PHILANTHROPY REPORT - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
PHILANTHROPY REPORT - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
PHILANTHROPY REPORT - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
AOPA FOUNDATION<br />
28 2011-2012 Philanthropy Report<br />
LUIS<br />
ARANEDA<br />
as a Boy GroWinG uP in his native<br />
Chile, Luis Araneda looked to the sky<br />
with a sense of longing, wondering what<br />
it would be like to soar with the birds.<br />
Compelling as the desire to fly was,<br />
however, it wasn’t until later in life—<br />
after emigrating to the united States<br />
<strong>and</strong> becoming a physician in the u.S. Air<br />
Force—that he was able to act on his<br />
dream <strong>and</strong> start taking lessons.<br />
Fast-forward several decades <strong>and</strong> Araneda<br />
has long since left the uSAF, but the flying<br />
bug is still with him. The private pilot<br />
owns a Cessna 172, which he keeps at the<br />
Bedford, Pennsylvania, airport <strong>and</strong> flies<br />
“just for pleasure, just to feel something<br />
different.” A specialist in anesthesiology<br />
<strong>and</strong> pain management, as well as an<br />
aviation medical examiner, he enjoys the<br />
excitement <strong>and</strong> sense of personal freedom<br />
that flying brings.<br />
It’s a feeling he hopes future generations will be able to<br />
enjoy as well. Like many in the pilot community, he worries<br />
that the cost of flying is becoming more of a deterrent, both<br />
to young people who would otherwise get involved <strong>and</strong><br />
to existing pilots struggling to stay active. “The challenge<br />
today is money,” he says. A frequent audience member at the<br />
AOPA Foundation’s Air Safety Institute seminars, he is an<br />
enthusiastic supporter of efforts to help pilots fly safely, seeing<br />
them as integral to the long-term image of general aviation<br />
among non-pilots <strong>and</strong> would-be aviators.<br />
Such earthly concerns aside, though, it’s clear that Araneda<br />
still carries a sense of wonder at the miracle of flight. After a<br />
day filled with the stresses of twenty-first century medicine,<br />
there are few tonics as effective as a trip to the airport. “It’s<br />
still exciting for me, flying like a bird—it’s just a pleasure.”<br />
FOUNDATION SUPPORTER<br />
AOPA FOUNDATION<br />
2011-2012 Philanthropy Report 29