Turning Another Page

Looking Back On Year 2

It has already been two years since the board gave me the mandate to lead the organization. I must admit that the honour and privilege of doing so increases every day. Year two has seen our strategic plan take form as we reach the objectives we had given ourselves. We have revamped our web site and made it more user-friendly; have taken on a larger presence on social media and have started the consultation with our COPA Flights (see below). Our proudest achievement this year is the release of the Economic Impact Study of General Aviation in Canada which we will use to demonstrate our economic value. The study is on our website for distribution, and I invite you to read the article on that subject for more details. Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, we also changed the logo… See the article elsewhere in this COPA Flight.

Major Success at Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM)

Many of our members’ concerns are related to the areas from where they take off or land, their aerodromes or airports. We have long been aware of this while defending our members when in fact, it is their aerodromes that we are trying to save.  So with that thought in mind, COPA took a booth at the FCM Convention in Ottawa on June 2-3 of this year.  Knowing the FCM has members that represent over 90% of all Canadian citizens, it was the right place to introduce ourselves and raise awareness of the value of GA and community airports. Our main purpose was to inform them of the necessity of these places to fly and we had a chance to meet and greet many elected officials from across the country.  Surprisingly, several were COPA members and took little convincing but many did not know and were quite impressed of the impact and benefits of GA.  They enjoyed seeing their airport or their community through our Places to Fly page that we had on display at the booth, and we gave all of the visitors an electronic copy of our COPA Economic Impact study.

COPA Flights

We had the opportunity to meet with several COPA Flights near Ottawa and in the Vancouver area, for frank and open discussions on the roles and expectations of the Flights and COPA itself. We will be holding a few more consultations later this fall before we report on the next steps and action plan.

COPA At Work

Requirements for complete propeller overhauls every 10 years are sometimes burdensome, expensive, and are we sure they measurably increase safety? COPA is compiling data to support a request for changes to the CARs which would align requirements for propeller overhauls with those for piston engines in non-commercial operations – to be allowed to operate “on condition,” subject to any applicable airworthiness directives. Follow the news in our E-News and on our website.