What a potential bomb, though — especially with the tough-to-please kid crowd. At that age (middle school), most anything classical or “square” gets an immediate “F” except as a chance to get out of class for some auditorium lazy time.

I attended the premier of “EVERY KID FLIES” the evening of April 8 at this year’s SUN ‘n FUN along with 200 well-wishers and the fly-in crowd. They loved it! While this was NOT the acid test before a school audience, it was clever, well-received, lively and irreverent enough to keep youngsters engaged. There was lots of music, action and kid-typical perspective. Even I got the point.

When first told of the project, I was tempted to say, “Good Luck.” For one thing, it was launched only last December as an employee-submitted idea from the staff. If written or performed amateurishly, it would be a disaster. And those deadlines! To write, sign-off, stage and debut a musical in three months before SUN ‘n FUN? Wow!

As usual in creative work, it almost all depends on the writing. And there, SUN ‘n FUN held an ace. His name is John Iskra, SNF education director, bassoonist and a nationally published composer. My first profile of SUN ‘n FUN’s new educational initiative was overwhelmed by the charisma of John’s boss, executive director of education Lori Bradner. But this guy Iskra is no slouch in the #2 slot!

I was incredulous when Iskra told me how long it took him to write original music and lyrics — about three weeks! He later revised that to maybe four weeks or so counting review time, revisions and rewrites. Pretty impressive, especially considering Iskra did it all after work – 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., mostly. (He was able to draw from some of his previous compositions and an existing bit of kid’s literature for form.)

Was it any good?

From the portion I caught, it was great and VERY artful. I picked up immediately on facets designed to engage the target age group. There was lots of music and movement plus more than a little age-appropriate goofiness. Very impressive… and a tour-de-force for the talented performers who were the players.

I got a special kick out of two young women dressed as flight attendants. (The musical covers all opportunities in aviation.) These hip ladies constituted a “Greek chorus” of sorts – the classic device to comment on or explain key or complicated points. (You can imagine how dull it would be to otherwise explain the technicalities of flying in a musical.) Well when needed, out come “the girls” — cute as can be — to offer the “inside story” on some technical point deadly dull in any other recitation. Classic!

I got a big kick out of the whole thing. Granted, part of its success was the superb, ungodly-talented young cast from the nearby Harrison School for the Arts, SUN ‘n FUN’s partner in the project. But exec education director Bradner lavished kudos on Iskra and his talents. “You can talk all day about Lift over Drag (L/D ratio), but to get kids singing about it!” At the premier’s conclusion, she was beaming.

Now, SUN ‘n FUN will stage the work for middle school kids throughout its local community of Polk County, Florida. Would it work in your schools?

SUN ‘n FUN could try to franchise this effort and maybe they will. I suspect, however, that it’s an awfully daunting undertaking that’s heavily dependent on the cast’s performance skills. And these Harrison School performing arts students were outstanding.

In any case, “EVERY KID FLIES” illustrates that we need new methods and approaches in both aviation education and public outreach. The world has changed. Attitudes have changed. Communication methods and audience expectations are more sophisticated. But talented people like SUN ‘n FUN’s Lori Bradner and John Iskra have a bead on those challenges and they’re doing something fresh and new.

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved

That’s right: SUN ’n FUN now highlights youth education and year-round engagement, not just an annual celebration of aviation’s glory. The entire team is involved, but Bradner is the focal point for educational programs making SUN ’n FUN relevant — everyday — to aviation’s future.

A focal point of that emphasis on education is the Central Florida Aerospace Academy (CFAA), a Polk County public school right on the SUN ’n FUN grounds, housed in a new building built with a $7.5 million grant to SUN ’n FUN by major benefactor James C. Ray.

The three-story, 58,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2011, boasts 235 students, with room for 500. It is one of only five high schools in the U.S. with A&P courses. In fact, students can graduate with their A&P practical work done, plus a private pilot license and college credits for a Polk State College associate’s degree. This public-private partnership offers employment and internship opportunities with both SUN ’n FUN and on-airport businesses.

Proceeds from the Polk County lease support SUN ’n FUN scholarships for deserving youth. These “Bright Future” scholarships cover 75% of the cost of obtaining a pilot license for deserving youth with a desire to fly and a 2.75 grade point average. The remaining 25% can be “worked off” with volunteer work on the SUN ’n FUN grounds, according to officials.

There’s also a Future Eagles Aviation Club and Aircraft Restoration Club, plus opportunities with Lakeland flight schools, including a student-run flying club.

SUN ’n FUN also welcomes young people after school each day for various programs at its Piedmont Hangar, Crossfield Building, Tom Davis Education Center, and the Buehler Restoration Skills Center.

Bradner, previously a teacher at CFAA, was tapped to fill the new SUN ’n FUN education job, which combines museum oversight with an educational focus on the Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) core curriculum through its “STEMtastic” programs.

“You’ve got to speak the STEM language,” notes Bradner. “And aviation fits the bill!”

Just running a museum is not the plan. “I will expand the walls of my classroom,” Bradner says.

The Florida Air Museum will become “a huge classroom” and a “living, breathing learning center” with engaging, hands-on experiences that reach today’s youth, she promises.

Bradner’s guide is education’s Five E’s: Engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and then evaluate.

“Our museum had no interactive exhibits,” observed Bradner. “It’s been ‘low and slow.’ I like big and fast.”

She doesn’t dismiss the value of the museum’s artifacts and holdings, she just wants to remake how they’re used.

“For instance, many people don’t know we have the Howard Hughes collection — maps, records, pictures, correspondence, even a letter from (once-girlfriend) Katharine Hepburn,” she says.

She imagines a “Howard Hughes Walk of Fame” where visitors stroll through the aviator’s life in film clips using “green screen” video technology. Her collaborator on design ideas: Tim Lawn, a creative local artist, active Army Reservist, and designer of area World War II memorials.

Another new opportunity is a just-donated FedEx 727, now on the SUN ’n FUN ramp and soon to be displayed in the area between the CFAA and the museum. It will house two classrooms, a 30-seat conference room, and more. The cockpit stays as is for educational uses. The landing gear will hang down for hands-on work by CFAA A&P students. “The A&P program needs a jet to work on,” Bradner notes.

Another novel innovation: En educational musical, “Every Kid Flies,” staged in collaboration with the nearby Harrison School for the Arts. Written by SUN ’n FUN Education Director John Iskra, a nationally published musician, it debuted on opening day of this year’s SUN ’n FUN, and now is being performed in local elementary and middle schools.

“You can talk all day about Lift over Drag, but we’ll get kids singing about flying and activate talented teachers throughout our county,” says Bradner. “Involving one teacher in av-ed subjects leverages our outreach 30-to-1. There’s so much here that’s untapped.”

Adults, especially parents, are seriously concerned about today’s younger generation. From the top down, SUN ’n FUN is taking up the challenge. There’s a partnership program with a nearby middle school and even a program with a school in Norway.

“If you wait until high school, it’s too late,” says Bradner. “Kids are our future. We have to make them believe in themselves. This keeps me going. I always ask myself, ‘Did we inspire today?’”

On the job just since Dec. 1, Bradner is a whirlwind of enthusiasm and drive. A colleague called her “an F2 tornado as a CFAA science teacher, but she’s an F4 to F5 now!” She’s a well-prepared tornado, too. The Flint, Michigan, native is a graduate of Michigan State with a Master’s in Education Administration from Purdue. She received her National STEM certification at Columbia University in New York as a NASA Endeavor Fellow. Her numerous awards include the Air Force Association’s 2012 National Teacher of the Year and 2011 Florida Teacher of the Year. And she’s learning to fly.

She doesn’t take those achievements too seriously, noting that she also has a Clown College “Batchelor of Fun Arts” as a former Ringling Brothers clown in her early 20s. In fact, this unique educator was once profiled by the media as “Science and Laughter Merge.” She’s radiant, exuberant and an inspiration to students or her “cherubs,” as she calls them.

As we talked on the SUN ’n FUN campus a few weeks before the fly-in, the bubbly Bradner said she is thankful she’s “surrounded by people who keep me grounded” and firmly focused on fiscal realities. She has her head in the clouds, she says, but enjoys “a great tether in The Team. I’ve found a home!”

For more information: Sun-n-Fun.org

This month’s news from Tornado Alley also recalls other disasters, reminding us that extremes of weather and happenstance can occur anywhere. It happened outside usually mild Washington, D.C., in April 2002. An F5 ground through D.C.’s southeastern exurbs. Devastated was the town of La Plata, Maryland, once a familiar landmark on the old U.S. 301 trek to Florida.

A week after the emergency, I pulled out the old L-16 to trace the twister’s path. If you saw TV coverage from Oklahoma, you know what it looked like. (Their brave news chopper jocks have broken new ground in reporting — not only imaging post-storm destruction, but trailing funnel clouds in real time as they approach the city.)

Nothing conquers Weather Channel-fatigue like the real thing coming right at you on TV! FLYING’s Dick Collins had a similar take on the power of audio/video communication in the 1980s. (His advice: Broadcast the ominous soundtrack from GAMA’s new Thunderstorm Avoidance presentation over VOR identifiers near severe weather. That would scare ‘em out of the air, he thought… at least better than some long-forgotten FAA safety show.)

Post-storm, those Oklahoma news choppers immediately swept back over the tornado track, offering rescue agencies fast knowledge of storm scope and damage. The Civil Air Patrol did the same later with detailed aerial photos. Even in this day of satellite reconnaissance and drones, piloted aircraft can do some things first and best.

My 2002 flight over the La Plata tornado’s 20-mile path was a humbling eye-opener. It revealed not just miles of splintered roofs and flattened buildings, but an absolute scouring down to southern Maryland’s red earth. It humbles the mortal soul. And it encourages everyone NOT to be complacent about nature’s wildest furies. If you’ve seen it, you won’t forget it. This week, storm shelters are rightly the new “in” thing.

There – another life experience open to us because we fly. Few are so dramatic but all are life-expanding. We see our world on every flight as others seldom see it.

And from this unique perspective, we may understand our world more fully. It’s a noble thing and a unique gift. It makes the investment all the more worth it, despite the price.

Understand: I’m not encouraging “Lookie Lou’s” to go sightseeing and get in the way. The highways around Moore, Oklahoma, were jammed post-storm, as usual. I presume the airspace was the same. Lest you be tempted early in a future disaster, let me recall a bit of obscure but somewhat related aviation history where sightseers “got their’s.”

Researching AOPA PILOT’s predecessor, I once found its story on the famous 1947 Texas City disaster of freighter explosions and refinery fires, billed as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. It still may be America’s worst industrial accident, killing over 500 and injuring more than 5,000. The AOPA angle? Turns out two flyers in a Piper buzzed in at 1,500 feet for a look-see just as a blast obliterated the whole place. Even at altitude, the fabric of their wings was blown/burned off and down they came.

AOPA wrote them up as valiant pilots and martyred “heroes.” Perhaps someone with local knowledge can enlighten me, but I thought AOPA was polishing the apple. If those guys were sightseers, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Nota Bene in case you’re tempted.

With such exceptions noted, think of your license as a ticket to see the world as few can see it – even if millions today can look sideways out of an airliner every day. YOU have a front-row seat and the freedom to go (carefully) where it’s happening. “It” may be a great island, a fun occasion or – perchance — a first-hand look at what nature and human events have wrought.

Savor the opportunity. Partake responsibly.

“I am a very active chairman. This job is a tester,” he says, noting he’s devoting 60% to 70% of his time to SUN ’n FUN these days. “Lites (John Leenhouts, SUN ’n FUN president) and I are in contact every day. We are both a lot more hands-on.”

Board meetings are now once-a-month affairs, not three or four times a year. He sees the board taking more control and its committees becoming more functional. “They’re gonna be dumped on with responsibilities,” he says.

The Florida Air Museum, a non-profit that gets most of its proceeds from SUN ’n FUN operations, still exists. Knight dissolved the museum’s board, however, consolidating it with that of SUN ’n FUN and making Leenhouts president of both organizations.

“We were operating like two separate companies,” he notes.

The museum will be renamed this spring to represent its new function as a learning center, although “Florida Air Museum” may still be part of the moniker, he says.

He’s fully on board with new concepts. “We are no longer a once-a-year venue. We’ve got tons of space and parking.” And that can be put to work year-round, he said. He believes that SUN ’n FUN’s expanded schedule can help “dig us out of a 10-year financial hole.”

SUN ’n FUN has been operating in the red, he says, but now “finances are improving.” Past building programs and other costs, including the 2011 tornado, meant SUN ’n FUN was “living on a line of credit.” The tornado dramatically proved that the organization “needs a nest egg,” he adds.

Knight also wants to “get back to the grassroots days” of the fly-in, but acknowledges that “kids today don’t relate to aviation’s good old days.” So he’s allowing the board to evolve through attrition and by establishing a new “Chairman’s Circle” of key local leaders — a source of potential future board members. That group will gather every three to four months for lunch or cocktails and discussion. The result: Insights (and support) from the community.

“Everything we’re trying to do is for education, but we’re a non-profit,” he notes. “Too many people have their hand out, not helping.”

Knight laments SUN ’n FUN’s recent image as a big, successful (and therefore cash-rich) enterprise, an image bolstered by past spending and image-polishing. “We need to earn more for important new activities,” he says. “We need more sponsors.”

For more information: Sun-N-Fun.org

A recent visit with new President John “Lites” Leenhouts was my second, but I came away even more impressed. His military and business background — Navy captain, 10,000-hour aviator, F-18 retrofit program manager — not only defines a disciplined approach to management, it suffuses the staff. All are taking a new approach to SUN ’n FUN’s current realities and its enlightened vision of the future. No wishful thinking here.

Rather than continuing “business as usual,” Leenhouts found that SUN ’n FUN “didn’t have a vision.” He was elated to get the job, confront fiscal realities and keep SUN ’n FUN viable and relevant.

“We pay for 180 acres on the Lakeland airport; we can’t just put on one airshow,” he said a few weeks before this year’s event took off. “And we can’t always bet on a good SUN ’n FUN each year. This place is perfect for an aviation Mecca. Thus, Sun-n-Fun’s new vision tilts more towards education and inspiration as a way to get people back in aviation.”

That’s why Leenhouts hired an executive director of education rather than another director of the Florida Air Museum. In fact, SUN ’n FUN has largely abolished the parallel organization overseeing the museum, which in recent years was functioning essentially as a separate entity. All this will transition a static (and underutilized) aviation museum into a vibrant, hands-on learning center for aerospace education.

And the fiscal realities of recent years have led to more tough medicine. Leenhouts trimmed the SUN ’n FUN staff to 20 (four of these part-time) from the previous 30. And as new management rebuilds the organization’s finances, they even watch how much paper is used in the office.

Says Leenhouts, “I’m not here to make money, just to pay the bills.”

And to be sure fly-in participants are acknowledged as what makes SUN ’n FUN fun, he lowered the fly-in admission price this year. “I gotta give ‘em a break,” he says.

The other side of that equation: Exhibitors and vendors who want to see pilots, not just “the stroller brigade” of weekending locals and their kids. He’s shortened airshow time to allow exhibitors more crowd attention. He offered a 15% discount to new vendors or those returning after an absence. And he built up the Paradise City area and made it home to LSA manufacturers. They will be able to demo their products there all day now, even during the afternoon airshow.

Leenhouts says that, as a youth, “he was going nowhere until I found purpose in aviation.”

He earned a mechanical engineering degree with an aerospace minor at Oklahoma State, then won his Navy “Wings of Gold” in 1975. Rated in the A-7 Corsair II attack jet, the F-14 and F-18, he took on Landing Signal Officer duties aboard ship — a first step towards progressive leadership positions culminating in commander, Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic.

He idolizes great leaders in Navy history and adheres to high principles of leadership: Motivating and taking care of your people, sharing the load among them and balancing the mix of critique and praise. One thing about the Navy, he says: “They never let up on you. Egos get put aside. You learn to take criticism well.”

This is active, involved leadership that’s already reflected down the line among staff.

He’s not all GI, mind you. In fact, he’s a 30-year participant and performer at SUN ’n FUN, ranging from under-wing camping, with his wife Nancy, and fly-ins or show performances in a 1946 Stampe, 1941 Stearman or 1940 Luscombe. Other years, he’s done show visits or aerial demonstrations in Navy A-7s and F-18s.

He’s an airplane guy who wants to “bring this back to what it was meant to be. We are a fly-in for the aviation community and for the enthusiast with his or her dream.”

Leenhouts and SUN ’n FUN are looking to the future, not the past. And in this new organization, I see coordination, drive, well-defined purpose and renewed spirit. In this, SUN ’n FUN may be leading the pack among our long-time GA institutions.

In these times, we know things will have to change. New realities and new opportunities demand it. I am happy to see change well underway at SUN ’n FUN.

After the Interstates, it was low-fare post-deregulation airlines that challenged the economics of travel by everyday GA.

In part, trips were getting longer. Baby Boomers ranged far and wide, leaving hometowns for nationwide opportunities. Americans saw a weekend jaunt of 500-1,000 miles as an appropriate getaway or dutiful return home. After airline deregulation, these trips could be taken “for a song.”

But GA’s earlier challenge had been airspeed, the divergence between airline speeds and typical GA travel. Our GA being largely a regional travel mode, Dick Collins’ thumbnail 140-knot criteria for useful cross-country speed stood up well against local service airlines and 160-knot, multi-stop DC-3s. But as turboprops and DC-9 short-haul jets came into regional service, even short airline trips began leaving us in the dust.

GA could still sell itself to places without good airline service or to out-of-the-way spots. Mostly, though, GA business travel migrated to faster turboprops and corporate jets. Others continued to travel in slower GA because 1) their heart (and investment) was in it, 2) it was fun, 3) the family (or multiple associates) traveled for one price, and 4) multiple stops en route were almost free.

The utility of light plane travel did increase as more pilots earned instrument ratings in the 1970s and 1980s. And in the 1990s, new offerings from Cirrus and others got you higher cruise speeds without the retractable gear and costs of a Bonanza. Tax deductions for the self-employed are still attractive, but efforts by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association to cure risk managers’ aversion to employee private aircraft travel had limited results.

A driver of GA travel today is the morass of airline flying post-9/11. (So often did I hear former AOPA President Phil Boyer take joy in being able to travel without removing his shoes in airports!) Airfares still may be low, but they are less often the bargains of a few years back – especially with today’s nickel-and-dime add-ons that allow airlines to recover the billions they lose competing with each other for the lowest airfare on the Internet.

Those who can travel productively by light plane (and the fewer still doing it for their job) enjoy a great capability. But as economics and alternatives change, it’s clear why some elements of GA now eschew the “utility justification” used for decades to counter resistance to rising costs. “Sport Aviation” now emphasizes fun flying for what it is (and no more) as businesses and corporations cut costs and reduce travel.

I hope you find utility in some of your flying. But for most, the fulfillment and psychic payback is justification beyond words or dollars. That’s why many of us today sacrifice for every hour we can get and still fight to preserve our rights and infrastructure for the future.

Next time you travel, perhaps you can save a few bucks on a cheaper airline ticket (or by not checking a bag), then just spend the savings on a joyful hour around the patch some pretty afternoon this spring. OK?

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved

I recall the early-1960s debate at my home field whether the new Interstate Highway System would be boon or bust for General Aviation, at least for the average Cessna or Piper. My conclusion then, as now: Both.

Although still a teen, I had already seen technologies change and transportation modes fade. Our town’s little train station had deteriorated, welcoming only daily Philadelphia commuters and the occasional “Iron Horse Ramble” steam train excursion celebrating past glories. Little did I know that our “also-ran” Reading Railroad had once hosted the B&O’s indirect but upscale “Royal Blue” Washington-to-New York service, the preferred choice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But all that ended in 1958 with the withering of intercity passenger rail except on the faster, more direct “Northeast Corridor” route.

Along with modern airliners, post-World War II road building and modern automobiles diminished most train travel by the 1960s. But post-war roads were congested, under-engineered and badly lagging behind unprecedented demand. And they were dangerous; the highway carnage was legend.

So in 1956, the National Defense and Interstate Highway Act began a national system of fast, safe limited-access freeways. It’s said President Eisenhower’s experience with both the Army’s nightmare 1919 transcontinental road expedition and Germany’s Autobahns were the genesis. At first, the Interstate Highway System was cloaked in Cold War defense terms: quick wartime military movements (and the hope of civilian escape from nuclear-targeted urban areas.)

By the 1960s, beautiful new freeways crisscrossed the land, combining with state turnpikes to slash intercity drive times. Would such convenient and affordable car travel hurt GA, we wondered? Most thought so.

Others saw benefits: Broad, straight roads (no curves tighter than 3,000-foot radius) with near-level routings through hills and mountains. In other words, GA could now enjoy endless ribbons of concrete below for navigation reference and emergency landings.

Flying across mountainous Pennsylvania in my youth, Interstates were warm comfort. Decades later out of D.C., I offered thanks many times for the new Interstate 68 through rugged West Virginia. Flyers out West blessed the wide new highways in mountain passes (while also thanking FAA planners for aligning their VOR airways there.)

Quicker door-to-door drive times did offer competition, especially against GA’s particular inconveniences: Getting to the airport, pre-flight, tie-down, acquiring ground transportation, weather delays. GA still appealed where good roads didn’t go or where cities and water crossings cut traffic speeds. Yet the new web of Interstates meant fewer routes where flying at 100+ knots trumped the door-to-door convenience of high-speed driving, at least over then-typical single-engine trip lengths.

Flying does still win where Interstates are indirect or congested. Example: Between Denver and Wichita, where there is no Interstate. GA wins again where Interstates crawl with rush-hour commuters. We pilots can “jump” traffic jams and congested water crossings. Ask any Washingtonian who gleefully flies over the chokepoint Chesapeake Bay Bridge to a beach weekend or any New York-area pilot zooming past clogged bridges and turnpikes to reach New England.

Did competition from the Interstates (or the DC-9 short-haul jet or the post-deregulation airline) put our segment of GA out of business for travel? Not completely, and none of them alone. A myriad of demographic, economic and technical factors worked us over — as they always do. Just ask the old Reading Railroad, the makers of pay telephones or the Remington typewriter company. The challenge is to reachieve relevance through new products and capabilities, and fresh marketing approaches.

Part 1 in a series. Look for Part 2 tomorrow.

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved

I returned to Bader Field last fall, just weeks before Hurricane Sandy. The planned minor league baseball stadium had been built, but the team was out of business. (It now hosts an occasional rock concert.) More successful is the new ice rink nearby, but I had the feeling it and the airport could have co-existed nicely.

The padlocked Minor League baseball stadium sits empty.

Did Atlantic City get its money’s worth killing Bader Field? Tough to say. GA traffic is down everywhere, so airport activity wouldn’t have held up. More important, Atlantic City isn’t the draw it was, except for lower-income day-trippers and retirees – those slots-bound bus riders with bags of quarters. New Indian casinos elsewhere are closer to home for some; far away Las Vegas is more attractive for others.

After two frustrating AOPA conventions there during the 1990s, lots of pilots said they didn’t want to see Atlantic City again. And because of the city’s continuing downfall, Bader Field today wouldn’t be the valuable community asset it once was, unless it again hosted its once-impressive commuter airline and “high roller” helicopter services.

As a “Jersey boy” and young GA pilot, I thought Bader Field was great in its time. You and your flying buddy or date could land and walk 10-15 minutes to the famed Boardwalk. It was a “pure play” in GA flying. When you flew in, you really got somewhere — not some airport miles from town.

But nice memories and GA tourism were trumped by struggling city budgets, hoped-for neighborhood redevelopment and local politics.

The political fight was bitter, led by a mayor motivated by a plane crash onto neighboring streets. Then there was the Citationjet that overran into the canal that separates the airport from downtown. The jet’s runaway engine kept it spinning in fearsome, watery circles — and all this at an airport NOTAM’d “NO JETS.” We are sometimes our own worst enemy.

Last fall, finding airport pavement still there but vacant, I had a sneaking suspicion Bader Field was too attractive to be truly dead. Yep, a knowledgeable local confirmed it: The New Jersey governor and some VIPs had landed their helicopters there from time to time. No surprise: The pols and VIPs make rules for everyone but themselves.

The city wants everyone else to land 10 miles away at the big international airport in the middle of Class C airspace. Tip: If you want to fly into an enjoyable New Jersey shore destination, go south to Ocean City — a cleaner, quieter and more friendly resort, even if their great little airport is now hemmed in by new construction.

I don’t think Atlantic City is getting its money’s worth from acres of vacant airport and a derelict baseball stadium. Congratulations on the skating rink, though. Politicians have dreams and we always fault ‘em for doing nothing. Can we blame them for trying? Well here, maybe. That mayor built a “Field of Dreams” but apparently “they didn’t come.”

We’re not coming, either, like we used to.

GA wouldn’t have saved Atlantic City and the airport cost money, I’m sure, but Bader Field was part of a once-attractive collection of municipal assets. So was Meigs Field in Chicago. But such “dream” civic assets are of an older era. Now, General Aviation’s “magic carpet” to these cities is gone, sacrificed to different values and newer dreams — dreams that are yet stillborn.

Top Photo: Sign of the times on the Bader Field ramp (downtown Atlantic City in distant background)

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved

A pleasant Florida morning in late March revealed things falling into place. Piper Aircraft had its tent up already, as did the Experimental Aircraft Association and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Nearby, the Boeing 727 just donated by FedEx for SUN ’n FUN’s new education programs dominated the flight line. Down the way, a DC-3 was the backdrop for tons of supplies being forklifted throughout the exhibit area.

Changes continue last year’s reshuffling of some long-established haunts. The old media center is now the Seaplane Pilots Association HQ. The Florida Air Museum is getting a new name at it transitions into a learning center. There are more changes coming — exciting developments that move SUN ’n FUN beyond the traditional “Spring Break for Pilots.” Read: Relevance for changing times.

With all that’s going on, it was still comfortable to return to the old grounds. It’s like coming home. Everything’s in its place. Good memories pop up around every corner. And as my day there progressed, I got to know the new leadership and new thinking that’s changing this place for the good.

Stay tuned for news from SUN ’n FUN coming soon. In this time of leadership transition and fiscal scrutiny at our GA institutions, SUN ’n FUN got a head start — and it seems they already have a lot in the works.

See you there April 9-14?

For more information: Sun-n-Fun.org

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved

Neither EAA nor AOPA members should support a merger concept based only on recent performance by either organization, both still in transition. Tom Poberezny and Phil Boyer were hard acts to follow.

Tom Poberezny

At EAA, I had no expectation that moving from a long-time “family business” would be other than similar troubled successions in the real business world. Any new leadership path is a break from custom and tradition. The odds of getting it perfect the first time were tall.

With Boyer, his appointment broke tradition — by design. The typical Washington association exec was an ex-Congressional or FAA officeholder. A businessman, Boyer modernized AOPA for the 21st Century. But he always stayed close to AOPA’s heritage. Why was he so good? The AOPA Trustees knew and pursued him even when he wasn’t pursuing them.

Boyer’s remarkable resume included 1) former president of a national membership organization with advocacy experience on The Hill, 2) leadership of a respected regional pilot association, 3) entrepreneurship in an aviation business (ABC’s Wide Word of Flying videos), 4) deep executive and “people management” experience, 5) unusual strengths in new technology / technology development, and 6) a strong background in public opinion, audience research and sophisticated marketing.

Phil Boyer

That last is important: he listened to members and they were his top priority. But while he revered and deferred to AOPA traditions and culture, he also knew that non-dues income had to become a larger slice of the pie.

Boyer was also a great flyer and reveled in doing it as a private pilot. When hired, he owned a cabin class piston twin and had flown across the Atlantic and in European airspace, our nightmare vision of the future. Best of all, he still got a kick out of flying ANYTHING, even a 172. It was apparent: He was genuinely one of us, only smarter and more talented. But just like that long-gone $16,000 Cessna of the 1970s, what Boyer offered may be today’s wishful thinking, a new standard not now exactly repeatable.

Why? Despite sparking better times with liability reform and so much more, Boyer’s tenure was boosted as well by the resurgent 1990s. The economy rebounded and GA blossomed again. That’s gone for now. I hope the AOPA trustees can pull off another miracle, but times have changed. It’s a new world regardless of how talented the next new hire.

On the bright side: At either AOPA or EAA, I doubt member and media concerns will go unheeded. That critique represents a roadmap for the future. But neither public nor pundit has to filter their wish list through the brutal sieve of today’s operating economics, Washington budget politics or other realities. Association managements must do so, but – Catch 22 — that doesn’t get them off the hook.

To ignore honest, concerned feedback would mean chalking up these leadership issues to today’s malaise and settling for “the best we can do.” No one wants that.

But an EAA/AOPA merger? For now, I say this: Don’t take predictably difficult, even era-ending transitions as justification for “simple solutions.” That’s too easy.

All should realize that each organization does what it does better than anyone else. At the same time, each has been demonstrably weaker in what the other does best. Let’s not dilute their individual strengths. We need them. Thus, we need both of them.

© 2013 Drew Steketee All Rights Reserved