Ever look at your logbook and see something that brings-back an entire flight’s worth of memories? As we chock the tires on 2011, our debrief includes 5 major takeaways from the last year…
5. International Travel is No Longer Better
As domestic airlines cut their costs, raise our costs, merge with each other, and make us merge our personal space with fellow passengers, we’ve noticed international routes have also lost their luster. If you don’t believe me…

We snapped this picture on a recent 12-hour flight from Europe to Los Angeles. Hope she washed her hair that morning!
Sure, the food is still free but the drinks sometimes aren’t. And unless you’re in First or Business, or on a new A380, several of your senses will quickly remind you that most fleets are long overdue for an upgrade.
If only a Cessna 172 could quickly take us between continents.
Yes, we will concede that the flight crews on international routes are the best in the business, as we witnessed first hand when an emergency forced a diversion and landing recently aboard our 747.
4. Automation Can Kill Us
How is it possible for 3 airline pilots to fly a perfectly airworthy wide-body aircraft into the ocean? Just read the transcript from Air France flight 447 and you’ll find out.
Thanks to an all-out effort to recover the black boxes in 2011 from this fatal flight, we now know the cockpit crew aboard the Airbus was doing everything possible… to stall the plane.
Much of the blame now lies in the training process, and how over-reliance on technology can leave a crew suddenly overwhelmed and confused, so much so that they forget the basics of flying.
And while we love glass cockpits, we’ve also caught ourselves looking down, not outside, more often than not. Never a good thing when cruising the skies of the bustling Los Angeles Basin.
3. Time to Get with the Digital Program, Or Else…
Did you get a tablet or SmartPhone for Christmas? You’re not alone if you did. And as we start to convert our aviation magazine subscriptions to the iPad, we’re finding that some publishers get it, and others just don’t.
Take Flying Magazine, for example. They want to charge us an additional fee for downloading their digital version. Huh?
We’ve taken this up with their editor, and we’re not alone. Just read Flying’s terrible reviews in the App Store.
Hey, magazine people, it’s simple: yes, we’ll pay to read something on a computer, but don’t pretend the digital version commands a premium.
2. Airshows Are Hurting General Aviation
We hate to write about this because we love them. But air shows are working against us. The Reno tragedy is the latest, and absolute worst example of how they’re hurting the perception of small planes.
The mainstream media will latch-on to any crash that’s caught on camera. Unfortunately, there are too many crashes and even more cameras at these events, as we saw during a particularly deadly weekend in 2011.
Don’t cancel air shows. Just don’t market them as a way to promote general aviation to the general public.
1. General Aviation Is Quietly Surviving
We fly out of Van Nuys Airport near Los Angeles. And while we’re sure it used to be busier, our senses tell us that general aviation remains strong.
Just listen to the constant chop of props cutting the Saturday morning air from the various flight schools sprinkled around the field.
Just watch the stream of multi-million dollar jets shooting down Runway 16-Left, ushering celebrities and corporate folks to their private destinations.
Just smell the coffee brewing in the Clay Lacy hangar, full of AOPA members gathering to listen to president Craig Fuller tell us what he and 600,000 members are doing to keep small airports thriving.
Our New Year’s Resolution is to put in a few more hours in 2012, and stop talking about what it used to be like. That won’t revitalize aviation. Flying will.
Thank you for being part of Archer Bravo Aviation, and let us know if there’s anything we can do better in 2012 to make aviation more affordable and fun.
Chris Archer Blogs by Archer 2011 top list, air france 447, air show, any, aopa, digital magazine, flying, flying magazine, iPad, learn to fly, lufthansa