December 2012
Wishes for Your Flying Year
The fact is that the future is unknowable.
Despite ancient tradition of spiritual endeavor, or the most modern advances in particle physics, none of us has yet perfected a process that will let us see into tomorrow. As pilots, no matter whether we are practitioners of a religious faith or not we are all adherents of the physics of flight and its immutable laws of motion.
December, however, is a month of what could be called miracles for those of faith, as well as followers of physics; after the third week of the month, the sun begins to stay longer in the sky, and we begin to look forward. Those who live in northern climes may find themselves quoting Percy Shelley’s line, “if winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
And after the winter solstice on the 21st, the days begin to lengthen, and although your personal interpretation of this time on the calendar may vary, most cultures in the northern hemisphere recognize it as a time of rebirth. The rebirth and the New Year that follows it involve holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals and celebrations.
Therefore, in the spirit of the season, here are my personal wishes, predictions and fantasy gifts for pilots everywhere, and for General Aviation itself.
If I could wave a magic wand and make these things real I would—and who really knows what the New Year will bring? And for the Scrooges among you, since this is a fantasy it need contain no internal consistency.
1. I grant you a safe flying year, full of sharing your passion for aviation with family and friends as well as the opportunity to introduce the gift of flight to those who have never even thought about flying.
2. In the coming year, I declare that your health will be perfect and your FAA medical certificate will never be in doubt.
3. For those of you who fly behind engines that drink 100LL, which will eventually be banned due to its lead content (it is only a matter of time), here—free and gift-wrapped—is an auto fuel STC for your aircraft’s engine.
4. And for you whose engines allow no auto fuel STC, here is a workable synthetic lead-free fuel replacement! It costs no more than what you are pumping now.
5. As a gift to all, except for pilots of winch-launched gliders, I hereby mandate a miraculous reduction in the price of Avgas to what it cost on the day you were born. The price change will occur on your next birthday.
6. On the last day of the tax year, the IRS will implement new rules making all flight training that you purchase after earning your private certificate tax-deductible because it is an educational function that promotes safety.
7. The inchoate fear that flying machines will fall out of the sky near schools, children’s playgrounds and shopping centers—which has erroneously driven public policymaking since the Wright brothers and saddled us with a wholly unnecessary regulatory bureaucracy—will immediately disappear from the minds of bureaucrats, politicians and government employees everywhere. One day, when you tell your children and grandchildren that there were once rules about recreational, noncommercial flying they will look at you with wonder. They will want to sit with you, and ask you to tell them more about the time when flying was expensive and aviation was brought to the brink of extinction by Kafkaesque rules.
8. The United States will be the first government among nations to decide that no federal medical certificate is required for noncommercial, recreational flying—as long as the aircraft piloted cannot reach supersonic speeds.
9. No federal license will be required to work on your owned noncommercial aircraft. (And you will no longer have to explain to your DIY automotive and boating friends why they can tinker with their personal transportation vehicles and you can’t.)
10. Sporty’s, the iconic aviation cataloguer, will launch a new lottery, which you will immediately win. It will grant you the funds to finish your instrument rating, redo your aircraft interior, paint your airplane, and install anything your heart desires in your instrument panel. Hal Shevers himself will tell you in person that you have won, but not at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh… instead it will be over pancakes and coffee at the verdant grass strip of your most Richard Bach-like imaginings. Hal will also buy your breakfast (he would, you know!).
11. EAA’s leadership will realize that it is the membership that matters and will appoint an EAA president who actually represents member interests. Subsequently, a portion of the profit from advertising and sponsorships will be used to help defray the costs incurred by the aircraft owners who travel to Oshkosh to display their planes and the volunteers who make AirVenture happen. Meanwhile, EAA will be all about building and/or maintaining your own airplane.
12. AOPA will do such an excellent job increasing the aviator population and lobbying governments on behalf of pilots and aircraft owners that all noncommercial aviation regulations will be banned by the U.S. Supreme Court as illegal takings under the Constitution, and AOPA will have nothing left to do.
13. Time spent flight planning will be sharply reduced, because all your journeys will be in severe clear and calm VFR, and all your winds will be tailwinds, coming or going.
These are my wishes for you.
David Hipschman is a private pilot and aircraft owner, a lapsed newspaper editor and retired police detective. He teaches journalism at the University of Florida, once served as the director of publications at EAA, and lives in Gainesville, Fla. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
