flew everywhere: parks, schools, even a few
churchyards. (Father Shea didn’t like that last
one, but he was understanding.)
We joined clubs and AMA in order to
enjoy the social aspects of the activity and to
keep abreast of the advances in our activity.
We needed a group such as AMA to learn
how to do this safely without finding out the
hard way. AMA gave us credibility in
dealing with those occasional challenges to
our right to fly our models. The fact that there
was a national organization made a difference
in establishing our activity as a legitimate
pastime. Insurance was not a consideration
since the population of lawyers and
environmentalists had yet to grow.
In short, that period was bliss. It lasted
until society became increasingly sensitive to
the noise and site owners became gradually
more aware of liability issues. Then the
exodus began.
The sport was forced out of the urban
areas and out into suburban areas and farther.
Unfortunately society grows and what is far
enough out on one day may not be in the near
future as the urban and suburban areas
expand to handle the growth. As a result,
aeromodeling is forced into moving yet
farther out for survival.
Park flyers have significantly reduced the
noise levels, giving us an opportunity to
“come back inside” in terms of flying sites,
but this does little for the problem of liability
protection for the site owners. That can be an
advantage or curse, depending on how we
conduct ourselves.
When we were kids—at least when I was
one—we would spot an open field, roll out
the lines, and fly. If the police didn’t show
up, we flew until they did. If they did come,
usually they would ask us to quit because
someone had complained. We were kids and
the cops understood that kids will be kids.
Occasionally the owner of the open field
IN RECENT COLUMNS I have pointed
out the need to reach out to members of the
park flyer community and bring them into
the AMA fold. There seems to be an
undercurrent where AMA is thought of as a
separate entity from its members, and those
involved with park flyers are separate from
either of the aforementioned. This is difficult
for me to understand because AMA is its
members and it is those members who
determine what direction AMA takes.
Those of us who are “in charge” of AMA
are in the position purely as a result of being
elected by the membership. It is a simple
matter to elect others to be responsible if the
direction the organization is taking isn’t the
direction the membership thinks it should go.
The needs and desires of a membership as
diverse as those of us involved in
aeromodeling run a pretty wide range. It’s
easy to look at the needs of aeromodeling
from a narrow viewpoint, focusing on what
an individual perceives as his or her own
needs and ignore the bigger picture. This is
more evident with inexperienced modelers
who have a tendency to view their new
avocation through rose-colored glasses.
The freedoms and rights we have in this
country were won through the efforts of past
generations, just as are many of the
advantages we enjoy as aeromodelers. Our
American society has those people who
would prefer that the country return to a time
before the civil rights movement as well as
those who tend to take those rights as a
given.
Aeromodelers deal with a similar
polarization. There are those who would
prefer that we had been frozen in some point
in the past when the hobby focused on their
interest and didn’t face difficulties from the
advancements in technology or the changes
of the American society.
On the other extreme are those who
would prefer to remain oblivious to struggles
of the past and dive into the activity with an
attitude of invincibility. Aeromodeling is not
an invincible activity, and anyone who
believes that needs to look at the past. Those
who ignore history are destined to repeat it,
and we are no exception.
How does this affect the aeromodeling
community? The advent of the park flyer has
allowed modelers to fly in places which are
similar to those we enjoyed in the 1950s
when CL was the rage of the day and
“cured” the need for massive flying sites. We
Dave Brown AMA president
President’s Perspective
May 2005 5
I only hope we don’t
“poison the well” by
acting irresponsibly …
would appear and was often supportive of
our flying, but sometimes he or she would
ask us to leave and we would. There were
plenty of places we could find to fly. All we
needed was half of a football field.
Fast-forward to 2005 and look at the same
activity. Substitute adults, park flyers, and
culture as it is now. Many seem to think that
you can fly a park flyer anywhere, but
today’s society being what it is, that is less
true than it was for us as kids and our CL
models.
Yes, the noise problem has been
overcome, but other difficulties—particularly
liability sensitivity—will remain. If we are
inconsiderate in our approach to this new
opportunity, it will be lost and we could
endanger more than the park flyers.
I understand those who seem to think that
they do not need AMA for park flyers, but
they are looking at the world through those
rose-colored glasses. Whether or not they
need AMA insurance individually is a matter
of opinion—particularly if they have
homeowner’s insurance. However, the
liability concerns of the site owner will
almost certainly become a factor in the
continued use of that site.
One city recently banned flying model
airplanes because a group of people flew
gliders in a spot where the city deemed it
inappropriate. The ban doesn’t just preclude
flying at the “inappropriate” location, but
anywhere within the city. There was no
regular club site in that city, but if there had
been one, it would have been lost as a result
of this ordinance.
Those who think that they can fly park
flyers virtually anywhere could be
jeopardizing the right to fly for others. We
need to figure out a way to address this
situation. The park flyer community needs to
refrain from flying “just anywhere,” and at
the same time we need to be able to provide
site-owner coverage for those sites where
park flyers could be flown reasonably.
The difficulty will be to create an
economic plan to pay for providing that
coverage at a cost which would be
acceptable to the park flyer community while
maintaining our current membership base.
That’s a tall order, but I think we can do it.
I only hope we don’t “poison the well”
by acting irresponsibly while we figure it
out. MA
SINCE 1936
Dave Brown
AMA president
[email protected]
Edition: Model Aviation - 2005/05
Page Numbers: 5
