President’s Perspective - 2003/08
Ah, the smell of spring is in the air; the problem is that the air contains some pieces it shouldn't contain. Spring always yields a little rough weather, but this year the storms seem to be unusually intense.
Ironically, some weekends have had especially good weather, and the weekend we held the spring Executive Council (EC) meeting was no exception. It's hard to get the members of the EC to keep their noses to the grindstone when the weather outside is so beautiful, but we persevered. The rush to the flying field at AMA Headquarters was intense when the meeting was over.
As has occurred in the past couple of years, the event being flown at the National Flying Site was for large, air‑towed radio control (RC) gliders, and with the beautiful weather it was a sight to behold. Something about those big, majestic gliders—sailplanes to the purist—soaring in gaggles for flights as long as the pilot's neck can hold up is incredible.
I got in some stick time on one of these models, and even I was able to find as much lift as was necessary to keep the model aloft. I found the lift off the west side of the flying site, but the rumors were that the lift earlier in the day had been over the northwest corner of the site—right over the Headquarters building where the EC meeting was being held. I think they were trying to tell us something.
A few years ago I put forth the idea that we should consider a multitiered AMA membership to accommodate advancing technology and the inherent risks associated with higher‑performance categories, while at the same time keeping the cost of AMA membership down to an acceptable level for those who limit their flying to more traditional model types.
To say that it was not a popular idea would be an understatement, yet I still hear people suggesting some variation of this as a way to accommodate increases in limits or easing of restrictions on more advanced forms of aeromodeling. I'm sure some will take exception to the use of the term advanced, noting that many traditional classes of modeling are still developing advanced technology and are quite sophisticated, but I think you know what I mean in this case.
It's the bigger, higher, faster models that create the concern, along with models that have areas of danger unique to that type. Please understand that the vast majority of these types of models are safe when operated by a modeler with adequate experience. In that instance they are probably safer than a "normal" model in the hands of an inexperienced modeler, or certainly safer than a model in the hands of someone who thinks he is better than he really is. We have all seen that type of case.
The reaction to my earlier suggestion met with resistance because many members feel that every AMA member should be allowed to fly any type of model without restriction, and that is the crux of the problem. It seems ironic that many clubs have programs that limit who is qualified to fly solo, yet so many do not see any need for a program to limit the types of models flown by those same people.
The bottom line is that we will have to choose one of the following:
- Increase membership costs for everyone in order to allow the relative handful of people to fly higher‑performance models.
- Create a system that limits flying of advancing‑technology models to those qualified to handle them.
- Impose more restrictive limits on the types of models allowed.
Right now we limit models to 55 pounds, a limit imposed when no one had the technology to get a model approaching that weight to perform at a high level. Now we have powerplants that allow those large models to achieve high performance, with speeds exceeding the fastest models from the era when the 55‑pound limit was imposed, and now people flying models near the 55‑pound limit are asking for higher limits.
Making this task even more complicated is the fact that the charter of the organization calls for us to promote the advancement of the arts and sciences of model aircraft, and some would view any such limitations as impeding that advancement. This is one of those cases where the need for modelers to provide insurance for our activities, typically through AMA, conflicts with the need to see the activity advance.
As I write this they are running qualifications for the Indianapolis 500, and the thought occurs to me that automobile racing has advanced in many ways despite rules changes that put more and more restrictions on the hardware involved. In other words, rules have been adjusted as technology allowed higher performance under the old rules.
In automobile racing they have been wise enough to change the rules, as technology permits, to restrict performance to a reasonable level. Shouldn't we be doing the same? Are racecars of today less advanced than those of years past because the rules are more restrictive?
Hmmmmm ... MA
Author
- Dave Brown, AMA President
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Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
