DECATUR - Aviation interests are going to have to play better defense to keep their industry from being grounded, a state official told visitors to the Illinois Aviation Conference.

"People in aviation have to change their argument and why money is necessary. That federal pot of gold is gone," Tim Martin, director of the Illinois Department of Transportation, told the audience. "Even now, you're competing on the state level with education and health care. You're competing for dollars for a new taxiway that helps economic development or dollars that will go toward a child's education."

Nearly 300 people from around the state poured into the Holiday Inn Select Hotel and Conference Center for the conference. For the past two days, people in the aviation industry and a host of state and national government officials attended the conference to talk about the future of aviation.

Cecelia Hunziker, regional administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration-Great Lakes Region, said funding is the toughest issue facing the aviation industry.

"How are we going to fund the infrastructure that is an aging infrastructure? How are going to do new technologies, new procedures and do them more safely? How are we going to capitalize on airports and the needs of airports with cuts in funding?" she said.

Hunziker said challenges will come from an aging work force of air traffic controllers, retiring mechanics, getting youth interested in aviation and educating communities about the economic impact airports have.

Jim Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation Association, said he flew into Decatur on a private plane with 30- to 39-knot tail winds coming from the east. He then joked about how there must have been a lot of hot air coming from Washington, D.C.

Coyne said Congress' plans to fund the FAA will be "a catastrophe."

He also talked about expensive security improvements being proposed at airports that will become an economic burden for smaller facilities.

"Aviation safety last year was at its best in history," Coyne said. "Nevertheless, the media has focused on the accidents (a rash of charter airplane crashes). We have to do a better job with the media and with programs to reduce aviation accidents."

Sheila Smith can be reached at sheilas@; herald-review.com or 421-7963.