Oshkosh then and now

[Jim Hann]

Wish I could plan that far ahead, malexander. That's one of the drawbacks of working for an airline -- I won't know my schedule for July 2013 until June 23rd, 2013. Unless I can get vacation for that week. Which can be canceled for training events. Or low staffing. Or a full moon.

I've lost money on room reservations twice because I had to cancel. Can't afford to keep doing that; I need the money to build a plane so I can fly to OSH. If I can get the time off...

Well Eric there is always {cough} line improvement time {cough} if you just have to be there.

Jim
PS, I had to leave early this year for IOE, got recalled and had NO control of my schedule and not quite enough "line improvement" available.

[martymayes]

Well Eric there is always {cough} line improvement time {cough} if you just have to be there.

Just make sure you don't sign in at the airline tent........I'm sure schedulers are sent there to scour the sign in boards to see if there are any names that just happened to call in sick those days.....

[Jim Hann]

Just make sure you don't sign in at the airline tent........I'm sure schedulers are sent there to scour the sign in boards to see if there are any names that just happened to call in sick those days.....

I figured that was just a branch crew scheduling office!!!

[Mike M]

...saw Paul hopping into Red One with that twinkle of happiness still in his eyes...

"red one" was built up with scrounged parts on the cheap. ditto "red two". those were so strongly associated with the poberezny pair, it was logical to get a different ride for the new boss. saw it in sport aviation magazine. any bets "blue one" was built out of scrounged parts? indicative of the changing attitude of EAA leadership? this being an election year and all, wonder if the color choices are significant?

[martymayes]

"red one" was built up with scrounged parts on the cheap. ditto "red three". those were so strongly associated with the poberezny pair,

fixed that for ya.....

[Mike M]

fixed that for ya.....

thanks, Marty.

just ran some numbers and now see the problem from a different perspective. total response to aopa and eaa proposal on 3class med, 15137. total circulation of both membership magazines, about 505,000 per month average. discount the fact that some of those mags may be free distribution for advertising, some folks may be members of both, that's still less than 3% who submitted comments positive or negative. not all pilots are members of either group, so the % of concerned pilots drops farther. and the % of registered voters? infinitely small, my calculator clogged up. and the mag circulation #'s showed several thousand dropped out of aopa between 2004 and 2011 (no significance to the years selected, those were the two that popped up on google). and we're less than half of aopa.

so. we gotta get all the member numbers we can or eaa becomes irrelevant politically. if we anger some but not enough to cause them to walk out, but get more, it's worth it. and if the ones we get are members of the nbaa or flying or plane and pilot groups, all the better because the advertizing study demographics show they have $$$$ and thus may have political clout on their own. now i get it. better to commit fratricide than suicide.

[martymayes]

just ran some numbers and now see the problem from a different perspective. total response to aopa and eaa proposal on 3class med, 15137.

The most controversial NPRM in the history of aviation (in terms of responses) was Proposal 88-2 and it netted close to 300,000 comments. And this was in the late '80's so these reponses were written or typed and mailed, faxed or telegrammed. No electronic email responses then. So I'm not sure what's different. Shrinking pilot population? Alphabet groups failing to motivate their membership? People have grown indifferent? Lost their passion for a cause? I dunno but I'd say 151,000 was pretty good response by todays standards.

[Mike M]

I'd say 151,000 was pretty good response by todays standards.

i'd say 151,000 responses would have been pretty good, too. but it was 15,137. fifteen thousand and change. three percent of the number of aopa and eaa magazines per month. for lack of being smarter, i used that as a guide to active memberships. last i knew there were between 600000 and 700000 medical certificates active. so the percentage of response based on medicals outstanding is even more dismal. small enough to make a bureaucrat yawn when told there is a strong grassroots movement afoot. and make john q public wonder why he's paying taxes to keep a noisy, smelly, polluting airport open when such a small percentage of the community uses it and a park would make more sense. like daley did. don't confuse john q with the fact that aviation use taxes pay for the airport. he'll just whine about the ticket tax and security tax on his airline ticket.

[martymayes]

i'd say 151,000 responses would have been pretty good, too. but it was 15,137. fifteen thousand and change.

Did you change that number? I must need new glasses. Even so, not sure what is or isn't driving participation or lack of. Did the alphabet groups send out enough info? When the 88-2 proposal was floated, alphabet groups did town hall meetings and road shows to get the word out. There were a couple in my hometown that I attended. The EAA Chapter was calling members by phone and soliciting support. Maybe people just are not paying attention these days with all the information overload.

[Mayhemxpc]

Warbirds barely flew and the airshow was just lousy. It seems that coordination isn't even there to put a good show together.

Are you sure that you were talking about Friday's warbird airshow? I flew in that one myself. The coordination was amazing. Some L-19/O-1 and L-4's had to drop out at the last minute to to gusting wind conditions and the basic warbird fly-by was shortened a bit, but...that was because Tora Tora Tora led off and the B-25's followed, leading up to Fi-Fi. In other words, one part (still with a LOT of planes) was shortened a little because so many other, very special, warbird events were added in!