Actor/Pilot Harrison Ford Will Speak To The Masses About Importance Of GA

Obviously noting the excellent visibility Pilot/Actor Harrison Ford has brought to the EAA's Young Eagles program and Cessna's amazing Special Olympics airlift, AOPA has brought in some Hollywood muscle to make GA more publicly visible and acceptable to the public at large.

General aviation is an economic engine that pumps $150 billion into the United States economy each year. In local communities, it brings outside business in, and lets local businesses extend their reach. It provides more than a million jobs nationwide. It also provides services to all Americans through law enforcement, medevac, and other emergency services operations, as well as aiding relief efforts in times of disaster.

Of course, those facts aren't news to most pilots, or ANN readers... but outside the industry, it's a message that still falls on deaf ears.

GA faces acute challenges from several directions which could cause much, if not all, of that economic activity to dry up. Hoping to prevent that from happening, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association launched Monday one of the largest campaigns in the 70-year history of the pilot advocacy group: General Aviation Serves America.

"At the heart of many of those challenges is a general lack of understanding about the role general aviation plays every day in the nation’s transportation system, in our communities and in our economy," said AOPA President and CEO Craig L. Fuller. "We are fortunate to have someone as well known as actor and avid pilot Harrison Ford volunteer his services to help explain all that GA is and does."

Joining Ford will be real people telling real stories about what general aviation means to their communities and to their businesses. Examples include the mayor of a Midwestern town whose major employer came to town because of the easy access afforded by the community airport... or the doctor who can only get to his island resident patients by air.

AOPA says the campaign comes at a critical time, as general aviation is under tremendous pressure from legislators and regulators. The Obama administration wants to change the way the FAA is funded and raise $7.5 billion through direct user charges starting in October 2011. At the same time, onerous and ill-conceived security regulations are threatening to strangle GA.

Proposed reductions in the General Fund contribution to the FAA could weaken support for community airports -- a support already undermined by urban sprawl, with some local governments seeking to replace airports with residential development. Adding to GA's burdens is an increasingly negative and unfair public perception of general aviation as "jets for the rich."

"I won't beat around the bush," said Fuller. "The current challenges facing general aviation are formidable."

AOPA has committed an initial $1.5 million to the campaign, with plans to spend several million dollars more in the next few years. To inform the public of GA's crucial role in our lives, the campaign will employ digital advertising, web and viral resources and electronic grassroots outreach. In addition, AOPA is planning extensive paid radio, television and print advertising, both nationally and in targeted states.

While AOPA's campaign will tell that story through the experiences of ordinary people, there is also the story told by hard statistics: general aviation creates jobs. Some 1.2 million people work at general aviation companies that generate more than $150 billion in economic activity each year. Especially at this time of severe economic troubles, it makes no sense to harm a sector that's vital to our economy.

"General aviation provides an economic lifeline for communities across America," says Ford, who is also a long-time AOPA member. "Millions of jobs and businesses of all sizes depend on small aircraft serving our country every day. Yet a federal proposal for costly new fees could shut down community airports nationwide."

"One broken link in the fragile general aviation chain could collapse the entire general aviation system across the country," Fuller concluded. "That's how imperative the actions we take today are to the future of general aviation."

FMI: www.imdb.com/name/nm0000148/, www.aopa.org