I was an OA customer. I loved the service but it had a lot of friction in the process. One of those things that would have worked perfectly if it had been widely adopted, but the fact that I always seemed to be their only OA customer always gave the experience more friction than it needed to have.

I started using OA because my local FBO required that I have renter's insurance and I needed a flight review anyway, so the barriers to entry were really low for me. I drove an extra half hour and did my flight review and all of a sudden I had OA privileges.

OA was great for taking trips as a renter. I could call around to all the area OA FBOs and someone always had a plane free and was always willing to waive the daily fees as long as I put, say, six hours on the plane. I never had anyone hassle me about getting another checkout. (To be fair, I was often flying out of the DC FRZ, so I think everyone figured I was good to go on local airspace procedures.)

I hadn't realized the diversity of avionics until I flew OA. I had one
very memorable flight where, while about to preflight, I started chatting with an instructor. "Where are you off to?" When I told him Rhode Island (~400 nm trip), he visibly started and then gasped, "in that?!" I said, shakily, "yeah......" and then after a long awkward pause he said, "well, uh, I guess there's no reason you can't..." Took me 10 minutes of sitting in the cockpit wondering why I couldn't find the nav radio to realize there was no nav radio! That C150 was so small that after takeoff I put my feet on the copilot's rudder pedals, which worked out well since I had to fly the plane in a slight slip anyway because the fuel tanks didn't drain evenly. So there I was, stretched out across this tiny cockpit, navigating by highway over Connecticut, when ATC asked me to relay to one of the commuter turboprops that was having electrical issues. Me! In my C150 with nothing but a barely working COM1! You get the picture. The other plane got where it needed to be. I had a hundred hours at the time. I learned so much on that trip... especially how much more I had to learn.

Back to OA. I was trying to finish my instrument rating and had a shit experience with Dulles Aviation (now closed) at HEF. A shame since that's where I learned to fly back in 2002. On what I hoped would be my final xc before checkride prep, the instructor was fine until I had to ask clearance delivery to spell the departure procedure and from then on he SCREAMED at me the whole flight. Couldn't focus. Flew like shit. Mode C off by 300 feet the whole flight. Every approach, even after reminding ATC of the discrepancy: "Low altitude alert, check altitude IMMEDIATELY." My confidence was shattered. I needed a break. I went back to OA. Started renting from New Kent Aviation in Richmond because they accepted my OA checkouts. It was a long drive but they were amazing. I got my complex and high performance endorsements there so I could get checked out in bigger and better planes. At the end of those endorsements the instructor said, "well you're good to fly the 172RG, and you flew those instrument approaches so well, I'm signing you off for that checkride too." Passed it. Probably wouldn't have happened for a long time if I hadn't had the flexibility to try different places until I found an instructor and school that worked for me.

I dropped out of OA for a couple of years and devoted my flying effort to learning how to do aerobatics and fly tailwheels from the inimitable Marianne Buckley at VKX. Best money I've spent in aviation, perhaps ever. She's retired now. Good for her, too bad for the rest of us.

I returned to OA in 2018. I flew a few more times out of the OA FBOs at FDK and ESN. It was always a hassle because the paperwork was never quite right. I couldn't get anyone to respond to emails sent to the "crew" support email address for OA. In the past Rod Rakic would personally handle any problems that came up and he did so quickly and efficiently. The customer experience was great. By 2018 I was always dealing with a succession of people and I always felt that taking my money in exchange for putting me in a cockpit was way down their list of priorities.

I'm sorry to see OA go but I'm not surprised. It was a great idea that just didn't get the legs it needed. I hope one day something like it comes back around. Thanks, Rod, for the great times you enabled for me.