AMA and the Way Forward?
A Semi-Long Thought (OK maybe a small rant)
I have followed the forums here and elsewhere for over a year now. I find it mind boggling that a group of supposedly grown men, women and young adults can’t play nice. It just stymies the imagination that we all have essentially the same hobby or interest in flying and always find the stupidest thing to argue about. We the slimer’s (whatever that means), the parkies, the whirligigs, the plastics, the free flight’s, the very dizzy CL’ers and those wacky wacky micro indoor crowd just need to all get along as it respects to the hobby. We should all be willing to stand quietly and watch how someone else goes about doing something and as long as it is essentially safe, keep our mouth shut if we don’t like it. There is more than one way to go about our hobby and still enjoy it. I have learned many things from watching others and not *****ing because I don’t like them or the way they do things.
One thing that I keep seeing a hint of through all to the threads is that the AMA is not really doing what it should in respect to the hobby. The AMA should be THE gathering place for us all, a place where we congregate with a mutual interest in the flying of model aircraft of all types and sizes. It should be a place where all levels of experience are looked upon with respect. Do the experimental flyers or the ultra-lite’s get the cold shoulder from the airline jocks? I don’t think so. They all meet in Oshkosh every year and celebrate the thing we call flying, and I bet they share all kinds of knowledge across they different types of flying. This is where the AMA has truly fallen flat on its face. The AMA should be hell bent on keeping the peace across all of the different aspects of hobby flying. Instead it seems that the one place that should draw us all together is more and more drawing defined lines between us. Instead of making more foolish regulations or new “safety” guidance that makes little or no sense, they (WE) should be forcing the AMA to do what it’s original intent was. The AMA should be the premier promoter of this hobby. I am one of what appears to be a fairly large group who really only believes that the AMA is a necessary evil in our current lawsuit crazy society. I don’t think that the PF group needs to be part of the AMA if they don’t want to, or any other organization for that matter. But as municipalities around our country put more and more PUBLIC (as in owned by the public) areas off limits, the AMA should be out in front of all of us saying NO to these cities infringement on public properties and the use of them by the public for whatever the public (the owners) want to do. Promote the hobby not tear it down or restrict further from within. The AMA should stand for all model fliers whether members or not, I don’t mean to cover the non-members with the insurance but to stand by the rights of all freedom loving Americans to freely pursue this hobby and insure that it continues (for ALL) into the future. The AMA has lost it’s way and needs to be put back on the track the it was put on many years ago.
Just a small rant on my part…..Go forth and fly as you see fit.