New AMA Catagory??

But the risk is not the same degree between the light, quiet, slow, cheap, models as for the larger, louder, faster, heavier, more expensive models. This, everyone should recognize. (What about the indoor microfilm models? Same insurance risks as a quarter scale multi-engine somethings? )

The AMA has always said that it isn't what you fly but the way you fly. That means the big and gee-whiz are subsidized by the free flighters.

Sorry, but this is a generality with no basis of factual support. No one needs any insurance (not required by law). Insurance is something to be desired. The likelihood of damage and the impact of that damage creates the desire for insurance. I live in a flood plain but have no commercial flood insurance. But I am insured! I am 100% self-insured.

Not having an insurance policy does not mean there is no insurance. I have insurance. When I fly in the park, I am self-insured.

At some point, should I not want to assume the risk of my activity...then I would buy insurance on a risk/cost/amount basis. The AMA management does not allow for risk...it isn't what but how you fly.

They would be well-advised to not suggest that there should be different insurance rates based on likelihood and extent of likely damage.

The issue has been "park fliers" vs. all others. Unfortunately, we are trying to assign the identity of the object as being the owner. I fly park fliers in a park. Am I a park flier? I am not. That is just what I am doing right then. Doing something stupid does not make someone stupid anymore than a stupid person doing something clever makes him clever. He is still stupid. He just did something clever. (A cow that falls off a cliff is not a sky-diver. That is just what it is doing at the moment.)

But that was then and this now. Then, we talked about getting to second base with the girl; now condoms are handed out in the third grade and kids have more money to spend a month than we had in a year. (I [barely] exaggerate for emphasis.)

When we were interested in toy airplanes, we did not have the option of sitting at home with stereo, surround sound, and a 50" screen with an image of a carrier deck and us shoot touch and goes in an F-15.

Kids are not enthused by aviation any more. Watch a bunch of kids when a plane flies over. How many look up? How many say what make and model it is?

It is difficult to inspire the young with the familiar.

The AMA membership is reasonable...to be an AMA member. It is not reasonable for just enjoying flying model airplanes. It wasn't then and it isn't now.

Kids have the world at their finger tips. They are not lacking money and they are not lacking information. You need to dig a little deeper into modern teen psychology to get the answer. Using ourselves and our experiences as some benchmark in trying to understand the past is called "Presentism." That was in Context back then. Not now.

They can contact anyone anywhere on their cell phone, send a text message, or a photo. I think they have "some way of contacting" most any one or any thing.

No. We do not need young people in the hobby. Those kids who need the club will find it. They don't want it and they don't want model aviation. They will see a model magazine on the same newsstands as their other special interest magazines. They don't care.

We need to make a concentrated effort to inform the early retirees...they remember the thrill of their first airplane ride, they have mobility, they have the money, they have the time, they have demonstrated the ability to concentrate and stick with a job once they commit to it.

And where is there an AMA Senior Recruitment Program?

Just my two-cents, too.

Ken

Last fall, I was traveling down US 84 heading west toward Fort Sumner, NM, when a Saint Bernard wandered into my path. Passing through a village, I slowed from 45 MPH (73 KMH) to almost a complete stop (dumb dog), when some impatient eejit behind me tried to pass a double solid line. Then he saw the dog and backed off.

However IMHO, it is easier to sue the owner of a $20 (11 GBP) piece of foam than a pet.

"Mainstream" is a good word to use in this discussion. I wish I had thought of it. Thanks...

If we define "mainstream," I think we could put forward a good argument that the AMA is out of the mainstream of hobbies. Indeed, construction hobbies are out of the mainstream of America's leisure time pursuits. And certainly model aviation is, as well. It could be a dying hobby, even. With the exception of park fliers, of course.

Surely there is a graph showing the average membership age over the years. I have some old Air Trails and there are no old modelers in those magazines. We were all young, enthused, and struggling financially. And I noticed, we were a lot slimmer. I saw few fat modelers in the old Air Trails. I wasn't looking for the weights and ages but at some point it just filters to the top of the conscousness.

But then we started talking to the stars and walking on the moon and the people coming up behind us had other aspirations. Then the moon lost its interest, and young aspirations moved on to new pursuits (if they weren't difficult and were quickly attainable) and there were new heroes...like...Paris Hilton...some rapper...I don't know who but they have new heroes and interests.

The hobby doesn't need young people -- but the hobby does need new people. The hobby needs early retirees.

Ken

Thats me.;-)

I have noticed that actually, other bits of technology are REALLY helping the hobby ...used to be everyone built balsa kits. Then everybody bought ARFS.Then they got bored with lookalikes and some people discovered that you can make or buy a small CNC mill or laser cutter for very little money..and with CAD on the PC...and now there are short run short kits popping up everywhere...and even vac formed parts are not expensive for short runs..and the internet means you can sell worldwide for zero distribution costs apart from shipping.. and places like RCuniverse and Rcgroups mean you can get full color blow by blow building help, online technical support, and UNBIASED flying reports..in short, the enthusiastic amateurs can now trade plans and ideas without needing either the big distributors OR the AMA.

Over the course of last year and this I have printed plans for people in various places - I have access to a halfway decent plotter - helped someone with some translation, and ad material, got four free gifts of parts from international suppliers, passed some along to others who needed them more than me, and got three prototype receivers sent to me after I sent some ceramic filters I picked up on Ebay to someone online..been invited to and attended a private walk round an airfield to photograph a particular plane I want to model.

Of course non of this is sponsored by, or involves, the AMA in any way whatsoever.

What we are doing here, right now, is ten times - a hundred times - more useful and relevant to modellers than the AMA.

There IS a community of online modellers, who are like a super club - pan national - and willing to help, to donate parts to swap stuff, to develop designs across continents. They don;t need more than the web sites that RC groups and Rcuniverse supply, and this NG.

If the AMA did ONE thing it ought to be to copy those two sites..but they didn't.

This hobby has actually never been in better health for YEARS. Dozens of kids will buy aerobirds..one or two will wander into the forums and ask for help, get interested and stay..maybe they will take time out when they discover girls and suchlike, but when they have kids of their own, maybe they will hookup here again and say 'say I used to have an aerobird, and my boy wants to fly a plane...what's going on' And that is when you have the opportunity to get someone back. I left for YEARS. I came back because a mate had beengiven a 40 trainer and gear by someone who had emigrated. We smashed that, tried a couple more, smashed those too and then I discovered electric flight...and that happened to suit me as a way back..and a few years later I have about ten planes of which 6 currently are fully airworthy, have contributed to and been helped by the internet modelling community in huge measure, and am thoroughly happy in playing with toy planes when the mood takes me.

I seldom use a club, do have insurance, but could NOT GIVE A STUFF about whatever the BMFA/AMA are up to. It's of no interest, and no relevance to ANYTHING I do.

I am only saying that to show that the AMA tactics of scaring people into joining 'without us you won't have flying fields, frequency allocations, a Voice In Government blah blah' is actually a complete con.

Its never been easier to communicate WITHOUT need for a central organisation. The need form and hence the power of the main distributor, the hobby magazine, the hobby store is eroding faster than the NO levees..I say let the modellers take control of the hobby, nit bureaucrats or the commercial organisations.

Want a flying field? Get together and buy one. Run it any way you want. Its private, so public rules don't apply.

What a great posting! If there is hope for our hobby, it is not in getting overly-self indulgent kids to buy Ambroid and balsa sticks...it is in the application of new technologies as you outline.

The only way I could get back into national competition is to have the needed cataract surgery and then develop the old mans' model I have designed. It will need foam cores for a rigid low, low aspect sailplane with 18" chord and two-meter wing span. There are many reasons this would be a good idea.

This is a model designed around an application criteria rather than and optimized model looking for an application.

Re flying field. One of the little secrets of the hobby is that the general modelers cannot pay their own way.. They might have a trailer and 3/4 scale gee-whiz model, yet they must rely on the benevolent land owner to provide the club a cut-rate deal on some land for a flying field.

Those who like to tell me how much they spend on models have not my admiration but my contempt when I know that the land they are using is for the short-term and they will get out of the hobby before they pay their "fair share."

Ken

After reading ALL your comments concernig the AMA's new 'Proposed' Catagory....I stick to my original comment.

I think the AMA just opened a 'Can of Worms'

Earl Scherzinger 'AMA' #40329

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:01:12 GMT, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and "Earl Scherzinger" instead replied:

Let's all just go fishing.

-- Ray

Are you insured?

Ken

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:12:34 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Ken Cashion instead replied:

For fishing? You bet!

Down under, there's a different mob to pay than the AMA for insurance. However, I was a long time member of the AMA when I was flying in the US.

-- Ray

Ray, I missed the "au" in your address. I really liked Australia when I was there six-weeks back in my NASA salad days.

Ken, retired NASA engineer...

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 07:50:09 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Ken Cashion instead replied:

I remember you relating that to me many years ago when I was a regular around these parts. Were you in WA when you were here?

-- Ray

| I think what is needed is a what I will call a "junior" class of AMA | membership. This would be open to anyone under say 18 years of age.

Take a look at

For those under 19 as of July 1, 2006 YOUTH Membership $15.00 (Model Aviation included) (date of birth required) ___ YOUTH/NO MAGAZINE Magazine not included $1.00 (date of birth required) ___

I'd say what you're suggesting is already there.

(And for the magazine haters, I think the `no magazine included' option is only valid if there's another AMA member at the same address who does get the magazine.)

| It was someone at one fo the Hobby shops in 1950 that finally | pointed out all of the advantages and insurance benefits of AMA that

Ultimately, the reason most people join the AMA *is* insurance, and that's only because the AMA clubs/fields require it (and will not accept any other.) Truly, a masterwork of brilliance on somebody's part at the AMA.

| I finally joined, and kindof shuddered as I didn't have the | insurance before.

Then you were a very unusual teenager. Though if somebody did sue you, they'd also sue your parents, and their homeonwer's insurance would probably have covered it. So you were probably insured already, and just didn't know it.

(Though people certainly do seem to be more likely to sue now than they were before.)

| Back in those days we held teenagers responsable for their own | actions.

I'm not sure these days are any different than those days in that respect -- as a group, teenagers are not terribly responsible, and weren't back then either. Responsiblity tends to come later, most of the time anyways. (And sometimes it never comes.)

I have recently cancelled my subscription to "Quiet Flight" because it is a general editorial mess and hard to read. I have prescribed to "R/C World" because it is easy to read. Actually, Model Aviation is not a bad magazine. It is propaganda and we must discuss AMA business here instead of there, but I understand that is what all businesses do to protect their flanks.

What bothers me is that if the magazine is bringing in so much money to the AMA, why do we get such a small change in the membership rates whether we have the magazines or not. Apparently, someone is not telling the truth in what it cost to put out the magazine.

I went over the budget one time and there was no way to break down one of the largest recurring costs (magazine) and the income the magazine brings in. That is a product and money is being made on it, yet we don't really know what that business looks like.

When the AMA was younger, the membership was smaller and the membership was younger, as well. Membership costs were less. If you wanted to compete, then you could take the competition newsletter. And still the AMA grew.

Now there are more members, the membership is older, (and more responsible) yet the insurance for this responsible group cost a whole lot more. Apparently, the insurance company is looking at what is being flown...only the AMA claims they don't...it is the way you fly. What a crock!

I do believe that the rubber free flight, etc., fliers are getting ripped off unbelievably for insurance.

Still, any business management tries to get all the money they can for the least amount of out-go...and if the business excludes all competition...wow! What a cream-puff!

Ken

Yes. In wonderful Carnarvon. On Shark Bay and the outlet of the beautiful Gascony River. I can make fun of that but in truth, it is a very exotic place.

I was in Sydney and Perth some, as well. But mostly at the Apollo tracking station at Carnarvon.

Ken

The world needs Australians to throw two fingers at authority now and again, I have never met a saner bunch of people.

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:49:39 -0500, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Ken Cashion instead replied:

Then you probably know Mike Feldman, now retired from NASA and living in Booragoon near Perth.

There's a great RC club here, several in fact, who share a fabulous sealed runway in Whiteman Park north of Perth. There's even a dedicated group of jet flyers here who have a jet fly in and competition every year. We also have more than 200 days of clear weather here every year. We suffer a bit from moderate winds most of the time (over 15kts) but hardly any turbulence.

-- Ray

I can sure understand some Yank wanting to move to Australia. And there will be more doing it in the future. Though I remember Australia had a really intelligent immigration policy.

I remember a fair amount of grit in the wind in Carnarvon and remembered thinking what a job it would do on model engines, but this was stuff off the salt flats up by Carnarvon and grit off the outback.

If a modeler knows what sort of winds he will face, he can design the models accordingly, but turbulence is really tough. It is good you don't have much but, again, I remember near linear winds because of the lack of hills.

I saw some great soaring (birds) in the outback, though. There had to be turbulence around those thermals. Those were killer thermals...I wouldn't be surprised if emu couldn't soar in them.

You have a great country there, Ray, don't take it for granted. It is easy to do that with the familiar.

Ken

If I remember correctly, the AMA insurance program didn't come in to being until the middle 60's under John Worth as AMA pres.