airega1

My Feedback: (204)

All this interest about getting the "park flyer" interested in AMA. I've worked in a very busy hobby shop for years and I've perceived this,The "park flyer" does not give a RATS RECTUM about AMA. Many are becoming "park flyers to get away from AMA, and the majority of these guys are the ones you don't want either in your club or AMA. They just want to go fly without the hassle of rules and safety. I see this all too often, when I suggest to the "park flyer" to join AMA? I get the uninterested look immediately or the big laugh. PARK FLYERS DON'T CARE ABOUT AMA!!!

bhole74

In my experience I have found many flyers, not just park flyers, who do not have AMA, don't want the hassle of rules. I think adding safety to that comment however, is wrong. I fly at a field which is not a sanctioned field. About half of the flyers do not have AMA, but safety is not an issue.

airega1

My Feedback: (204)

Sometimes that is the problem, safety is not an issue!

CDignition

My Feedback: (9)

Watch out for that kid with a paper airplane next..he might crash it into you, giving you a paper cut,lol...

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

It's kind of like the gun club inviting the guys with bee bee guns to come out and shoot for a cheaper price.

Muxje

I think that's quite an apt comparison gow589. I'm not looking down on park flyers or beebee gun owners, but I imagine that both these groups would have little to gain from a club membership.

BasinBum

My Feedback: (2)

I would guess that most park flyers don't even know what the AMA is. I would guess that when they are told they can join an orginization with a yearly membership fee that is half the cost of their plane they would think it's a waste.

I think if the AMA wants to increase membership than attracting the park flyer is a good way to go and if they want to promote model aviation than encouraging the park flyer to stay with the hobby is within that goal.

Re-examining things such as tiered rates is appropriate and being done as we speak.

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

I fly planes from large to small, fast to slow. I even fly the park fliers from time to time. I am not really trying to put them down but we fly them at my house and at other family members homes. We wouldn't even think of taking them to an AMA field.

Crashem

The AMA will become attractive to the parkflyer crowd when and IF non-club flying areas become off limits.

Tiered rates and other ideas to attract park flyers don't work for the simple reason that they don't address the needs.

Park flying seems to be by defination Anti-Establishment and Anti-Club

bhole74

You obviously misunderstood my statement. We do not have problems with people being unsafe. I have visited sanction fields where people were flying in an unsafe and hazardous manner. Safety is either practiced or not by each individual, AMA or not, sanctioned field or not.
I have still not come across someone intentionally trying to hurt themselves or another with a model aircraft.

BasinBum

My Feedback: (2)

Maybe from where you are sitting it does but I think most park fliers are not even aware of clubs, sanctioned fields or the AMA. I'm sure some in the hobby are turned off by clubs and rules and turn to park fliers as an alternative but I'd bet the vast majority saw the plane at a store or in a magazine and thought it might be fun to try. Given the chance to associate and fly with like minded individuals I'd guess many would welcome the opportunity.

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

If the AMA and clubs worked their butts off to restructure membership to gain Park flyer membership, how many would we gain? My guess would be small percentage; not enough to be worth the effort. I am sure as we have discussed here there would be a lot of repercussions far beyond the benefits.

Why bring Park fliers? $? or is it a genuine belief that there is a base of people who would become more involved in modeling.

If that's the goal then what if the AMA has a nation wide "park flier day" (perhaps on a Wednesday) Encourage park fliers to come to the club fields, set up club trainers so they can fly them, let park fliers fly with the aid of members (not alone). This is just an idea. (for the purpose of generating interest, and to show them the hobby).

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

how about me I fly everything from large scale gas, helis , bipe and park flyers dont generalize folks

R/C FLYR

My Feedback: (1)

our 'park flyers' DO CARE ABOUT SAFETY, just because we are not in the ama, that does not mean we are a bunch of yahoos who don't give a s**t ! We are all very good pilots with YEARS of experience NUFF SAID

Roby

What ever side of the coin your on , to be sure, the park flyers,
just like the ARF"S,they are here to stay.

They offer many advantages that can't be ignored. Of course, there
are a few disadvantages too. I see the biggest problem as freq control.

I know several people who do fly the electrics and are not AMA or
club members. What's the advantage to do so ? I'm sure it can't be
only safety. Just because you join AMA doesn't mean your safe
I know at my local park I'm more likely to be hit by a Frisbee,
a kite or a badly thrown baseball. All of which will do more harm than a park
flyer.

Been in this hobby for many years , seen allot, it cracks me up
that t seems that as soon as you put a model airplane into the air.
People try to make the hobby much more difficult than it really is.

I can only picture the following :

Guy #1 "Hey , I'm going to fly my "Park -flyer" today .
Guy #2 " You shouldn't do that ! your not a member of a club
or belong to the AMA ! What's wrong with you ?????"
Guy #1 "Oh gee"
Guy #2 "Come on , lets play lawn darts and have a few beers"


Roby

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

The problem is getting the clubs to do this. Many/most clubs have enough trouble finding someone to mow the field, let alone enough people to work an organized "open house" even once. Forget weekly.

My club holds an organized trainer night every Tuesday, and we have an open invitation to ANYONE who wants to come out and try flying with an instructor on a club trainer. We give many test rides in a summer, but few, if any, are park flyers. Why? They've got their own planes, their own place to fly. Why would they drive however many miles out of their way to be "treated like a baby" (i.e. put on the buddy box) by a "bunch of old farts" (i.e. the typical perception of an R/C club)?

I'm sure we'll get a few converts this way, but not enough to make the effort worthwhile. Ideally, anybody that flies should belong to the AMA, then it would be a force to be reckoned with. Things like regional flying sites in addition to Muncie could become a reality. We could fund a traveling demo team of the best pilots to go from fly-in to fly-in around the country, like our own "Blue Angels."

I'll tell you what we need. We need young, attractive people to put out there to make it seem like being a member of the AMA is "cool." Somehow, Dave Brown's mug just doesn't cut it...

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

Roby,

It's not about being more safe. It's about public perception. The public perceives our activities as too dangerous for general consumption. Of course, they're absolutely wrong, and our safety record as a whole is proof positive.

I am confident that by the numbers, it's safer to fly R/C than it is to fly in a commercial airliner, and it's a PROVEN FACT that it's safer to fly in a commercial airliner than it is to drive down the street to the corner store! There's a fatal car wreck every 25 seconds or something like that. Tens of thousands of people die in car wrecks each year, hundreds of thousands are injured. How many fatal airliner wrecks are there in a year? One, maybe two, killing a few hundred people? How many fatalities from R/C in a year? I recall one, maybe two people dying in an R/C accident last year. Even if you go on a deaths-per-capita, R/C, organized or not, has a far better safety record.

What's the public perception? Driving in a car is safe. Flying in an airplane is somewhat dangerous. Flying R/C? Why, that's REEEEALY dangerous! Can't imagine why anyone would take up a hobby like that... [:'(]

Facts and logic have no place in the argument. It's "too dangerous," period. These thrill-seeking hooligans must, at the very least, be banished to the remotest corner of the county where they less likely to kill anyone. Better yet, let's outlaw it altogether. Problem solved.

"Pshaw" all you want. I'm not presenting what-ifs, or exaggerating. This is REALITY. This is FACT. This is what we face as organized clubs. This is what the park flyers will face when they're discovered.

airega1

My Feedback: (204)

When I started this post it was not meant to offend the park flier, but it is the attitude of some of the guys who heavily push the park flyer and talk down the organized clubs and AMA. When there's nothing else to do, they fly their park flyer for some quick amusement, then it usually gets tossed back into a corner and pretty much forgotten about. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter what you fly, as long as you're a "modeler" at heart. I can appreciate the fact that all the replies to this post have been from true modelers, and thats great!

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

Matt, small point, I was looking at inviting the park fliers and other non AMA fliers once-twice a year. Not weekly. Like I said, it's not worth re-structuring our organization to get 1% of the park fliers.

I also dissagree with the safety thing. I know several people hurt, myself included. I run from airplanes in the pits a couple times a year as does everyone else. We learn to keep an eye out for them. If R/C's are really safer than cars let me ask you this. Would you drive your grand daughter across town in the back of a car in a car seat? Of course. Would you put your grand daughter in a car seat, put her in the pits next to your airplane and walk away on trainer day, fun fly day, busy sunday? (neglect not concidered, only her safety). We learn to look out for them which helps a lot. The potential is there especially when we bring spouses and frinds to meets who do not know what to look out for. The potential is always there which is why we never turn our back to the flying.

Roby

Over the years, it has been my experience that the vast number
people seem to percieve that my hobby is expensive . Not once
that I ever can remember ,has anyone ever percieved my hobby
as dangerous.
Of course , that all can change if some people want to present it that way.
This falls under making the hobby much more difficult than it really is
as I mentioned before.

Regards
Roby

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

I posted a link to a neat turbine on a car web site I frequent last week. The response I got back from the car guys was, "I've been to a model airplane feild before, do people run from the turbines like they do the other models?"

crownvic

I dont understand this notion that this hobby is so dangerous.I would almost bet the ranch that more people are killed or injured while fishing or hunting ! How about a drunk in the field with a 30-06 semi auto rifle. Now thats dangerous

Lonnie

gow589

My Feedback: (1)

It's funny when people compare safety of guns to model airplanes. If you go to a gun club, guns don't go out of control and fire back at the people. Bullits don't turn around and fly back at the people when they get to slow. The batteries in guns don't die causing them to fire in all directions. I would sit in the pit area of a gun club and close my eyes. I would never do it at an R/C field. People in hospitals from gun wounds are not the people I would hang around and that factor doesn't enter my life.

No one wants R/C to be seen as unsafe but without constant vigilance, it becomes unsafe pretty quickly.

blikseme300

My Feedback: (118)

Getting "park flyers" to join both a club and the AMA is really barking up the wrong tree. I have visited a fair number of clubs here in the US. The problem is that the "active" members are but a small percentage of the paid-up members. Even though there are now more AMA clubs in the US than 20 years ago, the active members are on the decline. Just as charity starts at home, we need to regain the members who are essentially dormant.

Many heli pilots are also essentially "park flyers" as they don't need runways. Many of them are "forced" not to fly at sanctioned fields as the members of the clubs dislike heli's. We can't just point fingers at the "rebels" and "park flyers" where AMA membership is concerned.

Safety is not the issue at all, either. Safety is a personal choice or preferance. There are many AMA sanctioned fields where I will not fly or even stay as spectator because of lax safety. On the other hand, I have visited and flown at "rebel" clubs where the safety aspect is part of their culture. It was quite interesting to note that the friendliness and active participation levels typically are MUCH higher than at most AMA fields.

At the field where our club is currently operating from we have approx 90 paid-up members and only approx 8-10 active members. For our last fun-fly event the turnout was 5. We are currently under the sword as our city wants to develop our site into some kind of a business park. No matter how many signatures we get on a petition, they will ignore us as any spot check on any weekend will make it obvious that we are actually a very small group of active flyers. We are not unique in this lack of real interest.

Safe Flying!

Hossfly

Good bet! Considering the population of the U.S., the estimates of the number of known gun-owners, I estimate that there are some 800 times as many hunters as model airplane fliers, and 1000 times more fishermen. Besides, there are so many fishermen in boats that act just like a teen-ager with a new set of car-keys and a 12-pack in the seat beside him/her.
How about the industry rep that knowingly torque-rolls a Big Bird down through a pit area. I'll take my chances with the drunk in the field. At least I will be better prepared to defend against that than some out-of-control model, that I may never see.

There are an unbelievable number of finger/hand cuts happening around the fields these days. IMO, I attest that this is because there are so many passer-throughs in the RC world that do not have the experience in being around model engines most of their lives, and just don't know or seem to care how dangerous that "open chain-saw" can be.

Edited to add:
Life Member -- AMA
Life Member -- NRA. Charter Founder of Second Amendment Task Force.
Life Member -- Texas State Rifle Association