Originally Posted by
ira d
I noticed in the letter to the AMA the FAA did not say it was mandatory to join the AMA in order to fly over 400 ft and I hope this is the case, as far as I am concerned until the FAA demands AMA membership or tries make a distinction between AMA and none AMA modelers all is good. I think congress just went with what the AMA told them for now but that could change at the next go around. In the end it will be the FAA that will be the ones to to make a distinction between AMA and none AMA if they choose to do so.
Right, the FAA didn't name a specific CBO, and it's doubtful they ever will, even after drinking the evil empires Kool Aide. They have however made distinctions between those that fly under a CBOs safety rules versus those who don't, and that's a good thing. I wonder who fought for that distinction? The FAA and LE will be going after a pilot when they do something stupid, AMA member or not. What might make a difference is their registration status however. The chances that an AMA member will be caught doing something wrong or engaged in some inappropriate activity however is extremely remote, since we follow our rules and regs. Our safety record is second to none. Some might call it exemplary, but one safety focused member here challenges that routinely with one off instances here and there over 80 years. So from now on I'm going to use the term "stellar". Why stellar? Well, that's the term that the 14 signatories to the purported Declaration of Drone Independence used back when they wrote that rambling, horribly written manifesto from November of last year.
Don't remember that document? It was a doozy. Reminded me of similar manifestos written by high-schoolers who complain to the school when chicken nuggets are pulled from the cafeteria. We have right, hear us loud and clear! LoL. You might recall that these 14 folks who ostensibly represented "traditional" modeling couldn't even manage to spell Rich Hanson's name right. Can you imagine? And the first signatory was Frank Tiano, and this guy wants to be the president of the AMA? Sorry, if you can't get something so simple as a person's name right.....jeez. They went on to tell the AMA how "drones" should be defined, as if that would make a difference to the FAA. It was amateur hour at it's most embarrassing.
14 guys, all with a vested interest in keeping the status quo and protecting their "traditional" modeling turf. That debacle of a letter went nowhere of course, they couldn't even scare up support outside of a few hundred signatures by going around from one fly in to the next. What sad wasted efforts!