Education Through Aviation — Bill Pritchett | [email protected]
"Stop, look what's behind you Fame and love gonna find you We're just here to remind you Yearn and Learn is what you do ..."
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.
AirVenture and EAA collaboration
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 website. 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 ..."
Educational outreach and AMA Today
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 email 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 website and I want to develop that list in the next few months.
AMA is continuing to develop its AMA Today email newsletter. It's a great "real-time" 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 email, 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 email addresses on file. Of these, roughly 50% (or 41,000 members) actually open the emails, 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 any time at [email protected].
Fly and have fun!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
