Read more: March 2024 President’s Report Thanks to all of you that stopped by the APA and Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) booth at the AOPA Fly-In and Buckeye Air Fair. It’s always great to partner with the RAF to connect directly with our members and learn about their interests and concerns. It also gives us the opportunity to do some missionary work to bring in new members and I’m happy to
Read more: March 2024 Executive Director's Report
    The Saturday morning flights to breakfast have been great. The weather has been ideal with hardly a bump in the sky. Just what we have been waiting for. With the warmer weather we have been encountering, I think it may have gotten some of the bugs out of hibernation, because the last time I flew I did encounter a few of the pests, and I did have to spend a
Read more: February 2024 President’s Report
Greetings, Our Executive Director, Jim Timm, and I had the pleasure of representing APA at the recent Chandler Municipal Airport Day. It was the airport’s 75th anniversary and there was a great turnout from the pilot community and community at large. We had the opportunity to connect with a lot of our members and talk to prospective new members about the benefits of belonging
Read more: February 2024 Executive Director's Report
    Flying out for the proverbial hundred-dollar breakfast has been working out fairly well, except for a couple of cases it had to be moved to I-hop because of the weather. Generally, it’s been great, and this is what we have been impatiently waiting for during this past hot summer. It’s been good to see and visit with some of the winter visitors that have joined
Read more: January 2024 President’s Report
Happy New Year! I know that each year has its own personality, so to speak, and 2023 was no exception. While 2023 certainly had its challenges, I’m looking forward to building on some of the positives in 2024. As far as APA goes, we ended the year with a solid base of volunteers committed to continuing our important work of maintaining and improving our backcountry airstrips
Read more: January 2024 Executive Director's Report
    I hope all of you had a Very Merry Christmas and look forward to having a prosperous New Year. This report was written at the very end of December, and looking over the past year it has been an interesting time. Looking at it from my point-of-view, I don’t remember anything happening from an aviation standpoint that was really earth shaking. This past year I’ve
Read more: December 2023 President’s Report
Greetings, It’s hard to believe that 2023 is coming to a close and the new year will be here before we know it. The winter flying weather has been stellar lately, and let’s hope it continues for the foreseeable future. Before we finish out this year, the APA team will be busy again this month closing out the 2023 Scholarship cycle. We had another good turnout this year with
Read more: December 2023 Executive Director's Report
    Lately, Saturday mornings have been great for flying out for the weekend breakfasts, except for one Saturday when the weather was a bit questionable, and a number opted to go to the local IHOP instead of flying. The flying conditions are just what we have been waiting for during the past long, hot summer. So now let’s get out there and go flying! I’m sure you
Read more: November 2023 President’s Report
Greetings, I know many of you are probably as surprised as I am at the number of pilot deviations that Jim Timm summarizes in his monthly Executive Directors Report. They can cover the whole range of deviations from failure to follow ATC instructions, to runway and airspace incursions to TFR violations. While I’m sure they represent a relatively small percentage of the total
Read more: November 2023 Executive Director's Report
    With the hot weather behind us, the mornings have been great, and the aircraft performance has greatly improved, and I suspect the pilot performance has also improved to a certain degree. At least I hope so. With this changing season, and the shorter days, those of us that can’t, or don’t want to fly in the dark, it means a later takeoff time in the