Tuskegee Airmen, Matalin And Carville Highlight The Session

The second general session of the NBAA conference in Orlando featured a diverse slate of speakers on topics ranging from WWII aviation to Presidential politics.

The session opened with a video from George Lucas, who was scheduled to speak in person, but was detained in California by the over-4-billion dollar purchase of Lucasfilm by the Disney corporation. Lucas produced the documentary Red Tails, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen. Four of the original airmen were on the stage for a panel discussion moderated by air show pilot Sean Tucker. The pilots recounted some of their experiences flying in the segregated unit during the war.

Author Regina Wirtanen Buker was presented with the 10th annual Combs Gates award for her as-yet-unpublished book "The Skytrain Pilot: Flying A C-47 into Combat." The book tells the story of her father, who's first combat mission was to transport paratroops into occupied France on D-Day. The award comes with a $20,000 cash prize.

Kansas Republican Congressman Sam Graves, the chair of the House General Aviation Caucus, was the next speaker to the podium. Graves echoed many of the comments made the previous day by Congressman John Mica (R-FL) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS). But he also urged NBAA members to encourage their representatives to get involved in the House GA Caucus, said that aviation will have its challenges when the new congress convenes, and urged NBAA members to contact their representatives about joining the caucus. "Ask them if they are a member of the General Aviation Caucus," Graves said, "and ask them to join if they aren't. We're starting a new congress in January, and we have to start the process all over again. So we want to make sure we hit the ground running and get as many members as we can that first month of the new congress."

Graves said that the General Aviation Caucus is the one of the largest such groups on Capitol Hill.

On a completely different note, the session’s keynote speakers were political power couple James Carville and Mary Matalin, who gave their perspectives about the upcoming Presidential election. Matalin said she thinks most of the major polls have it right, and that Mitt Romney will be the next President of the United States. "I think its going to be our version of a 21st century blowout, which is three to five points," Matalin said. "It's based on fundamentals when you look at the electorate. It's not based on any kind of a Republican or Democrat desire."

Carville disagreed, as you might expect, but also said that regardless of the outcome, the party that loses this election will have to do some serious thinking about its direction. "If the Democrats lose this, they will have not won an election since 2008. You can safely infer from that that it's a pretty ... dramatic repudiation of Obama's agenda.  If the Republicans lose, the ramifications are going to be staggering. From 1992 to 2012 if they lose this election they will have won the popular vote one time, 2004. You can look for the losing party to say 'one of us is not winning Presidential elections any more'."

Matalin and Carville are apparently popular with the NBAA crowd, as this is the third time they have addressed the convention, but the first time with an election so close at hand.

(ANN Staff images. Top: Buker presented award. Bottom left James Carville, right Mary Matalin)

FMI: www.nbaa.org