By Ed Downs

Quoted from the March 24 television airing of the CBS Program, The Amazing Race:
“Parts of last Sunday’s episode, filmed in Vietnam, were insensitive to a group that is very important to us: our nation’s veterans.
“We want to apologize to veterans – particularly those who served in Vietnam – as well as their families and any viewers who were offended by the broadcast.
“All of us here have the most profound respect for the men and women who fight for our country.”

If you are a regular viewer of CBS’s Sunday evening program, The Amazing Race, you know what the above apology is all about. To be sure, this apology is appropriate and viewed as a sincere acceptance of responsibility for having wronged a generation of Americans who have suffered greatly. The question that remains, however, is why circumstances should ever have developed in a way as to require such an apology and whether or not consequences have been shared by those who caused this egregious program to have been aired in the first place.

As aviators, we have become accustomed to an adversarial media and foolish versions of aviation plots being portrayed in movies and television. We have learned that no matter how hard we try, reporters use incorrect terminology, movies portray pilots flying planes with the motions and force needed to guide a team of horses and television news sensationalizes aviation stories with the  axiom, “if it bleeds, it leads.” Sure, we write letters, tweet our brains out, plead for help from alphabet groups and finally, develop a thick skin. Now, do not misunderstand the intent of this observation. This writer is not suggesting one simply give up. All of us involved in our remarkable industry, be it for business or recreation, must participate in preserving the rights to navigable airspace that all Americans enjoy, as verified by Title 49 of Federal law. Our forefathers learned that rights are never granted, but defended.