VFR Flight Following -- What's going on here?

Paul Poberezny (the founder of EAA, father of the current president, Tom)
has started a competing group (whose name I can't recall -- Homebuilders
Aircraft Association? Sport Aircraft Association?) because so many EAA
members have felt disenfranchised by the direction the group has taken in
recent years. It is apparently growing steadily.

Go to the AAA (Antique Aircraft Association) fly-in in Blakesburg -- of
which Paul Poberezney is a regular attendee and a member -- and they can
barely speak of EAA without spitting.

What does this say about Paul's attitude toward the direction his son is
taking EAA?

After being an EAA member for roughly 20 years, this year I got the
renewal in the mail, looked at it unopened for a minute, and chucked
it in the trash. The EAA I knew died when Paul P left the helm. It just
took me several years to bury it. And by then, it was smelling
awfully foul.

I've heard this, over and over, from (usually gray-headed) long-term EAA
members. Some of them quite vociferously.

Yet, for the life of me, I can't get ANY of them to tell me what, precisely,
they are so ****ed about. I'm not sure even they know -- it's almost a
gut-level frustration that can't be described.

I've been a member of EAA since 1983. I've seen Airventure grow
exponentially, year after year, until it's now the premier
fly-in/convention/air show in the world. I've read Sport Aviation every
month -- that's 264 consecutive issues -- and (although I must admit to
being bored with many of the topics) it has improved many orders of
magnitude since the Reagan Administration.

Annual dues are cheap. The museum in Oshkosh is incredibly beautiful, and
well done. Local EAA chapters are almost always fun, lively, and filled
with good people who are in love with aviation. Kids are welcome, and Young
Eagle flights are the best thing that has happened in GA since the 1940s.

So WHAT is there to hate about EAA? I just don't get it.

IMHO, General Aviation is so small that we simply can't afford to become
fragmented into little competing groups. Not if we want to survive.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"Nomen Nescio" ] wrote in message
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From: "Jay Honeck"

Paul Poberezny (the founder of EAA, father of the current president, Tom)
has started a competing group (whose name I can't recall -- Homebuilders
Aircraft Association? Sport Aircraft Association?) because so many EAA
members have felt disenfranchised by the direction the group has taken in
recent years. It is apparently growing steadily.

Go to the AAA (Antique Aircraft Association) fly-in in Blakesburg -- of
which Paul Poberezney is a regular attendee and a member -- and they can
barely speak of EAA without spitting.



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