96 SA Flyer

Although general

aviation is facing

tough times

worldwide,

enthusiasm shown

at this year’s IAOPA

World Assembly

suggests general

AOPA is the afliation organisation of

AOPA bodies in 76 countries around

the world, and it has permanent

representation at ICAO, the

organisation which sets the aviation

all contracting countries – which is

pretty much everyone in the world.

ICAO’s purpose is to facilitate international

civil aviation, and AOPA through IAOPA

has access to this process in representing

Organisation, which is a part of the United

Nations.

AOPA (without any extension) is the

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of

the United States which was formed way

back in 1939.

follow the convention of naming themselves

as AOPA followed by the country name – as

in AOPA-South Africa, which was formed

IAOPA is the International Council

of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations,

established in 1964 for the purpose of

dealing with global GA issues and providing

an interface for GA with ICAO.

The setup is a little confusing, and it

was agreed at our 28th World Assembly in

Chicago two days before writing this article

that there will be a thorough worldwide

re-branding in order to clarify the various

organisations, who they are and what their

Stellenbosch, South Africa, and before that

It has been decided that the 2018 Word

Assembly will be held in New Zealand.

This year we had an unprecedented

number of very important and very

participative speakers: Dr Feng Liu, the

Secretary-General of ICAO; the Honourable

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); Mr

Patrick Ky, Chief Executive of the European

Aviation Safety Administration (EASA);

as well as other major aviation decision-

It should be mentioned that there were

also impressive persons such as Steve

Creamer, Director of Air Navigation at

GAMA (the General Aviation Manufacturers

Association); Peggy Gilligan, FAA Safety

Administrator; Susanne Schödel, Secretary

General of FAI, the World Air Sports

Federation; Ed Bolen, President of the

National Business Aviation Association

(NBAA); and of course the inimitable John

and Martha King of King Schools, all of

whom were speakers and panellists in the

many panel discussions.

the GA industry to assist ICAO by

to provide greater input to assist ICAO

in accommodating GA’s needs. She

emphasised the importance of GA

and its signicant contribution to the

implementing such support for ICAO, in

addition to the many successes it has

had in South Africa: excessive and

oppressive regulation, a lack of insight

and understanding of GA’s needs and a

failure to balance the needs of the larger

airlines with the needs of the GA pilot

and aircraft owner.

such as RPAS (drones, or UAVs)

stimulated some spirited discussion on

aging, and this has been a matter

of concern for some time. It was

very rewarding to see some youthful

delegates at the World Assembly,

Haraldur Diego, and AOPA-Austria

president, Carina Bartl. Their enthusiastic

participation on the world aviation stage is a

breath of fresh air.

STATE OF AVIATION

to take global general aviation forward

with unity and cooperation between

An in-depth discussion of the IAOPA

World Assembly and its relevance to South

African general aviation will follow next

Some of the biggest names in aviation regulation attended the Assembly.