Education Through Aviation
By Bill Pritchett, Education Director
And so it is with model aviation. We are fortunate to have an archive of model aviation history courtesy not only of the National Model Aviation Museum in Muncie, but in our rulebook that ensures competitors fly events that have been flown for many years.
The history of competitive flying in model aviation is substantially the organizational history of the AMA. In the early days, the majority of members were youth who participated in Free Flight contests across the nation. "Postal" contests became events in which contestants would mail their airplanes to one location to be flown against other airplanes by the same team in the same location.
When the Academy of Model Aeronautics was founded in 1936, the name was chosen to acknowledge that learning about model building and flying was an important part of a young person's education. During the so-called Golden Age of Aviation, when the nation's youth closely followed the achievements of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, building small-scale aircraft for competition in local, regional, and national flying events was viewed as a logical part of preparation for higher education and for a variety of professional careers.
We at AMA still fervently believe in the significant value of aeromodeling not only for teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), but for the key role it plays in providing a pipeline of talent for general aviation.
Now, 75 years later, the majority of our membership is over the age of 55 and, according to our competition department, we still sanction 2,500 to 3,000 events per year. Although some of those are not about competitive flying, the majority are.
How many clubs still have a fun-fly day? Examples include:
- Bomb drops
- Limbo
- Bust the balloon
- Other fun events
Isn't that a bit competitive, although informal? Sure it is! The club I belong to will fly some combat nearly every weekend, just to get the juices going.
Last year's Nationals had nearly 700 participants. Although that number is down, how much does the reality of travel costs have to do with the decrease in participation? Probably much of it—but yet it doesn't reflect how many of our members participate in a contest of some kind. Twenty years ago or so, even the fun-flys every club had each year were competitive.
Today there seems to be a number of events that are becoming more social than anything else. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.
I'll share some interesting facts about competitive flying. So far in 2012, we've issued 2,200 sanctions. Of those:
- 1,020 are AMA rule-book contests
- 1,017 are contests or fly-ins not using the AMA rule book (such as club fun-flys, racing, combat, etc.)
- 98 are C Restricted or International Miniature Aircraft Association events
- 7 are large events that are contests but not AMA rule-book events (such as Top Gun or Scale Masters)
- 27 are demonstrations
This indicates that a large number of our members still enjoy participating in a competitive event.
I know it changed my take on the hobby and to this day I greatly appreciate those who helped get me into Pattern. Flying with a purpose has taught me a lot. If you have some interest, the greatest thing about our members is that while they can't wait to beat you, they also can't wait to help you. Just ask!
Outreach: Southwest Airlines Adopt-A-Pilot
We have many people doing wonderful things out there, and one I want to introduce you to this month is Scott Fitzgerald, AMA member and Southwest Airlines pilot. Scott is one of nearly 900 Southwest pilots who participate in the Southwest Airlines Adopt-A-Pilot program that reaches roughly 50,000 elementary students annually.
The kids love having their "own" pilot and they have great lessons in geography as they track their pilot. Additionally, model aviation activities are a part of it—for Scott, it's a major part of it!
Scott and I met this year at E-Fest and through Scott I've been able to introduce activities that the AMA has for utilizing model aviation as an educational tool to Southwest Airlines. Hopefully we'll soon become a part of this great outreach.
Thanks, Scott!
Fly and have fun!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
