May 2001 5
Ah, the first signs of spring—unfortunately,
those first signs are gray skies, rain, and
damp, chilling temperatures.
This year spring brings a little extra
excitement to AMA; the staff has the thrill
of moving into the new Headquarters
building in Muncie.
The Executive Council (EC) had its
chance to tour the nearly finished building
during the EC meeting the weekend of
February 10. It is a beautiful sight, and it will
give our employees a workplace fitting to the
pride they have shown in the organization.
I was impressed, but my impression was
enhanced by having been organizationally
involved in AMA long enough to realize how
far we have come since the days of the rented
office on Vermont Avenue in Washington
DC, and the days when the financial survival
of the organization depended on the
generosity of a handful of people.
I still remember the old Flying 8-Ball
Club, involving the model aviation industry,
that financially supported the AMA through
some tough times.
As I stood in that beautiful lobby, I
couldn’t help thinking how many people had
contributed so much of themselves to bring
the organization to this point.
Park flyers have been a hot subject recently,
and, as is typical with many aeromodeling
subjects, we seem to be evenly divided
between those who see them as a curse and
those who see them as a blessing!
If you are a club that is trying to attract
new members, park flyers are a blessing; if
you are a club with a “park” near your
flying field, the threat of the models causing
interference is a curse.
I’ve had a lot of E-mail from members
on both sides of this subject. I wish I had an
answer for those who express concerns
about interference with “real” model
airplanes (their term).
Some of our members seem to think we
(AMA) can snap our fingers and change things,
but we can’t. The reality of the situation is that
those who use park flyers have just as much
right to use the frequencies allotted to model
aircraft as do the people who build more
traditional and complex model aircraft.
I think AMA might be able to work with
the industry to reduce the problem—perhaps
through some form of “gentlemen’s
agreement” regarding frequency usage, but
that would not be a one-way street; it would
involve many compromises.
The best solution is to recruit those park
flyers into our clubs and work toward
finding and establishing “park” locations
where we can coexist.
In many ways, this can be the
breakthrough we need to get our numbers up
to a point where we are of sufficient
political status to get some attention. It’s up
to us to make it work.
Speaking of interference, AMA has been
gathering the latitudes and longitudes of
flying sites for a few years, but we only
have roughly 60% of the figures.
We have rules and guidelines that require a
separation of three miles between Radio Control
flying sites, unless there has been a frequencysharing
agreement entered into by the clubs
involved. This frequency-sharing agreement
may involve some way of splitting up the
frequencies or it may be as simple as testing to
determine that no interference exists.
The most difficult situation we have to
deal with is when a charter is granted for a
new club that has a flying site closer than the
allowable three miles to an existing site. This
shouldn’t happen, but in the absence of a way
for us to determine that distance, it does.
Many times this conflict occurs when the
new club isn’t aware of the proximity, but in
some cases the club simply ignores the
guidelines. We can avoid this problem if we
can create an accurate database of the latitude
and longitude of each flying site, but it depends
on our getting the positions of all the clubs.
This is for your own protection. If we
don’t have the latitude and longitude of your
flying site, we have no way of preventing
another club from choosing a flying site
close enough to yours to create interference.
We will probably need to require this
information for all new charter applications.
Part of the problem is that we charter
clubs—not flying sites—so a club could
certainly be chartered without a site.
If your club is among the nearly 40%
that hasn’t provided AMA with your
numbers, please get them to us so we can
prevent a problem before it occurs.
You can determine your site’s latitude and
longitude with a Global Positioning System or
a map. I’ve learned that most computer
mapping programs can zoom in to locate your
flying site within 100 feet, and will show the
latitude and longitude. If you are using this
method to determine your site’s position, zero
in on the center of the flightline.
A couple months back I wrote about the
US’s efforts in Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) competition, and in that
column I referred to the disappointing
results for our Scale team.
That comment was meant to reflect the
disappointment of the team members, and
was certainly not meant to infer any
disappointment on the part of myself or the
AMA with the team.
After rereading what I wrote, it was easy
to see where some people may have
misinterpreted my comments.
I have been proud of all our teams,
regardless of their placement. Basically the
only situation where I can imagine being
disappointed in a team is one in which it
conducted itself in a way that embarrassed
the AMA and/or the United States. This was
certainly not the case here.
I apologize to anyone who read my
comments and took them as a shot at the
team or at the team program. MA
’Til next month.
Dave Brown
AMA president
[email protected]
I have been proud
of all our teams,
regardless of their
placement.
Dave Brown AMA president
President’s Perspective
Edition: Model Aviation - 2001/05
Page Numbers: 5
