PHILANTHROPY REPORT - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

LEGACY SOCIETY
AOPA FOUNDATION
22 2011-2012 Philanthropy Report
Paul cullman is concerned about
the cost of flying. “When I started out,” he
says, “it was about eight dollars an hour for
an airplane and instructor. Of course, it’s
hard to compare exactly what a dollar was
worth then and now, but it’s gotten a lot
more expensive. A young person today has
to be pretty driven to learn to fly and carry
on with it.”
The rising cost of an hour aloft is a common
worry among pilots, but few of them have
a memory as long as Paul Cullman’s. His
first solo, on skis in deep Vermont snow (“I
didn’t know what wheels were until spring”)
was in January 1943—which, incidentally,
was the same year he joined AOPA. In the
decades since, Cullman, who spent most
of his working life as a cattle rancher in
central California, has never strayed far from
aviation. He’s owned and flown a number
of aircraft, worked as an aerial applicator,
CULLMAN
PAUL
been named a Wright Brothers Master Pilot, and, even in his
“wilder days,” earned an expert parachutist certificate from
the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
Still an active flier, Cullman owns a collection of vintage
aircraft that would be the envy of most pilots. “I have a
Meyers 145 and a Stinson L-5B—a genuine warbird that was
shipped to Italy in ’44. I also have an American Eagle Eaglet, a
1931 Curtiss-Wright Junior, and a Grob 109B motor glider.”
Not surprisingly, given his nearly 70 years of membership,
Cullman is a believer in AOPA—the pilot’s “voice in the
wilderness,” as he puts it. That support extends to the AOPA
Foundation, which he believes is doing important work
with initiatives to ensure the long-term viability of general
aviation. He enjoys attending the AOPA Foundation’s Air
Safety Institute seminars, and is glad to see efforts being
made to share the joy of flight with a new generation.
“Lots of things get tedious, but every time you fly there’s
something different,” he says. “Flying has been my life. It’s
always been the end to my means.”
AOPA FOUNDATION
2011-2012 Philanthropy Report 23