Darren Pleasance’s aviation journey blends passion, resilience, and business leadership. From early mentorship to overcoming medical hurdles, he built a diverse flying career while excelling at McKinsey and Google. Now leading AOPA, he champions pilot advocacy, medical certification reform, airport preservation, and youth aviation education, ensuring aviation’s sustainable future.
Darren Pleasance's aviation journey began serendipitously at age 13 in Livermore, California, sparked by witnessing model airplane flying in a local park (02:32)
Boy Scouts aviation merit badge provided first airplane flight experience with troop leader who was also a flight instructor
Airport proximity advantage allowed daily after-school bicycle rides to Livermore Airport for hands-on learning
Mentorship network development through open hangar visits led to free flight instruction from CFI named Doug
Accelerated certification timeline: solo at 16, private at 17, commercial instrument flight instructor at 18
College funding strategy utilized flight instruction income to pay for education expenses
Life decision framework established early: "When faced with difficult decision, choose one that makes for better story" (07:03)
McKinsey departure decision after 14 years applied this principle to join Google despite financial spreadsheet analysis
Alaska bush pilot choice over completing engineering master's degree exemplified same philosophy
Career diversification approach created multiple aviation experiences: corporate jets, glider towing, competition aerobatics, bush flying
Color vision deficiency discovery at age 16 during first medical examination created major career obstacle (09:16)
Initial medical restriction: "not valid for night flight or color signals" threatened professional pilot aspirations
Demonstrated ability waiver process required FAA flight examination demonstrating ability to distinguish aviation-relevant colors
Testing requirements included: identifying plowed vs. unplowed fields, recognizing taxiway centerline lights, runway edge lights, beacon colors
Airline career impact: even with eventual first-class medical clearance, airlines wouldn't hire pilots with any medical history complications
Blessing in disguise outcome: forced exploration of diverse aviation opportunities including John Travolta corporate pilot work, competition aerobatics, P-51 flying
McKinsey consulting foundation provided comprehensive business function exposure across marketing, sales, finance, organizational strategy (05:58)
High-tech specialization and sales/marketing focus opened door to Google global team leadership opportunity
14-year tenure built expertise in helping management teams improve business performance worldwide
Diverse client experience across multiple industries and business functions created versatile skill set
Google and Cisco leadership roles combined with continuous aviation involvement maintained dual expertise (12:51)
Weekend flying commitment included teaching aerobatics at Bedford Airport's Executive Flyers Aviation
Competition aerobatics involvement led to EAA board connections and industry networking
P-51 flying experience enhanced aviation credibility and public profile
Unique qualification combination merged deep aviation passion with Fortune 500 business leadership experience (12:51)
200+ employee organization requires substantial business management capabilities
Public speaking requirements for member events, donor relations, political advocacy, airport community relations
Aviation credibility essential for representing pilot community interests and understanding operational challenges
Advocacy experience needed for communicating aviation value to non-pilot stakeholders
Current aircraft ownership maintains grassroots GA connection through Sea Ray amphibious aircraft and RV-6 ownership (15:11)
Recent flying examples: Priest Lake, Idaho seaplane fly-in participation, formation flying with friends
Backcountry flying engagement demonstrates continued hands-on small aircraft experience
Cost-conscious operations understanding through Rotax-powered aircraft ownership
Base membership value proposition at $89 annually provides extensive pilot support services (20:40)
Pilot Information Center staffing includes deep maintenance experts available for technical problem-solving
International flight planning assistance covers Canada, Bahamas, and worldwide destinations with step-by-step guidance
Aircraft purchasing support through aviation finance group connections and escrow service coordination
Documentation and process guidance for complex aviation procedures and regulatory compliance
Pilot Protective Services enhancement for additional $85 annually adds critical legal and medical advocacy (21:43)
Medical packet review service ensures special issuance applications meet FAA requirements before submission
Legal representation availability for FAA enforcement actions, violations, or incident responses
Specialized expertise access for navigating complex regulatory interactions and protecting pilot certificates
Risk mitigation approach prevents multi-month delays from incomplete FAA submissions
Growing mental health certification complexity requires specialized AOPA medical services guidance (30:28)
Young pilot medication history increasingly common for anxiety, depression, ADHD treatments during teenage years
Historical automatic disqualification being replaced with thoughtful case-by-case evaluation by FAA
Documentation requirements becoming more complex but achievable with proper preparation and advocacy
Dr. Susan Northrup leadership as Federal Air Surgeon working to reduce special issuance backlogs
Processing timeline improvements under current FAA medical leadership showing measurable progress (30:28)
Six-month to one-year timelines still common for special issuance cases with complex medical histories
Backlog reduction efforts ongoing but substantial volumes still creating extended wait times
Professional pilot impact demonstrated through airline pilot medical deferral experiences requiring months of career uncertainty
Airport infrastructure comparison highlights US aviation system advantages over international counterparts (35:56)
5,000 public use airports in US with only 500 having control towers enables widespread GA access
3,500 airports with instrument approaches create weather-independent national transportation network
Germany comparison: only towered airports permitted instrument approaches, severely limiting utility aviation
European model limitations restrict general aviation to VFR-only operations at uncontrolled airports
ATC privatization opposition based on international precedent analysis and stakeholder influence concerns (33:32)
User fee implementation in privatized systems creates barriers to flight training, safety practices, and airport utilization
Airline influence concentration through deeper financial resources shapes privatized ATC board decisions
Airspace allocation shifts favor commercial operations over general aviation access and utility
Safety degradation risks from reduced flight training frequency due to per-operation fee structures
High school aviation program expansion reaching 30,000 students across 1,500 schools nationwide (23:49)
Four-year curriculum structure provided free to participating schools regardless of economic constraints
Teacher training programs enable non-pilot educators to deliver aviation content effectively
Career pathway diversification beyond traditional airline pilot focus to include corporate, firefighting, medevac, bush flying opportunities
Professional development support helps students understand aviation industry breadth and alternative career paths
Pilot shortage solution approach emphasizes local flight school importance over centralized training facilities (38:19)
Military pilot percentage decline requires civilian-trained pilot pipeline expansion for airline recruitment
Local flight school network at thousands of airports provides distributed training capacity
Airport closure threat directly impacts airline pilot production capability and national transportation infrastructure
Flight instructor advocacy role critical for membership growth and student pilot introduction to AOPA services (45:41)
Historical membership introduction pattern: CFIs recommended AOPA alongside essential equipment and educational materials
Current engagement decline among flight instructors requires renewed education about AOPA value proposition
Student pilot free membership for six months provides risk-free introduction to organization benefits
Career-long value proposition extends beyond private pilot training through professional aviation transitions
Public advocacy responsibility for aviation community members to educate non-pilot population about airport importance (47:55)
Medical evacuation services utilizing local airports for emergency patient transport
Firefighting operations depend on airport infrastructure for aerial suppression activities
Economic development impact through business aviation supporting local employment and commerce
Pilot training pipeline at local airports directly feeds airline industry personnel requirements
00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic. Three mile final. Runway two five join four mile final.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:26
Wally Mulhern
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. We've had a lot of really good guests on our show, but I think I'm really thrilled to welcome a pilot whose passion for flight spans his entire life. From washing planes, which I rampers do as a teenager in California, to logging over 8,000 hours across more than 50 different types of aircraft, including warbirds like the P51. He's flown bush planes in Alaska, been on John Travolta's corporate pilot team, taught aerobatics, instrument, tail wheel. Simultaneously, he built his top tier career at McKinsey, Google and Cisco, which I'm passionate about because of my tech background. Today, he sits at the forefront of aviation leadership as the sixth president and CEO of the aopa, guiding one of the world's largest pilot organizations into its next chapter.
01:13
Bobby Doss
An avid aircraft owner, aviation advocate, author of the bestseller True North, a handbook on inspired living, and a pilot with both wings and vision, please join me in welcoming Darren Pleasance to Behind the Prop. Thanks for joining us, Darren.
01:28
Darren Pleasance
Great, Bobby. Thank you for having me. I am pleased to be here.
01:31
Bobby Doss
And I've been, you know, I normally stalk people that I want on the show and I started stalking you about six months, four months after you probably became the new president. Begging my local you can fly guy to get me in touch with you. So thanks, Pat. He's been on the show four or five times. We got to meet at Oshkosh at the AOPA party, take a couple pictures. It's really cool to read your background and know a little bit more about you and in your background, but why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background, give us a little bio yourself about what you want us to know and how you ended up at the aopa.
02:03
Darren Pleasance
Great. Well, yeah, I'd love to do that. And thanks again for having me on the show. I was one of those kids that was lucky enough to live near an airport in Livermore, California When I was a young kid, 13 years old, I had gotten into model airplanes as well, just kind of stumbled into them. I saw a guy flying a model airplane in the park one day when I was probably 12. And that's what kind of Ignited the spark I had otherwise had no contact with aviation. My parents weren't into it. Nobody else in my family was into it. So for me, it was kind of a stroke of luck that I at least had that initial introduction. And then as I discovered this interest, I was again fortunate enough to live close to the airport.
02:43
Darren Pleasance
And so I could just ride my bike out to the Livermore airport after school. I was in between early days of high school all the way through. And that's really where it got started. I was lucky enough also to be in Boy Scouts, and there's an aviation merit badge that the Boy Scouts have. And my troop leader was also a flight instructor. So my first flight in an airplane was getting my aviation merit badge. And I was probably also around 13 or 14 then. And that also, you know, seeing the world from that vantage point from a small plane was really exciting. And so that really just started the whole process. And of course, you know, riding around the hangars at an airport gave me a chance to see open hangars.
03:20
Darren Pleasance
There'd be people out there working on their airplanes, changing oil or washing and waxing them and, you know, gapping spark plugs and whatever. And so after a few trips out to the airport, I started to make contact with people who would invite me in to see their plane. And that really just kind of exploded in a good way. Meaning I'd be out there almost every day and I could help. I'd go out and help Tom over here on his airplane, or Al over here on his airplane, or Bob on his airplane. And by the time I was 16, I'd gotten lots of airplane rides and had a guy who was a flight instructor, Doug, who was willing to start giving me lessons for free.
03:52
Darren Pleasance
And so I did the solo at 16, private 17, commercial instrument flight instructor at 18, and then went on to basically teach flying through college. That's how I, I paid my way through it. So that was the journey that got me going. And as you mentioned, I was lucky enough in Santa Barbara. John Travolta lived there and I was just a second in command. He had a full time pilot, but he needed periodically, at least someone in the right seat when he was traveling. And so I had an opportunity to do that for a little bit of time there and then did lots of other flying. Alaska. I'm sure we'll talk about more of that as we talk here.
04:24
Darren Pleasance
But I was just lucky enough at a young age to be close to an airport and then met people who were excited enough and willing enough to Help someone who displayed an interest in aviation to actually find a way to get to do it.
04:38
Bobby Doss
Well, that's an awesome background. And again, I'm a little passionate on the tech stuff. I think. I look back on my tech days and I don't miss it, really I don't. But I wanted a big job so bad at Microsoft or Dell and chasing this dream in tech and now I'm a small business president and CEO and feel so much more proud every day that everything I do impacts me not just the company at large, but McKinsey is obviously a huge company. Cisco's a huge company, Google's a huge company. What did those things do? What those companies teach you that you bring to the aopa?
05:11
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, it's, I mean obviously a lot about business and McKinsey probably the most diverse business experience because by definition you're being hired by companies all over the world to help their management teams improve business performance. So you kind of have to learn about all the different dimensions and different functions inside a business, whether that's marketing and sales or finance organization strategy, all these different functions that every company needs to have in some form or another. And in consulting you get to experience all of those and experience it in many different ways because you're working for so many different kinds of companies. My main client base at McKinsey ended up being high tech and then sales and marketing was the main function where I spent most of my time.
05:49
Darren Pleasance
And so that's really what opened the door eventually, after 14 years at McKinsey, to being asked to join Google to lead a global team for them, which seemed like a great opportunity. And there had been a saying given to me many years ago as I was faced with difficult decisions. The saying was, when faced with a difficult decision, choose the one that makes for a better story. And I had met people who'd lived these incredible lives and really diverse and interesting lives. And it was one of those people that gave me that saying. And I had used it in other places in my life. But in this case I had been at McKinsey for 14 years. An amazing organization, amazing people, I learned a ton. And I was faced with this opportunity to leave McKinsey and join Google.
06:30
Darren Pleasance
And the easy answer would have been to stay at McKinsey because I enjoyed it and made decent money and I knew how to be successful and all those things. And I did the spreadsheet as all of us would do. How much money will I make here versus there? And all the trade offs you make and you know, and you can make a spreadsheet look however good or bad you want to. And so at the end of the day, it was that saying, like, when faced with a difficult decision, choose the one that makes for a better story. And for me, I thought, what would make for a better story? Like a better life story, maybe 20 years at McKinsey or 25, or do 14 at McKinsey and then maybe go do 10 or something at Google. Like, well, that's definitely a better story.
07:06
Darren Pleasance
And, and so I, that's, that was really the catalyst that had me make that change. I use that same saying back when I was leaving graduate school to go become an Alaska bush pilot. What would be cooler? What would make for a better story? Finish out this. I was getting my master's in engineering. Finish that out or go to Alaska, go door to door, try to find a bush pilot job and do that for a season. And of course I ended up doing that. And to me, that was a far better story in terms of crafting my own life narrative, no doubt.
07:34
Bobby Doss
And I think some of us in aviation are less risk adverse, but in corporate America, I was very, I was open to risk. I was willing to take that next shot. I had confidence in myself. And sounds like you did a lot of the same to make that better story. So congratulations on all that success. So you do those things, why the aopa? I mean, you could, you had big jobs, big companies, could have probably worked for anybody in a big job at a big company. Why the aopa? And what is your mission or goal that you're going to make something happen better or different at the aopa?
08:07
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, it's, you know, it wasn't on my radar screen. In fact, most of my career paths and steps have not, you know, was, weren't something I was specifically trying to become. It's. There are opportunities that emerged in large part because of how I had led my life up until that point. It made some of these opportunities more kind of more obvious or more logical for me to have as my next step. But they were never part of a grand plan. The one thing that has been part of the grand plan is AViation. Like, I loved it so much at 13 and was lucky enough to be able to get into it, like we talked about earlier, that I was doing everything I could to have aviation be a big part of my life, including desperately wanting to do what, what Wally does.
08:44
Darren Pleasance
I wanted to be an airline pilot more than anything. And I, I discovered just before my 16th birthday that I had a color vision deficiency. And I went to get my medical. I didn't know until then, you know, and they opened the book and say, hey, you know, what number do you see? I'm like, there's no numbers on there. It's just a bunch of colored little dots. And they're like, oh, okay, you're colorblind, they call it, which is really not a correct term. I can see colors. I just can't make out the distinctions between two very similar shades of red or two very similar shades of green. But that led me to having a medical to start with, at least that said, not valid for night flight or color signals.
09:16
Darren Pleasance
And you talk about a crushing blow to my aspirations to be a professional pilot. But then I kept going and I managed to find out that you could get a demonstrated ability waiver. I was able to go do that. I had to go do a flight with FAA and point out green fields versus brown fields. I actually could tell which ones had been plowed and which ones hadn't. They had to shoot like signals at me. I could see, you know, green taxiway lights, you know, center line. I could see blue edge lights. I could see white lights on the Runway. Green and white beacon. I could see all that stuff. But it wasn't as easy for me to see, like distinction on the beacon. White and green. I'd look at it and go, okay, yeah, that's green, that one's white.
09:52
Darren Pleasance
Whereas I think most people don't have that much of a challenge in seeing those distinctions. But the reality for aviation colors, it wasn't that those distinctions were red and green. There's no. They're very clear in blue and red, blue and green. They're very clear. So the net of that was that it did preclude me though, from, at that point in time, especially from becoming a, an airline pilot. They weren't going to hire someone. Even though I ended up with a first class medical, no restrictions. At that point in time, if you didn't have everything perfect, you weren't going to get on. So it really became a kind of a blessing in disguise to some extent. Because as much as I would like to have been an airline pilot, it really pushed me to go do other things.
10:31
Darren Pleasance
And I ended up doing all these other things. Corporate jet pilot, glider tow pilot, Alaska bush pilot, competition aerobatic pilot, got to fly with John Travolta, got to do all these cool, interesting things. And even when I left aviation to, I had to make a living doing something. And I went to business school really to burn two years to hopefully get on with the airline. Still mostly part of the reason I didn't get hired as well. I thought maybe some would overlook my color deficiency at the time. They were also just going bankrupt. Yet Eastern Braniff, you know, Pan Am, twa, all these guys we all remember. And so it just became increasingly clear airline pilot wasn't likely to work out. But I really wanted aviation to be a part of what I continued to do.
11:11
Darren Pleasance
So I went to business school, ended up discovering management consulting. Got into that. But even while I did that, I still flew every weekend. In fact, when I got into management consulting, it was back in Boston. And I wanted to make sure I kept my hand in flying. So went out to the Bedford Airport Executive Flyers Aviation was right there at the. At the Bedford Airport run by a guy named Michael Goulin. And Michael was looking for someone to be an aerobatic flight instructor for him. And I had done lots of aerobatics as a kid growing up. I was a CFI by then. And so I went to work for Michael on the weekends teaching aerobatics. And that's what got me into competition aerobatics.
11:47
Darren Pleasance
And that led to a whole other journey in aviation that ultimately led me to getting onto the EAA board meeting. Tom Po Bezny and all of them. So it's just kind of interesting how what at the moment in time seemed like a pretty negative. Like when I found out I was colorblind, you know, colorblind, and that the airlines were just going to be more difficult to get into, it felt like the end of the world. And then in hindsight now, it caused me or drove me to do a bunch of other stuff that opened up so many interesting doors.
12:16
Darren Pleasance
And all of that then between the business work, as you mentioned, McKinsey, Google, and then Cisco, combined with the continuation of all of my flying that I was doing, including the competition aerobatics, and eventually, you know, having the opportunity to fly a P51 that gave me the profile. I think that when Mark Baker was looking at stepping down from aopa, no, the ideal candidate is someone who is deeply immersed in aviation, so understands and loves all that is great about aviation and is willing to fight and advocate for it to make sure we continue to keep it as vibrant as it is. But also, at the end of the day, it is a business too. We, we bring money in, we spend money. We have a sizable team. It's 200 people across all of our different teams here.
12:59
Darren Pleasance
So you need someone who at least understands the foundations of business and then someone who has at least done enough public speaking, at least for this role. Because you do have to be out on stage talking to not just members, but also donors, politicians, sometimes, you know, stakeholders around airports. You sometimes have people who live near airports who aren't happy and you got to be able to communicate with them and advocate for why aviation matters. So it's an interesting set of skills and it was one that intrigued me when the opportunity came to me. Like, what a perfect sort of culmination. Maybe that's not even the right word because there could be many chapters ahead, but what a perfect way to bring together the thing I love more than anything, which is aviation.
13:37
Darren Pleasance
The experience I've got with a number of really world class companies between the ones I've worked for and bring that together into this role and act on behalf of all of aviation to really help it become, you know, remain as vibrant and even perhaps more vibrant. Looking into the future.
13:53
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And I don't get to find near as much as I used to, but I'm assuming some people might think you're the CEO and president of a big organization. Can you really understand what us little GA guys are going through? What, what's the one story or the one thing recent maybe that you can tell us about from your GA flying that proves that you are someone who can touch base with us guys and girls out on the street?
14:19
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, of course I did fly corporate jets for part of my life. So I have, I've touched all that part of it. But I currently own a Sea Ray, which is a little amphibious Rotax powered airplane. So, you know, I get out in that fairly often. I also have an RV6. And so my roots are still very much grounded in that small little airplane that's fun to fly, that doesn't cost a lot to fly. And you can go up and play with your friends and do formation flying or go do backcountry stuff or. I took the, I took the Sea Ray just a few weeks ago up to Priest Lake in northern Idaho to join the Washington Seaplane Pilots association fly in. And so I, I love that kind of flying.
14:56
Darren Pleasance
Although if I have the chance to fly a corporate jet, I also love the feeling of being at 41,000ft and getting to see a little bit of the curvature of the earth and watching a sunset from that altitude or dodging thunderstorms and seeing the big billowing thunderstorms climbing up to 45,000ft. And I don't know, I just, I love all these different aspects of flying. And the challenge and the beauty of it, I think, is that you're never done right. There's no such thing as a perfect flight. You can always do something better. And I personally like that challenge of always trying to be as good as I can be, recognizing you'll never be perfect. But it's fun to try to be as good as you can be.
15:29
Darren Pleasance
And I think there's no better sort of avocation than aviation to constantly be challenging you to be that.
15:37
Bobby Doss
Yeah. Our mutual acquaintance Jay told me that you made a recent trip to Canada and that's no small task for a pilot. I mean, we did a special episode a while back on how to get to the Bahamas and all the work you'd have to do to fly from your country, United States, to Canada. As a GA pilot. That's a big deal. I mean, that's not. Well, get out of the plane, start walking around, I assume.
15:58
Darren Pleasance
No, you don't. And it was, this was, you know, kind of a lark of mine literally just four days ago. So I was. And I had just gotten my RV6 out here to the East Coast. I'm in Frederick, Maryland now, of course, where AOPA is headquartered. And I wanted to have a plane here I could fly because my home base has been back in Bend, Oregon and I've been living there since 2004. So I brought the RV6 out here and I just said, hope I have nothing going on Sunday. What would be fun to do? And it turns out Canada Toronto is only about an hour and 45 minutes from Frederick in an RB6 at 165, 170 knots. And so yeah, so I just literally last minute on a Friday before last Sunday, I said I'm going to go do this.
16:36
Darren Pleasance
And so I had to jump through all the hoops. This is a great, you know, it's great to be part of aopa. I don't have to be the CEO to get the service. I just walked downstairs and talked to the guy, said, what do I need to do? And you get into all the EAPIS stuff. You have to file a certain flight plan, got to make sure you have all the right documents, including a radio station license and radio operators permit and a few things that I was able to jump through the hoops online and get all that stuff done and then can pass on the Canadian side. And the Canadians, frankly, they make it so easy.
17:03
Darren Pleasance
It's really an amazing country because you do your campass flight Plan and when you arrive, you call the campass number as you taxi into the FBO and they 99 out of 100 times or 9 out of 10 times. Anyways, they'll say anything different from what you told us before you started your flight? And I say, nope, it's still just me. I've got my passport, I didn't bring any firearms with me or anything. And they say, great, welcome to Canada, have a nice day. And so then you have the traveling back into the us you got to find your airport of entry and all of those things. And it worked great. It ended up not being as hard as I thought it might be. But there is some work to do before you go.
17:36
Darren Pleasance
And it's funny you asked the question because it's actually know AOPA really did help me make sure I had all my ducks in a row so I didn't get myself messed up either on the Canadian side or when I landed back in Buffalo, New York coming back and Buffalo took all of 20 minutes, cleared customs, had my passport, no big deal. And then back to Frederick by six o' clock that evening. So yeah, really fun. Really, really fun.
17:56
Bobby Doss
Well, that's a down to earth story.
17:59
Wally Mulhern
Oh, I just say how much is AB gas up there?
18:02
Darren Pleasance
That's a great question. It was like $2.30 Canadian per liter. So you have to do a couple conversions obviously liter to gallon roughly four, but then $2.30 Canadian dollars and you have to convert that to us it's about 70 cents I think on the dollar here. So it's less than 220 US dollars. So I think it ended up being. It was probably in the range of about 650 or $7 per gallon. I have to go back and look at it. They actually emailed me the receipt when it was all done. I haven't done that math yet to figure it out. The beauty of an RV6 is even that entire flight I took like 20 gallons. So it wasn't going to make or break whether I could, you know, eat for the next week. It wasn't crazy. RB6 is pretty, you know, pretty efficient airplane.
18:46
Wally Mulhern
Right?
18:47
Bobby Doss
So you mentioned the services helps you get there. Why don't we, why don't we share it? I mean, I think it's one of those things that as a flight school owner who meets a whole bunch of people new to aviation and some people that come in that have experience but don't know what all the AOPA does, let's try to talk through really some of the great Services that I don't think people really understand. It's not just membership that you can have a sticker and a magazine coming to you. What does the AOPA mean to a pilot? Whether they're general ga Corporate or somebody like Wally?
19:23
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, I think there's a lot we do. In fact, a lot more that we do than I even appreciate it. I've been a member for 37 years and so, you know, obviously continued to write my check every year to remain member despite not knowing all of what AOPA does. And now, you know, in the role I'm in, I have a much better appreciation for it. But it's a lot of different things. A lot of it is around just services for you as a pilot. If you wanted to buy an airplane, we actually have an aviation finance group. But even just people to advise you on the ins and outs of different kinds of airplanes, we get you connected into an escrow service.
19:54
Darren Pleasance
So just, you know, purchasing an airplane, if you wanted to do that, if you had questions on anything related to your aircraft. So maintenance, you have a maintenance issue. We have people on the phones downstairs that are deep maintenance experts that if they can't solve your specific problem, they can give you advice on how to get your problem solved. And so, and again, this is all included as part of your fees. If you want to fly to Canada or the Bahamas or any other country, we have people who know how to do that really well and they'll walk you through that whole process. We have documentation, we'll send you. They will basically give you the, you know, A to B, you know, A to Z really process and how you do any of those things.
20:28
Darren Pleasance
So there's just a bunch of, you know, we call it our pilot information center on virtually any aviation topic you can imagine, we help on that. Then beyond that, we've got our medical services. So if you've got a question about a medical Should I get basic meds? Should I just get a third class medical? I've been taking these medications. Is it going to be okay when I go to see my ame or hey, I just went to see a doctor and now I've got a concern about blood pressure, you know, whatever it might be. Even just for your base membership, which is $89 a year, even just for that, you can call that medical services team and they'll give you advice and they'll talk to you pretty much for as long as you want to help you walk through that.
21:04
Darren Pleasance
On top of that, we do have something called Pilot Protective Services, PPS, which is like an extra about $85 a year. And for that you also get legal and medical services. So the medical would be not only do you get what I just described, but if you want us to review your packet, if you have to get a special issuance, you've got some issue that you need the FAA to approve, we'll review your packet and make sure that it is locked tight, ready to go, before you send it to the faa.
21:28
Darren Pleasance
So that you don't, you know, you basically have essentially zero or very low risk that the FAA is going to send it back to you, because as anyone who's been through that process, if the FAA sends it back to you because they don't have everything they need, you've now added probably three to six months to your journey. So by taking a little bit of time with us to work through your packet with you when it gets submitted, the probability of it going through and going through quickly goes up dramatically. We also have the legal services.
21:53
Darren Pleasance
You know, it's kind of one of those, you know, there are those who have and those who will some kind of interaction with the faa, whether it's you violated inadvertently a TFR or you forgot to turn your nav lights on and it's now sunset and somebody reports you and the FAA feels they need to give you a call to understand what happened. Or you do have an incident, you run off the Runway, a flat tire as you land, whatever it might be. Almost everybody's had some kind of interaction with the FAA at some point during their journey. And boy, it's nice to have somebody on your side that can walk. You say that. Here's what you do, all in the interest of just having that interaction with the FAA be as positive as possible. So, you know, lots of that stuff.
22:28
Darren Pleasance
And I could go on and on, but the other big buckets I'll just talk about without going into detail. But we have our advocacy group and they're the ones who are sitting on Capitol Hill. They're working to basically advocate on all of our behalves to make sure that we continue to keep aviation affordable and accessible for all of us. That's basicmed came out of that work that we do there. All the work we're doing today on the transition to unleaded fuel, ads, B and so on. You know, a lot of stuff there. And then I could go into that. That's a whole nother section we can go deeper on. But then lastly would be our foundation where we've got scholarships for folks wanted, they don't have to be young either, although most of them do go to young folks.
23:04
Darren Pleasance
But scholarships tell people get into aviation. We've got rusty pilots. Course if you've been in aviation then got out and want to come back into it, we have a high school program. There's 30,000 kids as we speak today sitting in our high school program at almost 1500 schools around the country. We give that program away for free. It's a four year program. So we'd love to have every high school offer it. And there's no economic reason. They wouldn't. You don't have to be a pilot to be a teacher and we train the teachers and so that's another source of value. And I guess I'll end on this. You know, we. Not everybody wants to be a recreational pilot. A lot of people want to be professional pilots. We've got career related services where we help you understand all the opportunities aviation provides.
23:46
Darren Pleasance
Most people go into aviation because they want to be an airline pilot. That's the most visible. But what about what if, you know, if like me, airlines don't work out, what about corporate flying, fractional ownership like NetJets? What about aerial firefighting? What about medevac flying or even just flight instructing or Alaska bush flying or, or. Right. There's dozens of these. So you know, all of that is what AOPA is your partner in. As you think about having aviation be a big part of your life again, whether it's professionally or recreationally, we're there to help you for 89 a year. So to me it's a incredible bargain.
24:23
Bobby Doss
Yeah, and you said a lot of things, but I'll touch one. I've been a marketing a sales guy for my entire career. But literally for your base membership and those protection pilot protective services, you're talking less than one hour on the Hobbs meter. I mean it's literally less than one hour of flight time in any single engine GA aircraft and 175 bucks at the all in maybe just a little less than that. I mean that is crazy ridiculous Investment, partnership, whatever you want to call it. And you didn't mention a couple things that are really important to me. The scholarships obviously is great and we all love that's we're helping people. But I think I'm deathly afraid of ATC becoming a private organization. I have a UK flight instructor and he tells horrific stories of they wouldn't land.
25:12
Bobby Doss
They didn't get to land much before they sold because every Time the wheels touch the ground. It's a $25 fee. It's crazy. Some of the stories that he would talk about and how much learning to get his private pilot certificate in the UK, probably 40 grand. Like, we don't want that over here. And if my.
25:32
Darren Pleasance
There's a reason a lot of countries send their pilots to the US to learn to fly, as you probably know. Right. The reason you see a lot of folks from Asia and Europe over here, because it's so much better here than it is there because of that fee structure you just talked about. Now, you're 100% right.
25:47
Bobby Doss
And it's. It really is the. It is the government tax dollars that are paying for atc, and we want that protection and that protection. I've read some of the PAC stuff and some of the things AOPA is doing, but we have got to protect what we live for. Right. I don't know that a flight school owner is going to be able to make it if that becomes a thing. Just. It'll be really bad.
26:11
Darren Pleasance
No, you're right. And the reality. Go ahead, Wally. I'll let you pile on, and then I'm happy to share some more perspective. Like what exactly happens behind the scenes on that, because it's. It is interesting.
26:21
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, I just wanted to. To advocate for pilot protective service. You know, I, I had a situation that. This really hasn't even come up on the podcast, but I've been flying for about 44 years, so in. In theory, I've had 88 medicals. Now, there have been times where I didn't keep up a first class. I let it lapse to a second class before I became a captain. So let's say over these years, I've done about 80, 75 to 80 FAA physicals, and all but one of them went like this. I walked in. Okay, you're good. Here you go. See you later. See you in six months. Last February, not so much. I went in, I had to have an ekg, and the doctor came in, says, we've got an abnormality on your ekg. And he couldn't issue a medical to me.
27:13
Wally Mulhern
I had to jump through hoops. I went through some very invasive cardiac testing, which at the end of the day, the cardiologist said, you're perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with you. Then the packet got sent to the faa. Now, again, as an airline pilot, I'm a member of the Airline Pilots association, alpa, not aop, but they have medical advocacy, and they help me navigate through things and I was sitting on the sideline for about 10 weeks, you know, just sitting at home, not flying, thinking, is my career over? I, I, I felt that it wasn't. But you're at the mercy of the FAA. And finally, you know, 10 weeks later, I get the word from the FAA, yeah, you're fine, good to go. Here's your new medical.
28:04
Bobby Doss
One clear point that you're failing to mention is that there was nothing wrong with you, Right? Like there was nothing wrong with you.
28:10
Wally Mulhern
No, no, I, I said to my, I kept saying to my cardiologist, am I sick? He goes, no, there's nothing wrong with you. Well, why the change in the ekg? Well, you know, you, as you age, things change and yeah, so I'm perfectly fine. But I'll tell you one thing I realized that the name on the medical that you get when you get a deferred medical, the medical comes from Oklahoma City. The name of the doctor on the medical is David O'. Brien. I see, I'm going to say 20 to 30% of the medicals that I see as a designated pilot examiner have the name David o' Brien on them. And so that tells me a lot of people are dealing with this. Now, I don't get in, I don't get personal with my applicants and say, what's your medical situation here?
29:00
Wally Mulhern
But these are young people. These are, you know, I'm a 62 year old guy. You know, you might expect some medical speed bumps along the road. These are, this is a, you know, 24 year old young man who played lacrosse in college and he's got David o' Brien's name on his medical. So this pilot protective service, just from the medical standpoint, is a drop in the bucket.
29:26
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, Wally, because it's, I'm in my role. I have the opportunity to speak to Susan Northrup. She's our federal air surgeon. So, you know, all of the folks you just talked about out in Oklahoma City, they all report up into Dr. Northrup, you know, and I give her a lot of credit because she is out there, you know, working very diligently to reduce the backlog because, you know, you got yours in X number of weeks. There are definitely some people out there waiting six months, 12 months for a special issue and sometimes longer, although it's very low numbers beyond a year. And even at a year, she's dropped that number quite a bit.
29:57
Darren Pleasance
But what's interesting is the number of folks who Come in related to mental health has just skyrocketed partly because of some of the stuff in the news, the Alaska Airlines thing a year or two ago, but also just a reality that it's become much more prevalent in the number of young people who've been on some kind of medication, whether it's for anxiety or depression or ADHD or, you know, pick your favorite topic. And a lot of them were prescribed medications as a teenager, let's say, and all of a sudden now they're wanting to get on with their life and in a place where they can safely do it. Historically that was just an automatic no, you could not fly.
30:31
Darren Pleasance
And you know, to the FAA's credit, they're being a lot more thoughtful about it now and they are issuing medicals if you go through the process correctly. And the number of young folks we have calling in here, the AOPA headquarters, as you said, that are looking on, hey, am I just out of luck in my ability to fly? And the answer is not necessarily no. It actually could be very much a yes, provided you get all the right paperwork together, you get all the right documentation together and can submit that to the FAA in a way that helps them say yes. Right.
30:59
Darren Pleasance
The people at the FAA that I've met aren't actively looking for ways to say no, but if they don't have the information they need to grant a medical, they in some cases have no other option but to say no, or at least not yet. They defer it again. And so, yeah, you're exactly right, it does. You don't have to be north of 60 for this medical services to be relevant. It's really across your entire aviation journey that just having an advocate on your side that knows exactly how this works to partner with you. And again, it's all, it's not extra cost, it's all included in this membership. So, yeah, I mean, to me it's a no brainer. I just think I, I really built an appreciation for how much AOPA can help and it does. It bothers me.
31:37
Darren Pleasance
And it's part of my mission now to help change people's awareness. I've sat with some people, they're like, no, I'm going to be an airline pilot. I don't need aopa. I'm like, well, you know, I'd hope even if you are an airline pilot, for one thing, you'll still have general aviation be part of your life. But even if you are an airline pilot, many of them, you'll time out at 65, right? Wally, you're staring down the barrel of that. A lot of them want to go off and fly corporate jets. Doesn't mean your flying career is over. It just means maybe you go do something post 65 that takes advantage of your decades of experience, which is highly relevant. Right.
32:05
Darren Pleasance
So GA is likely to be part of your life in some form or another, even if you're an airline pilot and we have services that help you through all of that. And so I just, you know, I'm a big advocate, as you can tell.
32:17
Bobby Doss
We did hopscotch a little bit too. We were talking about ATC and all the work happening in Congress and really the big mission that's probably under the. Behind the curtain. What you were going to share some things that really do happen behind the scenes that none of us really understand or know about.
32:31
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, I'll kind of start with that ATC privatization concept but. And then expand that to kind of what happens behind the scenes. But you're 100% right. Like if were to step back and just allow. Because there are still voices out there that say we should just privatize that the government can't do anything. Right. Let's just give it. And put into the hands of a private sector company and hold them accountable to running atc. On the surface that sounds like a great idea because you know, who wouldn't argue that on average private companies are run better than the government. However, if you think about how that would actually happen and it is how it happens in Canada and you go to these countries, UK go down to Australia and others, it has happened.
33:06
Darren Pleasance
And what happens in those environments is then ATC is responsible for managing all the airspace. They typically would have a board comprised of people from the various stakeholder groups. You'd have general aviation in there, you'd have commercial aviation in there, and so on. And then ultimately the deepest pockets are the ones who end up having the most influence. And in this case that would be the airlines. The airlines obviously have the. They're the ones with the most money going into the aviation sector. Just given the millions of passengers they fly every year and the passenger tax that gets collected.
33:36
Darren Pleasance
And in a world where the deepest pockets have the most influence, what starts to happen is the aviation ecosystem that we all depend on and have come to know and love starts to be shaped over and over again in ways that ultimately benefit the airlines. And what that means really is that airspace starts to get cut off from what general aviation can use. Landing fees like you talked about, you start getting user based fees that start Creating things like, hey, every land, you're going to pay X amount, or every flight plan you file, you're going to pay X amount. Every air traffic controller you talk to, you're going to pay X amount. And that starts to drive down safety.
34:10
Darren Pleasance
For the reasons you talked about, Bobby, is that, you know, people stop doing as many landings because every landing costs a certain amount of money. They stop filing flight plans because you're, you know, you don't want to have to pay that fee. And that's not good. Right. We want a safe, you know, safe airspace system that all of us can use, the public use asset that's here for the benefit of all of us, including airlines, but also including general aviation and everything else military as well.
34:36
Bobby Doss
Well, you said one thing that is shocking and I don't think people realize it, but in some countries, the ATC person gets a token slash, a fee from the pilot every time they key the mic. And so you don't want to even ask to repeat something. Right. And while you were telling a story recently about somebody asking you to repeat so that they could get you to talk more at some point, I don't remember that conversation was. But they want to key that mic up as much as they can. We don't want to get on the wrong side of that on the math problem. It's going to be a big deal.
35:07
Darren Pleasance
Now, what people don't realize, I was just in Europe recently, I was over in Germany and you know, and in this area, in this country, we have 5,000 public use airport, actually 20,000 landing places that include teleports and in grass fields and stuff. But there's 20, there's 5,000 public use airports. Only 500 of those have an air traffic control tower, have a tower. Right. So 4500 of the 5000 don't. Of those 5000 airports, there are instrument approaches into 3500 of them, which basically means 3500 airports in this country are usable by all of us, kind of independent of the weather for the most part. Right.
35:44
Darren Pleasance
And so they become a really important part of our national transportation infrastructure because we can use it to actually go conduct business or go, you know, visit someone in a hospital or count on it to make it for the holiday trips or whatever. You go to Europe if you're in. In Germany, for example, where I just was, the only airports allowed to have an instrument approach are airports with an active control tower. And so they have a number of airports over there. They have uncontrolled airports. None of them have an instrument approach. And so talk about rendering your airspace in your national transportation infrastructure of the airports sort of irrelevant and unusable. Imagine a world where we couldn't use the uncontrolled airports in this country. We would only have 500 across this entire country compared to 01 10.
36:29
Darren Pleasance
And so, you know, and the reason we have what we have is because of the legislators in Congress, both on the Senate and the House side, writing laws that help to protect and preserve this infrastructure we've got, and that's where we come in, is we work really closely with those legislators and we do it in two forms. One is we do have a pack and the PAC is basically we have money that donors give to us and it's limited, they can only give us up to $5,000. But we do use those dollars to help put people who understand and appreciate and will advocate for aviation. Whereas you go to Europe, there's very few legislators out there that have any exposure to aviation.
37:10
Darren Pleasance
So they're making rules and policy that's basically grounded in a lack of understanding of why this whole thing we've got here really matters. And then the other thing we do is we go and we meet with these legislators on the left and the right. This is apolitical. Republican, Democrat, we speak to all of them and we educate them on why does aviation matter. And most people don't realize, they don't realize all of the firefighting flights that go out. You look at LA burning several months ago, right? Those were all going out of Camarillo Airport and Santa Monica Airport, seeing the fires down there, all the medevac flights. When somebody crashes a car and needs to get airlifted to a hospital X miles away, that's a medevac flight.
37:49
Darren Pleasance
All the volunteer pilot organizations, pilots and Paws, angel flight, right, that are flying young kids who live in rural areas for free with their own dollars and their own time to a hospital, you know, somewhere that may be a day or more drive away, they can turn that day drive into a one hour flight again for free. All the flight instruction. Most people today still think that folks like Wally come out of the military, right, to go fly for the airlines. And the reality that's not true. Very small percentage of people come out of the air, come out of the military.
38:19
Darren Pleasance
Most people are learning in local flight schools, whether it's a bigger one like Embry Riddle and the big universities that do that or a small local flight school like we have here in Frederick and thousands of airports across the country that's where your airline pilots come from. You get rid of these little airports, you get rid of airline pilots. And so, you know, we advocate, we tell that story. We help the congressional leaders understand that these little airports matter. And it's critical that they write policy that helps make sure that these airports continue to exist. So we continue to have firefighters and ambulance, aerial ambulance and flight instructors and airline pilots ultimately, and so on. So, you know, a big part of what we do is making sure that we aren't victims of uneducated legislators who create laws and policies that basically kill this.
39:03
Darren Pleasance
This amazing capability we have here in the country.
39:07
Bobby Doss
That's a great story. And call out to Wally's two daughters. Both trained at this airport, at this school, both have worked at this school, both professional pilots, and they were made right here locally. And that's the way it happens. I would have never thought that before I started my flight training, I would have thought there was some big school that all these big airlines were pulling from, but it's not true. And we can't make enough pilots for the shortage. So if you need a source, you can let them follow my flight school on social media, see how many pilots we.
39:37
Darren Pleasance
You know, if there's one concern. If there's one concern I have about all those folks who are taking lessons on their way to becoming airline pilots, because they're right. There's a lot of schools, and that's what they do. That's their. That is their whole business is to create airline pilots. And so I. And I love that they're doing that. If there's a concern, though, I have met with a lot of young folks these days and I've asked this question of many of them. I've said, you know, what do you guys do for, you know, where do you go for your $100 hamburger? What do you do for fun? Like, do you guys go on fly outs? You go camping? Do you do, like, go up and practice formation flying? And they look at me like I have three heads.
40:07
Darren Pleasance
Like, what do you mean go? Like go to lunch somewhere? No, no, these airplanes can't be used for that. They're just, they're out there doing steep turns and stalls and landings and all this stuff because they're on a mission, become an airline pilot. And it really does bum me out because there's so much fun. And frankly, I do believe strongly it makes you a better pilot if you go do these other kinds of flying, Whether that's get a tail wheel endorsement or go learn to fly some backcountry or just, you know, go do some formation flying or just go to a bunch of little airports around, not too far away for that hundred dollar hamburger. The fun and sort of the, to me it brings to life why general aviation is so cool and so interesting.
40:44
Darren Pleasance
And I do worry that a lot of these folks who are getting in and just on this, you know, straight line path to become an airline pilot miss out on all that other dimension of aviation. And not every one of them will become an airline pilot either because of the same situation that I had or because they will become one. But then they'll decide to do corporate stuff on the side or they'll get tired of that lifestyle and want to go become a medevac pilot or an aerial firefighter. And, and if you don't have those other experiences, I don't know that you have set yourself up to take advantage of all that general aviation has to offer.
41:13
Wally Mulhern
I think Walter and I, I, yeah, we actually did an episode a long time ago called Mission oriented Time Building. And it's exactly what we're talking about. I can't tell you how many applicants I get for an advanced rating, maybe an instrument or commercial, where I look in and they've got, you know, 10 hours of solo time. And I've asked them, I said, have you ever taken a friend for an airplane ride? Oh, no, the school won't let us do that. And I'm like, oh boy, you know, so they've really got 10 hours, what I call, yeah, they have pic time logged because the, you know, the regulation says pic or performing the duties of pic, but you got a CFI over there in the right seat and that it's a different, it's different.
42:06
Wally Mulhern
I, I used to ask my daughters when they would come in from soloing, I would always say, have you scared yourself yet? And I think all of us became better pilots when went out there and we scared ourselves. Either maybe we did something stupid or maybe we didn't. I know in my case it was me doing something stupid. It's like, oh boy, I won't do that again. But that is lacking.
42:35
Darren Pleasance
Yeah.
42:36
Bobby Doss
One of my minimum requirements to even interview here is that you have 10 hours of other flying. A proponent that you must do that flying. Like you can't teach someone else how to fly and then let them solo. If you've never had to make a decision on does it make sense to go see my girlfriend over there or take My girlfriend over there or something else. There's got to be that family member criteria that is stressing you more about that decision. It can't just be whether the school's minimums are met or not that you get to go fly. You have to be on your own to make those decisions. And people that apply here are shocked. They're like, how can we afford that?
43:12
Bobby Doss
Well, I'm not so sure, but I have a feeling you and another pilot that's never flown alone can go make that decision together and have an experience that's really different than your instructor saying, yes, we're going to go today or not go today. All of it's a great conversation. I think we probably are going to have a part two. But what should we do now? We've learned that it's a steal of a deal and we don't think you should raise the price, but it's a steal of a deal. What do pilots need to do? How should we sign up? I tell everyone it's a shocking thing. It's a $0 membership.
43:45
Bobby Doss
If you're a brand new pilot, you can go to the AOPA and sign up as a student pilot for six months for free and you still get the hard goods like the magazine and other good things called Flight Training, which is a great magazine. We hope you highlight us in that magazine one day. But it's so valuable. For $0 a student pilot can join for six months. Hopefully you get your private in that timeframe. Then what do we do, Darren? I mean, we, there's gotta be other things we can do. Volunteer, dib money, donate, what tell us and we'll do it.
44:14
Darren Pleasance
Yeah, there's lots of stuff, you know, I, I really do want to have, you know, and in my view, every pilot should be a member. Not just because, you know, we need more membership dollars coming in. It's not, it's really because our ability to influence and do the advocacy that I talked about earlier is really dependent on us having a large portion of the pilot population out there that we represent. So that when we go in, we can say, you know, 80, 90, whatever. I'd love to be 100% of pilots. Our members, they care about the role we play in making sure that aviation remains vibrant in this country. And so, you know, I think one ask is just, you know, if you're not a member, sure, please join. I think that's great.
44:51
Darren Pleasance
Even, you know, as important as that is, talk to other people about why fighting to keep aviation vibrant and alive in this country matters. And, and if you run into someone who's not a member, ask them to join up and become part of the family. Because that is really how we do it, is by having more members. You know, we can't do it if we had zero members. We really can't. Independent of the money. We just don't have any influence like who's going to listen to us if they don't believe we're representing a really large and important group of constituents, which in this case, there's pilots in every city, every state around the country. So every politician pays attention when we show up.
45:25
Darren Pleasance
So that's one ask is just, you know, try to get, you know, your friends and others to become part of what we do. I think an equally important ask, and this is of the flight instructors, is for the flight instructors to invest a bit of time to understand more about what we do and why we matter so they can articulate and communicate that to their students. Because as I go back and talk to most of the folks who've been members of AOPA for some case, in some cases, many decades, I say, how did you become a member? And man, the percentage of them say, well, when I was just about to solo, my flight instructor said, here's the headset I think you should buy, here's the books you need to own, and here's the card to join aopa.
46:00
Darren Pleasance
And it was almost that in that order. And I don't see CFIs doing that as much anymore. And that's probably on us. We probably haven't done a good enough job of conveying why that matters. But I, you know, I guess I'd like to, for any CFIs listening, I'd love to have them, if they don't believe it, invest and learn about all of what we do and everything we do to help their students and help them be successful. But then assuming we convince you, I'd love to have you just take an active voice and you know, tell your students about why this is an important part of their aviation journey again, whether professional or recreational. And then maybe lastly, I'd say, actually two last things. I'd say, one is, I didn't mention it earlier, but you know, safety is a huge deal.
46:36
Darren Pleasance
We have asi, you know, our Air Safety Institute, a ton of safety related content, world class, really good content, and it's complementary to the other stuff you see out there. Juan Brown and team and Trevor and these guys do a great job. I Watch their stuff. They do a great job online with safety related stuff. This is complementary to that and sort of every imaginable scenario to help all of us be safer. We all have a vested interest in driving accident rates down and we're at the lowest level of accidents we've ever been. So it's as safe as it's ever been. But we still got more work to do. And so, you know, I'd encourage them to really take advantage of AOP and all the safety content we've got.
47:10
Darren Pleasance
But then lastly is part of what we all need to do is help make sure that the non flying public understands why aviation matters. Why does that little airport three miles down the street from them matter? Because as far as they know, it's just a bunch of super rich people playing with their toys. And that's not what it is. Most of the time what's happening out there is a medevac flight taking off or some business person who's at that airport because they chose to build a business and hire employees at a location in that town because it was easily served by that local airport. Or it's a 19 year old who just got their CFI, who's training the next generation of airline pilots, right.
47:46
Darren Pleasance
To you know, take up the mantle on a triple seven or a 787, you know, seven or eight years down the road, or you know, or firefighting or, or. Right. There's all these things that happen at that little airport that ultimately do benefit the average Joe who may have no interest ever in flying an airplane, but they will benefit from that person who is at the airport flying that plane someday in some form. And maybe it's just that trip to the, to Hawaii or the Bahamas and the person up front learned to fly at a local airport or maybe, hopefully not for them, but maybe it is that car crash that happened or their house is burning because their neighborhood's on fire and so on. Right.
48:22
Darren Pleasance
And so I think all of us have an obligation to be able to tell that story about why that little airport matters and help the non flying public have just a little more appreciation for why it makes sense to support that airport and help keep it going.
48:39
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I know I've mentioned in the past, but when I first started flying, somebody told me about a movie called 1 6, right.
48:45
Darren Pleasance
And I know it's a great movie.
48:46
Bobby Doss
Somewhere out in California.
48:47
Darren Pleasance
Van Nuys. Van Nuys, California. It's a great movie.
48:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And it's all about the destruction or the disappearance of all these small airports. We cannot let that happen. And the things that your organization is doing its job to prevent all of that. I've got a call to action. We've started like a little contest question thing. We've been overwhelmed with a lot of emails in the past few episodes. But if you send me you can redact whatever you want to redact. But if you send me bobbyhindtheprop.com, a screenshot of you joining the AOPA in the next couple of weeks. I'll send you a Behind the Prop T shirt to the first five and then everybody else will put you in a drawing giveaway and 10 more T shirts. I'll ask Darren for his team to send me some swag. We'll send some AOPA swag out there as well.
49:31
Bobby Doss
But let's do something to make a dent in their website and let's have some people join. If you've never done it or thought about doing it, do it this week. We'll give you some swag. We'll make you, we'll make it almost a non thought for you to join the AOPA and hopefully people will listen for years to come and decide to join as well. And we'll put some swag in your hand as well, Darren. It was really a great episode. I do hope we get to do a part two in the future. Thanks for all you and the AOPA does for us pilots, airports, ATC and everybody else in aviation. And as always, stay behind the Prop.
50:07
Darren Pleasance
Bobby and Wally, thank you guys. I really appreciate the opportunity.
50:13
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.