NewComers
SURPRISE! SURPRISE! All you're going to get this month from your regular NewComers author is a brief introduction to Matthew Usher's expanded coverage. Matt is an editor for Model Aviation. The events detailed this month consumed a prodigious amount of my time over many months, culminating in a mind-numbing, hectic flurry of activity on Tuesday, March 12! As a result, since I was sitting squarely in the middle of the forest, it seemed far more prudent to let someone else describe the trees. The short of it was that, working in conjunction with the Indiana Academy at Ball State University, AMA beamed almost four hours of live interactive TV programming to 32,000 students, grades 4 through 7, in five states.
Newcomers
LAST MONTH I introduced the new Education Coordinator, Mike Stokes, and the fact that "Newcomers" was going to split and an education column would evolve, resulting in this column focusing more on "gluing stick A to Stick B." That was an oversimplification. I will focus more on the newcomer and leave the specific education programs to Mike, but some overlap will occur from time to time. This month features a letter I received in response to the January column that articulates beautifully the concerns addressed and offers constructive thoughts concerning how the issues might be dealt with.
Newcomers
The genesis of this column sprang from a dialogue in late 1993 or early 1994. For a number of years, Model Aviation carried a beginner's page that worked diligently at directing aeromodelers toward simple, rewarding projects and ideas. As emphasis began to shift toward additional AMA education programs and the nature of the membership changed, the concept for a magazine presentation followed suit. Almost everyone will concede that education should never stop. From birth to death, new experiences bring enlightenment. In that sense, age provides no basis for limiting the creation of new ideas, skills, or experiences.
New Comers
Design Intervention: Virtually every modeler has seen one, and most have built one, but few know the genesis of the AMA Delta Dart - a simple rubber-powered model constructed on the covering material that also serves as the plans. In the model's 30+ year lifespan, the industry has produced millions of them in an effort to introduce individuals to model aviation; last year alone, Midwest Products provided 250,000! Delta Darts have been distributed and copied worldwide; Frank Garcher of Midwest followed 250,000 to South Africa for a special program developed there, and most countries tied in with the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) have used them! The Dart was a divine design intervention!
New Comers
My recent columns have provoked some thought and prompted mail. Even though the concerns in this month's installment are from letters about different columns, the excerpts that I am going to use were in my mailbox on the same day. While at first blush the views are divergent in nature - and one is critical - they address a common concern. The first came from Walter Berggren: "Mr. Bob Underwood must be spending too much time on the virtual holodeck and not enough in the real world of the RC [Radio Control] Newcomer. To make the assumption that 40,000 people learn to fly RC each year and then drop it due to boredom is ludicrous."
