Education Through Aviation - 2010/10

OKAY, so I have been crazy about Earth,
Wind & Fire for as long as I can
remember. There are many reasons for
this. I love rhythm and blues, the band’s
horn section is one of the best, and lyrics for
many of their tunes really hit home for me.
Yearnin Learnin is one of those songs. It
brings to mind that intense desire we all
have when we are completely engaged in
discovery, searching for answers, and
impatient to learn and understand.
Having just returned from AirVenture,
the Experimental Aircraft Association’s
(EAA’s) showcase event in Oshkosh,
Wisconsin, the lyrics for this tune jumped
out in my mind. The Oshkosh experience
really can’t be described. Those of you who
have felt it know what I mean. The rest of
you need to make plans to go. If you have
any interest whatsoever in things that fly and
learning about them, visit the EAA’s Web
site. As an AMA member, you will receive
reduced admission for online ticket
purchases to AirVenture 2011.
The EAA’s members are similar to ours:
passionate about all things that fly; have
identified specific interests; and have a
tremendous respect for it all. While staffing
the AMA booth for seven days, we met
hundreds of AMA members and thousands
of EAA members.
The amazing thing about our
conversations that week is that virtually all
of the EAA members who aren’t still
involved in model aviation got started in
full-scale aviation through model aircraft.
When the EAA members saw our display,
many couldn’t believe what has happened in
model aviation! Electric power, 2.4 GHz
spread spectrum technology, and all the
available ARF choices weren’t something
they could have imagined when they were
involved in aeromodeling.
Many said they were going to add model
aviation to their flying activities, so lots of
learning took place that week. Our AMA
members learned how effective our
presence was, the EAA members learned
and were reminded about the importance of
model aviation in their lives, and I learned
that we have only scratched the surface of
opportunity for future collaborations with
the EAA.
There was unanimous support from both
EAA and AMA members that this
collaboration was the right thing to do!
Bravo to Dave Mathewson and the others
who have made this possible.
Simply stated, it’s just not very
productive for all of us involved in aviation
to continue to do our own thing while we are
duplicating efforts and costs.
“Yearn and Learn is what you do …”
We continue to receive great information
from across the nation regarding both club
and individual outreach. One trend of
particular interest is the phenomenon of
“school aviation clubs.” Many seem to be
out there and we would like to know more
about them.
If you are involved with one or know
about one, please send me an e-mail and I’ll
make the contact. We want to make sure that
the Academy is aware of and supportive of
such activities. If you are an educator, this is
a great way to share our fun with kids in
your school! We have a list of educators on
the Education portion of the AMA Web site
and I want to develop that list in the next
few months.
AMA is continuing to develop its AMA
Today e-mail newsletter. It’s a great “realtime”
publication for our members. One
problem is that we don’t have everyone’s email
address!
Although we’re aware that not all of our
members have e-mail, many of you do and
we would like to be able to send you this
newsletter. I will be putting lots of coverage
in it for educational outreach events that
need to be shared.
We have 142,000 members and only
82,000 e-mail addresses on file. Of these,
roughly 50% or 41,000 members actually
open the e-mails, so only 29% of our
membership is reading AMA Today! Please
go online to www.modelaircraft.org and
subscribe. You won’t be sorry! The
feedback we’re receiving on this publication
is extremely positive.
AMA is your organization; let me know
how we can be of service to you, your
club, or any educational effort you’re
making and need some help with. Don’t
hesitate to contact me at anytime at
[email protected].
Fly and Have Fun!