dblahnick(at)gmail.com
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 Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 12:58 pm Post subject: Part I: The RPA Idea... |
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Part I: The RPA Idea
I will make these as short as I can, label them part I, II, III and IV. I'm going to focus on solutions and why the RPA stalled, and how the Board of Directors can fix it.
Collectively, I hope, it will also give you a picture of where the RPA was supposed to go in services, and let you decide if its worth it to participate.
But I want members and non members to understand this one critical point, the RPA - and the fix that is needed - is not *ONLY* the delivery of a shiny magazine, it isn't the fly-in you attend regionally to hopefully get a few training sorties for your FAST card or fly with your buds. Your fix is a fundamental modification to how this organization runs. If it's fixed, you will see a much different organization in how YOU interact with it, and the services it provides.
The BoD can make the proposed fix, and you, the membership will get to vote that fix.
For old heads, just speed read Part I, but there are crucial points even here...I also mention some of the key players who helped out...
For those new, and with this economy there probably aren't many, my name is Drew Blahnick, a now retired AF pilot and last YPA and first RPA president. In 2001, prior to 911, I was living in southern California and with the help of a non pilot friend (Jim Esposito) and Bomber Amy (Castle Airport administrative assistant at the time), with additional help from, yes, Brian Lloyd, Cary Vendon, and a host of YPA folks, we put on the first All Red Star. I'm going to "recall" certain events, please remember them, I'm recalling them for a reason. Here is one, when I was mass emailing the upcoming ARS event to pilots, one called me from the Bay Area, he said "if this is another one of those east coast CJ formation club (YPA) events, I'll pass". This was a yak owner. He was reflecting only that the YPA had an image of being mostly CJ's doing one thing; flying formation together. That wasn't far from the truth. I invited the YPA cadre out to assist in the events ARS formation training, but emphasized in my emails this would be different, and this guys statement hammered my intent.
This guy (now well known at the annual Bone Fest in his Yak 50) did a LOT in 15 seconds to mold ARS, and later the RPA as an "All aircraft, all owner, all activity jet to prop" effort - his single statement to me even influenced the selection of the name and logo of your organization - Red Star.
By the way, Brian Lloyd aided our selection of Castle AFB for ARS by offering to fly around California in his twin for my sight surveys at retired military bases. Brian is a good pilot, intelligent, but like every one of us, he's unique in his own way. He's also one of the first examples I witnessed of the YPA's inner cabal mentality of pushing out others instead of really guiding their positive contribution. I witnessed it again when a training and evaluation paperwork issue resulted in the exit of a very popular check pilot back to basic lead rating with no recourse (we later got him back as a CP and he's quite active to say the least). It was my first exposure to culture we need to really change in the RPA going forward.
Picture ARS I/II and you can see the birthing of the RPA and where we wanted to see it go; 40-50 airplanes, jet to prop, even a USMC F-5 with a Soviet style Star on the tail. It was a lot of asking others what they wanted to do (basic formation, tactical training, aerobatics training, maintenance education were all big responses). If you were there saturday night, the awards table had several logo-red star trophies for several competitions, during the four days folks were literally running from cockpit to make a seminar on engines or the tactical training power point by Cary Vendon, or the aerobatics instructor (who would die in a Yak 52 suspected FOD issue 45 days after the event I recall) and some pissed they missed it. Friday evening it was a two table crud tournament, we even had custom crud balls for those who remember the Oclub.
It was rough, the on base hotels were short blankets and toilet paper was probably running short, but for most it was a ball. Speaking of balls, there were arguably too many in the air at once to control, and that causes you to be over-protective of the execution and details, there in was a hard won lesson. Barry Hancock and I later started the first Desert Thunder event in Palm Springs, based loosely off a low level tactical training event I participated in while flying Gunships in AFSOC. And Barry did a swell job taking over ARS III - IX (?), and Desert Thunder lives on...while as RPA president stuck in South Florida, I later came back and pissed off Barry's poor ARS flight scheduler while trying to lasso several aircraft for a massive video formation flying project we had planned for membership use (to accompany the new formation manual that we were working on). Back then I tended to do that, too focused on the organizations larger goals to see who I might be pissing off, it always felt if we could just get the RPA off the ground, check pilots, board members and fly in organizers all reading from the same sheet of music...
So after watching the YPA operate as a Bod member for one year, and with the above experience in pocket, we asked you, the membership, to let us move away from the YPA "CJ formation club" image mentioned by that Yak 52 owner previously, to something I briefed at the 2003 Oshkosh "change of leadership" presentation; RedStar, a jet to prop, all aircraft, all owner organization represented by a regionalized board of directors using modern technology to help lower our workload and improve member-organization communications (website, ecoms, etc.) and services.
I can remember at Oshkosh when I clicked on the power point slide of the then (new) RPA logo, a world map dominated by a Red Star and "RPA" initials, one individual in particular caught my attention in the back of the room by letting out the loudest something-or-other in support of the concept; your current President Terry Slawinski. My testimony in these emails is not focused on Ski's administration, although I will use the current state of our organization as an example of how you - the membership and board of directors - can help improve this association...
So what's wrong ten years later?....
______________________________________
Strive for one knee down in life, but never two.
(1000 Year Old Road Racing Proverb That I Just Made Up)
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