by
Darryl Phillips
Tightrope artists amaze me, especially the ones that pull stunts like walking between skyscrapers, or across Niagra Falls. Creeping along that narrow wire, with nothing but a long pole to help maintain balance. As long as the same weight is kept on each side, stability is maintained. You just never see a walker standing upright on the wire with the pole extended all to one side. It doesn't work. Balance is the key.
Aircraft are a lot like tightrope walkers. Balance. The lift on each side must be balanced exactly. A plane may have a critical engine, but it doesn't have a critical wing, both wings are equally important. Asymmetric lift causes the craft to roll; uncorrected, it develops into an ever-tightening maneuver and disaster.
I've been thinking about this matter of balance, about how it applies not only to the physical machine, but to aviation itself. Since the 1950s, General Aviation has been in exactly that sort of maneuver, a tightening spiral toward extinction. Aircraft production figures declining steadily, rules and restrictions ever tightening, costs exploding. It is tempting to blame the FAA, it is easy to blame liability and the lawyers, it is convenient to blame the stodgy manufacturers or this group or that group, but the fact is that none of those are going to save us. We are flying this plane, and nobody on the ground is going to do anything to correct our problems or straighten our path. It is up to us who love to fly. We must get our act together, determine our priorities, and get this bird to straighten up and fly right.
During the same years that General Aviation has been declining, other similar interests have grown by leaps and bounds. We all exist in the same economy, all compete for the available dollars. Why didn't aviation keep it's market share? What are we doing wrong? There are many answers, but part of it relates to the people we attract and, more importantly, to those we turn away. Example: You can read boating magazines without encountering pictures and stories of attack submarines or amphibious assault vehicles. You can subscribe to car magazines, and find no reference to army tanks or military vehicles. Yet it's hard to find airplane magazines that don't feature military aviation, past or present. I'm not singling out the magazine publishers, it's true throughout aviation. We turn a big segment of the population off.
We pilots tend toward politics that might be termed right wing. That's why we have the close tie between military aviation and general aviation, a tie that isn't found in boats or cars or motorcycles. We tend to earn a higher income, and more of us are ex-military than the non-pilot population. So it's natural that we tend toward right wing politics. Unfortunately, a plane with only a right wing won't fly. Tightrope walkers understand this.
This explains the name of the series, The Other Wing. I hope in future months to offer ideas on how we can regain our equilibrium and fly out of this death spiral. Not by cutting off our good wing, but by building an equally good left wing, by adopting and adapting the best from both sides, combining strengths and canceling weaknesses.
The Other Wing involves a lot more than that. It is a different viewpoint of general aviation. We are a tiny minority in a society ruled by majority, and we need to find alternative methods to protect our interests. We must learn how to compromise with society while ensuring our survival. We need to learn techniques that have been, frankly, developed by the left wing and often despised by the right wing. Many pilots have been "Law and Order" advocates for so long, it's difficult to switch when they become the target of law and order. This is why we are so ineffective, why we seem in a constant state of shock as wave after wave of new government restrictions sweep over us. We are being treated as minorities are always treated, but haven't yet faced the fact that we must fight back with minority techniques. The Other Wing is an attempt to explore effective ways to preserve our freedom to fly.
Some of the mounting restrictions are visible, such as the security fences that keep us from our planes, unfair customs practices not applied to boats or cars, unwieldy requirements on aircraft sales, the coming photo ID pilot licenses that must be renewed in person, and the constant reductions in available airspace. Others are costly, such as requirements for new avionics or unnecessary ADs. But some are more deeply hidden, for instance the reduced traffic flow caused by saturation of the 1090 MHZ transponder frequency. This is only a small sampling of the problems with which we must deal.
In future columns, we'll be discussing various aspects of how we got into this spiral, and what we can do to fly out of it. Don't expect simple answers, it isn't a simple problem. And don't expect to agree with me. That's why I say "we" will be discussing, it must come in large part from you, all of you. I have some strong opinions on these subjects, but strong isn't the same as popular. Or conventional. Or correct. I hope you have strong opinions also. We will be discussing some technical subjects, particularly the black boxes that form our relationship with Air Traffic Control.
If you love aviation, and have hopes that your grandchildren will have the same freedoms you've enjoyed, you have a stake in this ongoing discussion. Write letters to the editor, offer another viewpoint, fresh ideas, criticism, anything. Most importantly, get involved. You must fly the plane, don't ever let it fly you. Don't just sit there. Do it.