Over the past year there has been plenty of aviation news for us to report on, much of it ranging from horrifying to concerning. From the tragic, baffling and as yet unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 to an FAA challenged by a changing landscape, the need for regulatory reform and challenges with ambitious programs run amok, to the economic, bureaucratic and demographic challenges that we in personal and business aviation face in our shared quest to keep flying free of undue hardship imposed by those who fail to understand the importance of aviation for all. There have been high-profile accidents, big mergers, remarkable new airplanes and other technologies and, increasingly, challenges to our flying freedoms from new technologies, from the proliferation of drones to the FAA’s increasingly invasive and often unwarranted oversight of our personal flying.
Increasingly, Flying is making news and influencing opinion. For the first time in our 87-year history, we hosted our first major aviation event, the Flying Aviation Expo in Palm Springs, California. Our calls for action on issues ranging from knowledge testing to smarter certification to aggressively scaled down medical certification have moved member organizations and the FAA alike to rethink their positions on a number of these key provisions. We plan to continue to take a lead role in influencing opinion in 2015 and beyond. Flying has long spoken for pilots and aircraft owners with an independent and bold voice.
With this as backdrop, we proudly present the top online opinion pieces of 2014, as voted by you by the simple act of reading them and responding. Enjoy, and as always, we invite you to weigh in on these and other issues facing us pilots as we pursue this greatest personal activity in the world.
Blue Skies for 2015,
Robert Goyer
_Editor-in-Chief, Flying _
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Click here to start our Top 10 Flying Blogs of 2014 list.
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