Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

By Yasmina Platt
Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association

A lot of attention is given to high-level issues in the national aviation media. “Will user fees be thrust upon us?” or “Is 100LL an endangered species?” The headlines frequently overshadow a lot of good work that is done at the local level, often one airport at a time. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) recognized the need for grassroots efforts at a time when general aviation airports were disappearing at a frightening rate, mostly due to land-use conflicts and economic pressures. Since most airports are owned by city or county governments, it was clear that early warning of an impending threat was critical to their survival. To address this need, AOPA established the Airport Support Network (Airport Support Network) program in 1997.

Volunteers were solicited to be AOPA’s eyes and ears at public-use airports, to sound the alarm if a threat loomed that might harm or close the airport. Presently, AOPA has 2,500 ASN Volunteers nationwide. Over the years, the program was grown from a defensive “save the airport” stance to a more proactive “let’s promote the airport” effort. Instead of waiting for trouble, investing the time to help a community understand the value of its local airport is an important activity we all need to support. Therefore, AOPA also wants to help recognize those airports/governments/public officials who are showing the positive value airports bring to a community, whether by way of holding an Airport Open House or supporting an airport improvement project. In addition, AOPA has created tools to help our members and ASNVs with their efforts, such as the Holding an Airport Open House or Participating in the Planning Process guides.

Texas has 182 ASN Volunteers who perform a wide range of activities that are supporting our airports. However, AOPA’s goal is to have an ASN Volunteer at every public-use airport in the U.S. This means we still need 133 volunteers in Texas to cover all the public-use airports we have in Texas. We need your help in filling those seats. The following is a list of some of the airports that currently need an ASNV:

For more information about the Airport Support Network (ASN) program and to view a complete list of airports that need volunteers, visit www.aopa.org/asn. If you want to know more about what’s going on in Texas or the Central Southwest Region (NM, TX, LA, OK, AR, KS, MO, NE and IA), visit http://www.aopa.org/?sc_itemid={AA34BCCF-5A3D-4485-012D-39F733E50284} or follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AOPACentralSW).