AIRCRAFT OWNERS AND PILOTS ASSOCIATION
421 Aviation Way, Frederick, MD 21701 www.aopa.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Protect your freedom to fly by: advocating, educating, supporting activities that ensure GA flight and securing sufficient resources to ensure our success.

Since 1939, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has worked to protect the freedom to fly for general aviation (GA) pilots in the United States. More than 300,000 members rely on AOPA, as the world's largest aviation membership association, to advocate for GA interests and keep flying safe, fun, and affordable. AOPA works with members of Congress and at all levels of government to enhance safety, provide tools and resources for pilots, and ensure they get the most out of their flying. Beyond just the pilot community, AOPA works to educate decision makers and the public about the benefits and value of general aviation flying. One of the association's main priorities is to assure GA remains a viable form of transportation and recreation for future generations. AOPA provides its members with an extensive portfolio of benefits that can be grouped into six areas: (1) advocacy, (2) You Can Fly program, (3) education, (4) events, (5) products and services, and (6) Air Safety Institute. 1. ADVOCACY AOPA's advocacy efforts encompass a broad range of general aviation activities in the legislative, regulatory, state, and international arenas. These activities include, but are not limited to, supporting high school STEM aviation curriculum, promoting and protecting our nation's general aviation airport ecosystem, defeating attempts to remove our nation's air traffic control system from the FAA, improving the cross border travel experience, and leading the effort on third class medical reform, now known as BasicMed. All are pivotal and enormous successes for GA pilots of today and for those to come. Since BasicMed's inception on May 1, 2017, over 55,000 pilots have been cleared to fly under the new medical privileges, far surpassing expectations. Promoting medical education and a relationship between private pilots and their private physicians has led to a safe and successful program. These and many more advocacy achievements led the Washington, DC based newspaper, The Hill, to recognize AOPA as a top advocacy organization for six years in a row. AOPA also has a network of seven regional managers across the country and a growing network of close to 1,650 active Airport Support Network volunteers who help keep AOPA informed about the issues affecting general aviation pilots. Working through our volunteers, regional managers, and headquarters-based staff, AOPA promotes, protects, and partners with community airports; advocates to maintain sufficient federal, state, and local funding; works to prevent excess taxation on flying; and works on behalf of general aviation pilots to thwart unnecessary and costly regulations, ensuring a safe system, and protecting our freedom to fly. 2. YOU CAN FLY AOPA's You Can Fly program is a set of initiatives designed to get people flying and keep them flying. With initiatives to introduce high school students to career opportunities in aviation and aerospace, provide support for flight schools and students, deliver tools and resources to help pilots create and grow flying clubs, and help lapsed pilots get back in the air, You Can Fly is supporting aviators at every stage of their journey. AOPA is developing and delivering a free four-year aviation STEM curriculum to thousands of high school students nationwide. An annual symposium for educators helps schools create and grow aviation STEM programs to meet their specific needs, while $1 million in scholarships are awarded annually to high school teachers and students to help them earn a pilot certificate. For flight schools, instructors, and students, AOPA is delivering training and tools designed to help reduce the dropout rate by making training more efficient, transparent, and customer focused. The annual Flight Training Experience Awards support best practices and recognize schools from across the country that deliver exceptional training experiences to their clients. To help increase aircraft utilization and build a stronger community of aviators, AOPA is helping pilots launch and grow flying clubs. AOPA delivers extensive resources, including in-person assistance and online guidance, to help pilots create new clubs. AOPA's Flying Club Finder also lists some 1,500 flying clubs, making it easier for pilots everywhere to connect with a club close to home. For lapsed pilots who want to return to flying, AOPA's Rusty Pilots initiative provides in-person seminars that give pilots three hours of ground training that fulfills the FAA's flight review requirements for ground instruction. An online option makes it possible for pilots to refresh their critical ground school knowledge any time. Both the in-person and the online programs provide FAA WINGS credit. 3. EDUCATION Educating our members, and the general aviation community, about the issues that affect their flying interests has always been at the heart of AOPA's mission. Today, AOPA produces a wide array of informational electronic and print content for members and aviation enthusiasts. Among these are: Two regularly published magazines, daily web content, several electronic newsletters, a weekly video news program, five podcasts, streaming video, chat program with our Pilot Information Center, multiple web sites aimed at specific interests, and events - all with the goal of educating and informing our members, the larger aviation community, and the public. AOPA also ensures that its wide breadth of content and resources is available to the aviation community in the myriad ways they consume today's news and entertainment. AOPA Online provides round-the-clock access to news, information, weather and airport information, aircraft ownership tools, and much more. This continually updated information is compatible with virtually all smart phones and mobile devices, and across all platforms. In addition, AOPA is working to have its content compatible with smart home devices. For those new to flying, AOPA Online offers detailed information about the process and requirements for learning to fly, help finding a flight instructor and aviation medical examiner, an in-depth guide to choosing a training aircraft, and information about aviation careers. AOPA's annual learn to fly publication is also shared with flight schools as an aid for student pilots. Pilots with more experience can take advantage of information about earning advanced ratings and certificates, as well as transitioning to high performance aircraft, turboprops, and jets. For younger aviation enthusiasts, AOPA Online offers a collection of youth education resources that connect aviation to the STEM curriculum, namely math, science, physics, and technology, as well as the history of flying. In addition to the online products, printed materials are available to teachers and pilots at no charge. 4. EVENTS AOPA Fly-Ins reached 30,296 attendees for three shows in 2019, the highest attendance in AOPA's regional fly-in program that began in 2014. The events were held in Maryland, California, and Tennessee, adding significant aerial demonstration programming to include short take-off and landing demonstrations, WWII aerial reenactments, and airshow components. The fly-ins expanded educational and exhibit programming to two full days. AOPA also continued to host or participate in a number of other major national and regional events, to include Sun 'n Fun, EAA AirVenture, NBAA, Women in Aviation, and many other smaller events for AOPA members. 5. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AOPA members have access to a wide range of products and services from the association's affiliates and partners. With a team of dedicated service specialists, AOPA has the resources to answer virtually any aviation-related question members may have. When a member has an aviation-related question, they can call the AOPA Pilot Information Center to get fast and accurate answers. With a team of flight instructors, airline transport rated pilots, aviation mechanics, digital product specialists, aviation medical specialists, and other aviation experts on call, the Pilot Information Center takes pride in assisting AOPA members with any aviation query. 6. AIR SAFETY INSTITUTE Since 1950, the general aviation (GA) accident rate has decreased by 90 percent-due in large part to the AOPA Air Safety Institute's (ASI) safety education, research and analysis, outreach to the GA community, and collaborative efforts with government, industry, and academia. Apart from its flight instructor renewal programs, ASI's services and products-safety videos, podcasts, quizzes, seminars, publications, and research-are free to anyone. In 2019, ASI's material was accessed more than 7.7 million times, reaching a new record. This was made possible in part by the release of 93 new products including videos, podcasts, publications, and the delivery of 180 nationwide seminars to more than 18,000 pilots and aviation enthusiasts. ASI also developed a new Scalable Safety Framework to help flying clubs and groups develop a st

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