Perfectly reasonable to show the TAM in the AMA musuem as a significant historical achievement made by a well known R/C pilot with a firm basis in model aircraft technology. Showing it does not in any way endorse the current practice of autonomous model aircraft that has been banned by the AMA. It simply documents a historical achievement.

What KE does not understand is that situations, climates, rules and regulations change over time. "Then" is not the same as "now". Even though some folks love to make political hay out of an exhibit in a musuem to suit their own ends, an exhibit is never an automatic endorsement of things that happen after the items on exhibit created their bit of history. It is simply a snapshot of what was.

Personally, I think the world will not come to an end if the AMA allows autonomous flight within the confines of a typical R/C flying site, with suitable failsafes to prevent a flyaway, and a safety observer. Ilona mentioned in an email to me recently on this subject that the AMA is studying the issue, as this technological genie is pretty hard to stuff back into it's bottle. The current AMA insurance policy prohibits autonomous flight from being covered, as written.

Yes, the current FAA situation may indeed cause any type of autonomously controlled model aircraft to be officially banned in some or many ways, or to be subject to stricter sUAS rules. Yes, it might end up being a sacrifical lamb offered up in some sort of give and take to keep more freedoms and fewer rules for us. I for one hope that some form of it can be preserved for modelers to experiment with, subject to reasonable safety regulations.

I can see this technology becoming a sort of super failsafe for R/C models. If the normal control signal is lost, the model would decend and auto land at a specific GPS point away from the flyers, near the middle of the model field. That could be MUCH safer than allowing models to crash anywhere or possibly fly far away and crash, if control is lost. The current technology of the failsafe radio allows a model to crash anywhere at any attitude or speed at low throttle. This could be and needs to be improved on.