a $575 passenger drop off fee (or any passenger drop off fee for that matter).. this is at best accidentally misleading and hyperbolic, and at worst an outright lie. So what, you buy 10-15 gallons of gas and pay slightly more and you have a nice place to park your plane, concierge services, free food, nice lounge, usually a car (for free), the Uber knows where to pick you up and drop you off.. what the hell?? The FBO hatred from some members of the GA community has always been perplexing

(4) We need third class medical reform bad, I appreciated this push they gave with basicmed, largely thanks to Graves. But there's so much left to do with medical reform and they keep coming back to this as their crowning achievement. It also really isn't third class medical reform, unless you live in perfect health or have never been to the doctor in your life then getting a third class medical or anything higher than that is a raging disaster. What they really did was create a subcategory less than class 3 with very limited privileges and an anus exam (yes I know they copied an existing form, but just goes to show you that it wasn't any new creation just a bureaucratic way of shuffling papers around to make someone happy)

(5) Their claim of "we create pilots" (the second poster's link to AOPA back-patting achievements list) seems like a very heavy stretch of the truth. Have any of you met anyone who owes their certificate to AOPA?

(6) ..to piggy back on that, many of the achievements they list are really, if you read carefully, heavily padded. It's like the dude pumping your gas at the gas station who puts on his resume "petroleum transfer technician, safely managed the transfer of thousands of gallons of highly flammable toxic compounds from subterranean storage vessels to consumer products".. one of their claims literally boiled it down to them sending some pamphlets to flight schools and the other one was effectively a downloadable PowerPoint.. wow!

SoonerAviator said:
to mount a defense against tyranny (or whatever imminent crisis they want to create).
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Yes! they've reduced themselves to using horrifying fear tactics like telling you that you are basically going to crash and die and flying will be too expensive if you don't send them money

rwellner98 said:
All want to add is that people who think AOPA has accomplished nothing should fly in other countries. The US is, hands down, the best country in the world for GA. That's not an accident. AOPA did play a role in that over a very long timeframe.
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No. There are probably a hundred different reasons that tie out to political, socioeconomic, cultural, anthropological and several other factors that have absolutely nothing to do with AOPA. The US is the best for GA, but to blindly say that is because of AOPA is a massive "assume the consequence" fallacy and also ignores lots of covariable factors
 
I agree with most everything that Tantalum just posted.

I do wonder, if AOPA didn't exist, what noticeable differences would we see in our little aviation world?
 
The nicest benefit top letting my AOPA membership lapse was stopping all of the many, many junk mail solicitations I got from a dozen or so other non-AOPA aviation related organizations and businesses trying to sell me other magazines, training, insurance, and on and on. I'm happy to have saved at least one tree's worth of paper.
 
Tantalum said:
I wrote this up when the thread first came out and I haven't posted it but here goes.. it's not a rant.

Couple thoughts....... Yes! they've reduced themselves to using horrifying fear tactics like telling you that you are basically going to crash and die and flying will be too expensive if you don't send them money


No. There are probably a hundred different reasons that tie out to political, socioeconomic, cultural, anthropological and several other factors that have absolutely nothing to do with AOPA. The US is the best for GA, but to blindly say that is because of AOPA is a massive "assume the consequence" fallacy and also ignores lots of covariable factors
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Very well put..

In place of building a new ship why not fix the one we have.. If all us were to send an emial to Mark Baker voicing our concerns and that our membership dollars can be spent better elsewhere, maybe they'll take notice.

On the other hand, they do somethings I find helpful.
 
AOPA exists to keep the old iron aircraft makers in business.
Status Quo! is their battle cry.
Just my opinion.
 
Just like I contend ALPA national cannot legitimately represent FFD carriers for reasons not germane to this thread, I don't believe AOPA can legitimately prioritize advocacy efforts into things like MOSAIC when they're elbow deep in NBAA's hind hole.
 
Dear AOPA,

Long time member. I’m done until you can adequately explain the purpose of simultaneously building $XX in reserves while raising my dues. What is the purpose of the massive reserves?

Kyle
 
I don’t get the torches and pitchforks. Don’t see any benefit, don’t be a member. Simples.
 
Salty said:
I don’t get the torches and pitchforks. Don’t see any benefit, don’t be a member. Simples.
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But then no one would get the benefit of the complainers’ penetrating insights!
 
Salty said:
I don’t get the torches and pitchforks. Don’t see any benefit, don’t be a member. Simples.
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I think there is bitterness from those of us (OK, me) who have contributed for 30 years and took a look at both the balance sheet and the list of tangible results and said "WTF?" Seriously, the last time I looked at the balance sheet, the reserves were 3 years of income for the organization. What the heck is the purpose of that? And with those reserves, dues continue to climb? Really? And tangible results? ADSB isn't a win and 20 years ago when it was proposed, AOPA was in bed with the process as opposed to pushing back and enlisting member support.

Do I believe AOPA accomplishes *something*? Yes. And I understand that their role may (or may not have) protected GA over the years. But that's not a resounding win for the organization, IMO.

OTOH, I give them a failing grade on transparency and being money hoarders. Which makes me wonder if I've gotten good value for the thousands of dollars I've sent their way to be held in reserve for <apparently> the Zombie Apocalypse or Mark Baker's golden parachute.

They are awfully good at asking for more of my money every year. Even if they are about 3 outta 30 on delivering free hats.

It all makes me believe the organization is much more focused on padding its reserves than actually delivering for its members.
 
Might want to wait and see if you win the RV10 sweepstakes before bashing AOPA.
 
kyleb said:
I think there is bitterness from those of us (OK, me) who have contributed for 30 years and took a look at both the balance sheet and the list of tangible results and said "WTF?" Seriously, the last time I looked at the balance sheet, the reserves were 3 years of income for the organization. What the heck is the purpose of that? And with those reserves, dues continue to climb? Really? And tangible results? ADSB isn't a win and 20 years ago when it was proposed, AOPA was in bed with the process as opposed to pushing back and enlisting member support.
.
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Mayb they'll use it on a new Citation... :stirpot::stirpot::stirpot:
 
Racerx said:
... What would you like the AOPA to do first that would help GA? ...
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Advocate and fight for Allowing owners to do ALL the maintenance and repairs on private small GA, make an owner maintained category similar to what I believe Canada has, that you can transfer your Cessna, Piper, etc into. And make it easier to use functional equivalent parts. Like the same exact frikken air cleaner that is also used in a bobcat skid steer, even same brand, same assembly line, but doesn't have the FAA/PMA sticker so it costs $100 less.

The experimental catagoery has proven this can be done.
 
kyleb said:
I think there is bitterness from those of us (OK, me) who have contributed for 30 years and took a look at both the balance sheet and the list of tangible results and said "WTF?" Seriously, the last time I looked at the balance sheet, the reserves were 3 years of income for the organization. What the heck is the purpose of that? And with those reserves, dues continue to climb? Really? And tangible results? ADSB isn't a win and 20 years ago when it was proposed, AOPA was in bed with the process as opposed to pushing back and enlisting member support.

Do I believe AOPA accomplishes *something*? Yes. And I understand that their role may (or may not have) protected GA over the years. But that's not a resounding win for the organization, IMO.

OTOH, I give them a failing grade on transparency and being money hoarders. Which makes me wonder if I've gotten good value for the thousands of dollars I've sent their way to be held in reserve for <apparently> the Zombie Apocalypse or Mark Baker's golden parachute.

They are awfully good at asking for more of my money every year. Even if they are about 3 outta 30 on delivering free hats.

It all makes me believe the organization is much more focused on padding its reserves than actually delivering for its members.
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Don’t take this to be as bad as it sounds, but isn’t it your fault for sending them money for 30 years without liking what they were doing with it? ;)
 
I paid AOPA dues for 25 years.

The whole BasicMed debacle has been underwhelming.

As others mentioned, enlarging owner maintenance, particularly as technology has changed, can be enhanced. The change in avionics installs has made the easier but the cost hasn’t changed all while complexity has reduced exponentially.

During that 25 years, Santa Monica airport closed-and AOPA didn’t keep it from closing with advocacy. El Toro could have stayed as a GA airport but...hmmm no. AOPA is an east coast group.

In fact, Hawthorne, where I had many retiree friends who kept the airport open, were evicted. The “AOPA” picked person was absent for years; the person regularly in touch with AOPA and dealt with airspace, the FAA, etc, ultimately became a partner with several businesses that privatized the field and raised costs substantially. Now? Landing fees, gas brawls over who holds the fuel concession and other similar money grubbing idiotic behavior that only benefits the investors, with the city entirely complicit. While the airport leases the entire property for a paltry $475k soon to be new home to a number of sports teams and now the Santa Monica crowd, rents have raised from $200 más change to nearly 700 in just a few years. AOPA? Backslapping the investor /DPE while saying he’s doing a great job, while the ASN volunteer is MIA and no one from AOPA had a clue.

Tie downs in places like Long Beach, where ample space existed and still does, are now privatized. $150-180 a month for a single engine plane, and don’t even ask about hangars.

AOPA’s ASN volunteer network just didn’t seem to do anything for either airport, and I was based at both. Carlsbad? What happened to ramp space for GA? The privatization of public ramp space continues.

All of us are affected by the ADSB mandate- Garmin’s lobbying and virtual monopoly while pushing MANdATORY Nexgen costs everyone who lives there a minimum of 2k plus. Where was AOPA?

GA airports continue shrinking, and AOPA’s reserves keep getting larger.

I don’t care if AOPA pads their accomplishments or is a self aggrandizing organizations as others have stated. I do care that there isn’t an organization that strongly supports GA, vociferously and with determination, rather than the luke warm self serving insurance, purely for profit approach that AOPA seems to take. Advocacy is about lobbying and business development, but it seems like there’s much more going on with meetings and meetings while the GA agenda is left wanting.

What are the priorities of AOPA based on member input? How many long term members become employees? How are priorities arrived at? Pshaw
 
Salty said:
Don’t take this to be as bad as it sounds, but isn’t it your fault for sending them money for 30 years without liking what they were doing with it? ;)
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One day you wake up and realize the marriage ain't what it used to be.
 
jrollf said:
Advocate and fight for Allowing owners to do ALL the maintenance and repairs on private small GA, make an owner maintained category similar to what I believe Canada has, that you can transfer your Cessna, Piper, etc into. And make it easier to use functional equivalent parts. Like the same exact frikken air cleaner that is also used in a bobcat skid steer, even same brand, same assembly line, but doesn't have the FAA/PMA sticker so it costs $100 less.

The experimental catagoery has proven this can be done.
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Work next to a bobcat dealer. Even those guys complain about parts. EAB guys do their maintenance because they built the damn thing. With that said, some guys are very capable of doing their own annual. Others are absolutely not, but would take advantage and just say they did. It would be like missing logs IMO. The PMA thing I'm with you on. Fwiw, I don't believe an owner maintained plane in Canada can ever be flown or exported to the states.
 
Racerx said:
Work next to a bobcat dealer. Even those guys complain about parts. EAB guys do their maintenance because they built the damn thing. With that said, some guys are very capable of doing their own annual. Others are absolutely not, but would take advantage and just say they did. It would be like missing logs IMO. The PMA thing I'm with you on. Fwiw, I don't believe an owner maintained plane in Canada can ever be flown or exported to the states.
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It's worse than that: some of the tractor manufacturers in the States have implements software locks on their equipment to prevent owner (or independent shop) maintenance.... requiring that only manufacturer authorized shops do the maintenance.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...rmers-need-a-better-way-to-fix-their-tractors
 
wsuffa said:
Oh, I wish it were just the FAA. A bunch of my work was at the international level where you've got not only the FAA, EASA, NTIA, the individual agencies in each country, RTCA, and the ITU (among others) who all have their hands in it. It's why a standard takes decades to implement, and even then it's suboptimal. AIrlines and air commerce want international standards, and the US is not the only player any more.

I don't disagree that verification, TCAS, etc. could have been improved. Authentication and message security should have been included, though that presents issues with controlling the keys as well as the three-letter security agencies (even the regional mutual-aid public safety systems on Part 25 have an issue with this). Hell, aviation COM radios still use AM...

(If you want to see what a fustercluck is, this FAA project may take the cake: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Processes/The-Ugly-History-of-Tool-Development-at-the-FAA ). I look at it as all being relative.

Wish we could dispose of all the legacy systems and replace them, but that's not happening, either.
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The numbers in the article are waaaay off. $9Billion in the late 80s, killed in 1994. I spent 4 years working on the SectorSuite part of it. It wasn’t just ATC, it was all of FAA including items such as new airport lighting and ground systems.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
Sounds to me, biased as I admit to be, like a good way to divide the general aviation community politically and reduce whatever little lobbying influence we have.

I've been corresponding online with a UK YouTube pilot. Recently did a video on a special sale its privatized ATC system had for full IFR service to a particular airport. I'm a real newbie on understanding their system, think there's about 4 levels of service available - mostly centered on how much traffic conflict resolution you want - and I've watched him regularly being handed off to a controller who had no idea who he was, getting a separate squawk, and being asked for what level of service he wanted for each sector. Today I saw a video in which he pulled out paper charts from a binder instead of just pulling them up in Foreflight (which he uses). It was to make sure they were easily available and to avoid, as he put it, costing ££££.
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FWIW, Canada also runs a privatized ATC system. Though not nearly as bad as Europe, Nav Canada does not release chart data to the public. This is the main reason why skyvector and other tablet apps don't carry Canadian charts. Developers in Canada don't have the same incentive for producing apps like Avare, which leaves only the big players like Foreflight etc.. I don't know if AOPA has anything to do with our current system, but I can easily see things change for the worse if we leave it to politicians to decide.
 
kyleb said:
Dear AOPA, Long time member. I’m done until you can adequately explain the purpose of simultaneously building $XX in reserves while raising my dues. What is the purpose of the massive reserves? Kyle
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Yes. 2018 tax return, the most recent on guidestar.org shows the cash hoard at $91Million. Baker making $1.4M, Haines $400K.

Interestingly, $27M of the hoard is invested in "Central America/Caribbean." I wonder if they have bought themselves an island?

"Certain Directors and Officers received first class air travel and travel for companions."

In addition to the $1.4M it appears that Baker charged AOPA $177K to fly his own airplane. But that's peanuts compared to Treasurer James Houselein, whose leasing company appears to have sold an airplane to AOPA for the sum of $3.65M. Arms-length transaction I am sure.

One thing to remember is that Baker's previous two or three management jobs were running failing companies, though the failures may not have been his fault. But experience like that might make one a little concerned about his next paycheck. $91M is pretty good job security IMO.
 
rwellner98 said:
All want to add is that people who think AOPA has accomplished nothing should fly in other countries. The US is, hands down, the best country in the world for GA. That's not an accident. AOPA did play a role in that over a very long timeframe.
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Well, yes but maybe not that much better compared to France. There is an annual control tower fee of a couple of hundred dollars but I have flown with two airplane owners there and it was pretty simple. No flightplan was required. As to maintenance the requiring of making manufacturers SBs like ADs is a terrible waste of money for small GA. OTH an French friend, not a mechanic, with a C-210 bought the plane disassembled and the government inspector said that he did a good job putting it together so my friend was given permission to maintain his own plane as though he were an A&P. Wouldn't that be nice? And flying instructors are usually free in France since almost everyone belongs to an aero club and the instructors are volunteers that teach for free. Fuel is very expensive but distances are very short. And the airport food is.....well it is France.
 
Racerx said:
I would like them to advocate for a less restrictive light sport class. Really, what's the difference if the plane hauls 2 people or 4 people or can cruise 20 knots faster? Would also like to see the certification process eased a bit.
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AOPA has worked on both of these.

The certification process has already been eased with new part 23 standards, moving to industry standards instead of dictated standards. The down side of this is that the industry doesn't really want to share the key information a future competitor needs to get started, so it's locked up inside a private membership organization. Anyone can pay money and learn what the standards are, but it requires an output of funding.

The light sport changes seem to have stalled out, but basic med stalled out several times too. The key term to google right now is "LSA 2023", which is the FAA's program for a larger review prior to starting the NPRM process. I suspect this may turn into LSA 2025 or even LSA 2030 before they get it done.

Edit: Actually, I missed something. Congress has mandated a 2023 deadline for this process, so it won't run long. The Congress mandate was likely influenced by AOPA.
 
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steingar said:
What's so bad about it? Yeah, I had to put a new box in my panel, but it replaced a (really) old one, and I get weather and traffic in the cockpit with no subscription costs. Sorry, I'm having a really tough time seeing the down side.
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Kinda like taxes... I chafe anytime I am required to spend money I don't want to spend. Even if it were a good system (it's not), I still like my freedom and liberty. In other words, 'Merica!
 
Cloudhound said:
I do wonder, if AOPA didn't exist, what noticeable differences would we see in our little aviation world?
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Aviation would look like whatever ALPA and the Airlines want it to look like.

Like it or not, we participate in an industry/hobby that is 100% subject to government regulation. Without lobbyists and influence in Washington, that means you get zilch.
 
bflynn said:
... Actually, I missed something. Congress has mandated a 2023 deadline for this process, so it won't run long. The Congress mandate was likely influenced by AOPA.
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The FAA misses congressional deadlines all the time with virtually no consequences other than a new line in the sand (date) is set.
 
Cloudhound said:
I agree with most everything that Tantalum just posted.

I do wonder, if AOPA didn't exist, what noticeable differences would we see in our little aviation world?
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We'd see ALPA and Airlines for America setting the General Aviation policy agenda in Congress and the FAA. I think the difference would be quite noticeable.
 
Fun fact, Congress mandated that pilot certificates have pilot photos. I think that was right after 9/11, might have been before then. I suspect the inclusion of sketches of Orville and Wilbur on the plastic certificates was the FAA thumbing their nose at Congress.
 
^I have no idea who or what that is
 
midlifeflyer said:
Sounds to me, biased as I admit to be, like a good way to divide the general aviation community politically and reduce whatever little lobbying influence we have....
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I agree with Mark. Here is an idea. In colonial times people joined local fire companies and paid dues, sort of like insurance. The fire company put what was called a fire mark ( a cast iron plaque with the the companies logo) on the subscriber's house and if your house caught fire they would put it out if your house did not have the companies fire mark they wouldn't put the fire out, sort of like if you buy state farm insurance Allstate won't pay for your property loss. So if AOPA lobbies for a change and you are an AOPA member you get the benefit, if not you don't.
 
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