President’s Perspective
Do you belong to an AMA chartered club? Many would say of course, assuming that the majority of AMA members do.
Would you be surprised to learn that only roughly half the members of AMA belong to clubs? I have been surprised since I first saw the statistics. Can we believe them?
My gut feeling has always been that the majority of members belong to clubs, but the numbers have remained roughly the same for a long time. I would estimate the number of members in the average AMA chartered club at approximately 40. This corresponds with what would result if roughly half of our members belonged to clubs—even taking into consideration those who belong to more than one club.
As the sport experiences the rapid emergence of park flyers—those small, electric-powered RC models—many think that clubs are no longer as necessary as they have been in the past because park flyers can be flown almost anywhere. Nothing can be further from the truth.
While you can physically fly the little models anywhere, there are problems with doing that literally. Flying park flyers in inappropriate places is resulting in problems for all of us.
These models span a wide range, from expensive, complex, small helicopters to the RC models you find in Wal-Mart, Target, and RadioShack. Members in our clubs do not seem to have too much trouble embracing the upper-end models and even the simple foamies, but those who fly the simpler models are finding it difficult to gain acceptance within AMA clubs. This is understandable, but I think we might want to re-examine our attitude toward these pilots.
This past winter, I participated in a number of indoor RC fly-ins that an Indiana club held in a hangar at the Anderson airport. I was amazed at the broad cross-section of models flown there. The spectrum ran from Air Hogs to $1,000 helicopters.
What I found interesting was how well the people got along and how much pure fun everyone had. It didn’t matter if you were flying a “serious” model or a dime-store RC toy; everyone enjoyed whatever model he or she was watching at the time. Some of the “toy” models stole the show at some point when they did something that caught your attention.
If this acceptance is possible in an indoor venue, then why not at the normal club site?
I would like to see clubs make particular efforts to work with communities to provide a specific place in a park or similar location for flying the smaller RC electric-powered models. Ideally this would be in or close to the town or city where it would get the most use and do the most to grow our activity.
If the people who use that site end up migrating to larger models, they will join the club and fly at the normal club field. I would not banish those little models from the club field.
If the club tries to convince the city to provide a designated spot for park flyer pilots near where they live, then it has gone a long way toward ensuring that those who fly these little models are less likely to fly in inappropriate places, which could result in local ordinances that ban model flying—ordinances that might unintentionally apply to your club. Think about this effort as flying-field insurance. It doesn’t matter if the public field for small, electric-powered models requires AMA membership; what matters is that those people have a designated place to fly, which will help protect your field.
Besides, how many of us would like to be able to stop at this nearby park for a quick flight with our little foamie on the way home from work when we do not have the time or inclination to make the long trip to the club field?
Until next month.
Dave Brown AMA President [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
