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Yeah, sure. Okay.
The fact remains the AOPA Board of Trustees clearly prefers guys like Dale Klapmeier over guys like Darren Pleasance. That speaks volumes, and not in any way that’s good.
Translation: “I don’t wish to say anything that will jeopardize my severance package.”
Darren is being polite, respectful, dignified, politically correct, and yet evasive enough to let me know, as a long term AOPA member as most pilots and aircraft owners are, he is requesting us to not kill the AOPA messengers(staff) for the AOPA (Board) message… but there is far more to his unexpected demise as President of AOPA than we are allowed to see. We will see what “kind of fruit” this AOPA Board will bear in the coming days and weeks. Add me to the list of fence sitting current members waiting as fruit inspectors to make the decision to stay or leave.
I’m a long time member (over years) and an avid supporter of the organization. With the current posture of the board and the recent decline of AOPA, I’m VERY concerned. Darren was on the road to steering AOPA in the right direction and correct many of the poor performances of the organization. I’m afraid his loss will greatly affect the future of AOPA. I sincerely hope the board will reconsider their actions and act appropriately.
And, I’m not leaving AOPA, but will stick around to hopefully be one to help.
Larry
ATP, CFII, AI
I get why Darren is calling for unity. But here is the bind. A lot of us backed him because we believed he was the right fit, and the board move looked unjust.
Now Darren is doing the disciplined, pro AOPA thing, understandably so. But it leaves many of us feeling like we stuck our necks out, and the core governance questions are still unanswered. It does not compute.
We can support AOPA’s mission and have compassion for the employees and still say this plainly: Unity is not a substitute for clarity.
If AOPA wants the temperature down, the board needs to earn it with a credible outline of process and a clear path forward. Otherwise, I would think, members will keep pulling proxies, and rumor will keep filling the vacuum.
So what actually happened is a staff writer, a drone pilot with inactive PPL slandered the Challenger crash at Bangor.
Smells of a trap to trigger a beheading.
Realized in the Fuller wine club days AOPA had zero for me- military & part 121 and EAB owner.
Enjoy your smaller club. It’s a small one and as Carlun said, I ain’t in it.
“Delay evidently exceeded anti-ice limit in Challenger crash
Business jet crashed on departure from Bangor, Maine
January 27, 2026
By Jim Moore”
Failed type I deice is far more likely, FYI. Listen to the Allegient ATC discussion.
I left AOPA and pretty much all the other nasty political grandstanding old boy clubs many years ago and never regretted it. Pleasance struck me as a genuine guy compared to some of his predecessors, so I am not really surprised to see him gone. Fun fact: Darren will land other lucrative employment quickly – yet AOPA has a PR nighmare on its hands which will last for a while.
In general, not-for-profit organizations like AOPA (NRA, etc) are poorly managed and inefficient. When you look at the amount of cash burn for the actual work being accomplished, it is almost always bad. Almost as bad as government….
In my experience, many or most for-profit companies are poorly managed, too. It’s a management thing, not a NFP thing. Many great NFPs begin their downfall when their boards get populated with people who were trained to put profit above the mission and then try to apply that mindset in a NFP world. They can’t help themselves.
He wasn’t in the room when the decision was made. What else can he say? The pursuit of the facts of the decision is worthwhile but the victim isn’t going to know. There has to be one or two sympathizers on the board or high level staff that might be willing to speak with anonymity.
I’m not a facebooker and the video won’t play, at least not for me
Can you repost it to a public platform where it will play regardless of platform membership
Perhaps it’s my lack of technical ability
I finally departed AOPA a few years ago. I kept looking through their slick magazines for anything I could actually relate too. I’m a GA pilot, and not a high end aircraft owner. I’ve flown actively since ’58 and love all that’s closer to my level of aviation. But AOPA just quit providing that type info. I now reflect back on all the great and fun writers they used to have. Totally relatable. Unfortunately, nature finally removed them all, but they and their focus writings were never replaced. As someone said, you can only look at so many new automated panels in a Gulfstream. AOPA needs to determine who their audience is now. Not me for sure. Nothing wrong with that, if that’s where they see their revenue is now derived. But don’t any longer count on me. You went way over my head for me to be any longer interested. Hey, some of you name the former great writers they had. My old brain can’t even think of any except Richard Collins. He was one…right? Nancy Narco??
Naw! Richard Collins and Nancy both Flying. But kinda the same thing. Told you ,
old brain.
Richard left Flying for AOPA… then returned to Flying.
I once subscribed to Private Pilot magazine. Then came the October 1997 issue with an Aerostar on the cover and a picture of a Champ on the inside ( I saved that magazine because I used to fly that very same Champ). I cancelled that subscription because if they were true to the magazine title, the pictures should have been reversed. They had lost their way IMHO. I left AOPA for the same reason.
I too miss some of the writers of old, but that has never been why I’m a member. When I open the magazine the first thing I turn to is the Advocacy section. No other organization fights as hard to keep our airports and airspace accessible to GA small and large, and as long as AOPA keeps doing that I will be a proud supporter. (Aside- the second thing I turn to is Rudder and Wrench – always some worthwhile stuff there!)
OK, he explained his black eyes and defended the organization writ large, its staff, Klapmeier, and lemme see, what am I missing? Ah yes, not a word about the Board. That’s a significant omission.
Roger, Captain. Message received.
Darren took the high road. No bridges burned. Perhaps there will be a shake up in the board and Darren will be reinstated? Win-win.
AOPA member for over 50 years…
He pissed someone off, big time. Yet AOPA won’t be honest about what he did, and whom he umm, “annoyed.” Until they do that, no one will believe a word they say.
Good governance says, don’t replace an underperforming leader until you have his/her replacement ready. Since AOPA is putting two people into one role on a temporary basis, this was not a routine transfer of power.
Unless Oregon suddenly got farther away from Maryland, booting him out overnight because he lives in Oregon does not make sense.
So either Pleasance committed a dismissable offense (no reason to suspect this, but it’s a possibility) or there was a palace coup. AOPA’s problem is that its members are not dumb enough to accept the PR stuff they are shoveling our way.
AT THE SAME TIME: Here’s something AOPA does, which matters a lot: The Airport Support Network volunteers work every day to keep GA airports open. No one else does this – it’s AOPA’s creation, and they make it work. Full disclosure: I was an ASN volunteer for many years. One phone call to AOPA and I had all the resources, legal help and governmental help I could imagine. If my dues do nothing more thank keep this going, it’s worth it.
But they are screwing this one up.
My impression of Mr. Pleasance as AOPA President was quite positive. But one of the things that strikes me in Mr. Pleasance’s statement is his repeated reference to the importance of AOPA to the industry. No mention of pilots or aircraft owners, though they seemed to me to be important to him personally. I think Mr. Pleasance is correct in his emphasis on the industry. AOPA has been largely captured by industry and, unlike EAA, functions primarily as an industry association with a useful facade of membership.
But couldn’t that statement also mean that he believes catering to bigger/faster/more expensive aircraft owners is the only way AOPA will survive? After all, we know that small airplane owners are high maintenance and cheap as hell. And he’s a seasoned business man brought in to invigorate/save AOPA. His “everyman’s pilot” persona can be authentic and his opinion about the business side can both be true.
I doubt that is his point, but since we have zero actual facts other than Mr. Pleasance has surgery, any explanation I make up is as plausible as “he was pushed out”. We don’t know and we’ll likely never know.
You made the same point I came here to make, the repeated reference to AOPA serving “the industry”, and not a single reference to pilots or aircraft owners (hmm, what could possible lead me to believe that AOPA should be serving pilots or aircraft owners before “the industry?”)
I do think that unless the board of governors either reverses course or decides to be more transparent about the reasons for their actions (and said reasons will need to be evaluated by their members)… this could be a real crisis point for AOPA. They may come out of it without much left except “the industry.” Although I’ve never been an EAA member and have never owned an experimental aircraft, they’re starting to look like the organization that better represents GA.
There’s already an organization (NBAA) which represents most of the jet owners and pilots. I do think we need AOPA, but only if they’re actually representing those they claim to represent. I don’t think I’ll renew until there is some major shaking up of their board.
“I left AOPA because blah blah blah”. To that I say, good luck flying your small aircraft if AOPA goes away or gets seriously compromised. You may not agree with their focus or what’s on the cover of their magazine, but without them our access to airspace and solid GA infrastructure (especially small airports) would be gone in a hurry. This thing with Pleasance is definitely disturbing and I hope it doesn’t portend even larger negative changes. But any GA pilot who turns away from AOPA overall is cutting off his nose to spite his face.