View From HQ
This larger awareness of flight brings opportunities and challenges.
The announcement of a new membership category—the Park Pilot Program (PPP)—is in this issue of MA. Rumors have been circulating about the PPP; the Academy has been developing this program for more than two years.
As with all organizations and businesses, change is ever-present in today's world. The development of inexpensive, lightweight park flyers alone has exposed millions to the experience of flight. If we did not respond to this new interest in model aviation, the Academy would be negligent. This larger awareness of flight brings opportunities and challenges.
I am asking you to become familiar with the program since there will be many questions about this new membership effort. A visit to the AMA Web site offers a description of the program and a series of FAQs that will help you understand how these new members fit into the AMA family. Please see www.parkflyer.org for more information.
In a few weeks the Executive Council (EC) will be meeting. In October the members agreed to start the meeting a day early to allow time for the review and adjustment of a five-year strategic plan that has been under development.
This plan is based on last year's membership survey and staff and EC input as we worked through the planning process. It is the first part of what we are calling the "da Vinci Vision," named after one of the world's earliest modelers.
Your input, through your district vice president, is welcome as we work to map out the future of AMA. Call your representative if you have any thoughts on this long-range planning process.
Next month in MA we will publish what most organizations would call an "annual report." Staff members have informed me that the name alone sounds boring and the membership will not want to read it. They feel that all MA articles need to be about modeling. Under staff pressure the piece will be a "what AMA did with your dues in 2007" report. Still not exciting, but maybe it's more enticing.
Responsible management to the membership calls for some type of annual report. I hope to start an annual tradition of informing the membership of AMA actions that they would not normally read about in MA.
"You know you're a modeler when..." (second installment)
On a much lighter side, "You know you're a modeler when ..." has generated some great responses and here is the second installment. Thanks to those who have shared their thoughts about modeling.
Jim Anderson of the Hernando Aero Modelers of Spring Hill and Brooksville, Florida, starts us off. You know you're a modeler when:
- Your wife asks where the pliers are and you tell her to check your field box.
- You know what to do when you stick two fingers together with instant CA glue.
- You learn to tell the clerk at the hobby store to throw the receipt away so your wife won't know that fuel went up a couple bucks (and so did props and covering and glue and other goodies).
- As a way to show your everlasting love and commitment to your wife, you name your new plane after her on your wedding anniversary, and put her name on the fuselage in big block letters.
- You "volunteer" to get the mail on the day your model airplane magazine is due.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel B.J. Kaufman of the United States Air Force submitted two suggestions:
- You know which fast food restaurants' plastic ketchup cups make the best epoxy mixing cups.
- You have used your Dremel tool to trim your toenails. (No comment on this one!)
From Darrell Warren of the Michigan Signal Seekers club:
- Anytime someone asks for directions and you use the nearest flying field as a reference.
- You stop at garage sales and ask if they have any planes for sale.
- Every time you see a vacant lot you check for overhead wires and a smooth landing area.
- Every time you hear a plane you think "I got it."
- You watch the weather channel and can't wait to see the wind direction and speed.
- You use CA and epoxy to make household repairs.
- You use an incidence meter to level furniture.
Finishing out this month's installment is Rob Swider who offered:
- You own more plans/kits than you'll ever build in your lifetime.
- You can't park your car in the garage because it's the hangar.
- You have to eat in the living room because the dining table is a building board.
- The dining room tablecloth is made of unrolled airplane plans.
- Your fingertips have a perpetual skin made of CA.
As long as I keep getting such good responses I'll keep putting them in my column.
Jim Rice, District VIII vice president, invited me to the seventh annual J.W. Rice Memorial Fly-In. More than 100 pilots came to the Kingsbury Aerodrome in Texas to celebrate the love of flight.
Jim's son, Gary, the acting CD, conducted one of the most efficient and varied fly-ins in which I have ever participated. From Giant Scale to foamies to CL Combat, there was something for everyone.
Next September if you're near San Antonio, Texas, plan to have fun at the eighth annual J.W. Rice Memorial Fly-In. MA
Jim Cherry Executive Director [email protected]
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
