President’s Perspective - 2010/09
AMA has received a number of calls and e-mails this summer from members asking about the FAA TFRs that seem to be popping up regularly all across the country. TFR stands for "Temporary Flight Restriction," and a TFR is usually created in the national airspace surrounding and during the period of some special event like the Super Bowl or a launch of the space shuttle. In addition, they are created at locations where the president of the United States or other VIPs are visiting. TFRs created during presidential visits are mandated by the Secret Service.
If you get the impression that the number of TFRs being issued has risen dramatically in the last couple of years, you’re right. Since the beginning of 2009, more than 125 have been issued throughout the country.
Virtually everything that flies in the National Airspace System (NAS) is affected if flight operations require activity within a TFR. For modelers, as recreational users, this can certainly be an annoyance. For other users of the NAS it can mean much more. Livelihoods can be affected.
Example: Martha’s Vineyard
In 2009 when President Obama vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard, a TFR was in place during his entire eight-day visit. While model aircraft were grounded, so was everything else.
The following operations were prohibited:
- Flight training
- Glider and glider-towing operations
- Parachute operations
- Balloon operations
- Crop dusting
- Banner-towing operations
- Sightseeing operations
The negative economic impact that this presents can be devastating, especially in an area that has such a limited season of acceptable weather conditions.
AMA’s position on TFRs
AMA certainly understands the security implications that have resulted in the increase in TFRs. However, we also believe that there are ways to maintain the required level of safety while offering some relief to other users of the NAS.
In last month’s MA, AMA’s government affairs representative Rich Hanson wrote a brief article which explains TFRs in more detail and the approach that AMA is taking to seek some reasonable relief for model aviation enthusiasts. AMA will continue to work through this in hopes of finding a sensible compromise.
sUAS regulatory process
As you might expect, the question on most everyone’s mind at events I attend is what kind of progress we are making with the FAA and the regulatory process involving small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). AMA’s internal workgroup charged with drafting an initial set of standards that we will eventually submit to the FAA for consideration continues to make good progress.
Our intent, as it has been all along, is to use the National Model Aviation Safety Code, along with its supporting documents, as the foundation of our submission. The majority of the work being done now centers around making sure that we have addressed all the issues that the FAA has raised and to create our documents using the "form and format" preferred by the FAA — the latter being simply how the FAA would like our submission to be packaged. As we get further along, our set of guidelines will be vetted throughout the model aviation community so that everyone has an opportunity for comment.
Education outreach
AMA’s new education director, Bill Pritchett, has hit the ground running. Bill has been working with AMA’s Education Committee and our education outreach specialist, Dr. Gordon Schimmel, on a number of new ideas that will enhance our education outreach efforts.
Many of these ideas will focus on creating new programs that will support our members and clubs who want to introduce model aviation to the members of their communities. In addition, we are reaching out to organizations like the Boy Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, and ROTC to open a dialogue on how we can work together to create programming that will support those organizations. Over the next several months you’ll be reading much more about these efforts.
AMA website reconstruction
AMA’s Web site is undergoing a major reconstruction. In today’s world, for many, the Internet has become the primary resource for information. It has also become a common tool for conducting business. The AMA Web site needs to address both of these areas.
It needs to be a place where someone interested in model aviation can go to learn more about aeromodeling. At the same time, our Web site needs to be a conduit to the services and benefits we provide to our membership. Current plans are to launch the new site sometime in the fourth quarter of 2010.
International Aeromodeling Center events
About the time this issue of MA reaches you, the 2010 F5B & D World Championships will be taking place at the International Aeromodeling Center (IAC). Teams from a number of countries will be in Muncie for the competition, which runs from August 19 through August 25.
In addition, on August 18 and 19 many of these same teams and pilots will compete in the Neu-Castle Cup Open International. This is a great opportunity to visit the IAC and watch some of the best F5 Electric pilots in the world compete against each other.
If you visit, please take some time to stop at the National Model Aviation Museum and the AMA’s administrative headquarters to say hello to the AMA staff who work so hard on our behalf. If you ask the receptionist, she would be happy to arrange for you a tour of the building.
See you next time.
Dave Mathewson AMA president [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
