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Greetings:

I received the following news blurb from AOPA, and I found it quite suprising and dissappointing (Sam Donaldson is the best--and I'm venturing to guess that he had no part of this!). Anyway, I'm posting it (if I get in trouble, we'll pull it down) in the interest of public knowledge.

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==> INSIDE AOPA <==

AOPA BLASTS ABC "PRIMETIME" VACUUM PUMP STORY
ABC-TV's "Primetime" news magazine provided viewers with a sensationalized, biased, and inaccurate story last week on the nature of GA vacuum pump failures. In its story about "Why unsuspecting pilots and passengers can be
in danger in single-engine airplanes," ABC producers declined offers of an on-camera interview with the top authorities on general aviation safety: AOPA and the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. "It's maddening," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "They mislead their audience. I'm disappointed that ABC didn't grant us the opportunity to explain the issue on camera to the American public. I have no idea why ABC attributed a quote to AOPA saying 50 percent of the pilots failed a simulator test. We can only guess that the reference was about an Air Safety Foundation/Flight Safety International study where 50 percent of the pilots failed a simulator test prior to being trained. It was not mentioned that once trained, all pilots were able to land the simulator after a simulated
vacuum pump failure." In a subsequent and more realistic study by the Air Safety Foundation in an actual single-engine aircraft, all pilots tested were able to recognize the condition and land successfully after a real vacuum failure.

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