Originally posted by frankflyboy1
Why is it that this hobby has no recognition in the world outside of AMA members? Year after year, I see televised events of pool tournaments, surfing, skatboarding, bowling etc. I don't know why this hobby just don't catch on? Ask anyone thats not in the hobby who Quiche Somanzini is? they'll probably think he's some breakfast dish, or Chip Hyde, Bob Hunt, Dave Brown, and the list can go on. NOW ask someone, who Tony Hawk is? Oh yeah the knarly skateboard dude, I'm sure they heard of Dick Weber, Minnesota Fats, The whole world watched Bobby Fisher play chess! I am in no way discrediting these fine gentlemen, they do what they do very well, as does Quiche, Dave Brown, Bob hunt etc. I think part of the problem is ignorance, for example, My club's council members contacted local people in real estate plus city council members. We asked them to put out some feelers on finding us a new flying site for our radio control aircraft, we were handed back the most useless places to fly, you would'nt believe it! Some of the places you could'nt fly control line let alone R/C. We invited some of those same people to a club meeting, and they were floored at the size of some of the aircraft there, they had no idea how huge a .40 size trainer was, A .40 SIZE TRAINER! I've been into modeling since 1958, and the public's view has not changed since.
It still amazes me why modelers keep asking these questions. Fact is, as Pogo, the great philosopher said, "We have met the enemy, and they is us." We all, to some degree, suffer from the favorite fishing hole syndrome. I've belonged to and/or visited many RC flying clubs over the years, but have just recently, thanks to a most amazing RC flight programmer, (instructor just doesn't do this guy's teaching ability justice), learned to fly and fly quite well.
In literally all of these clubs, beginners are for the most part, given only token help. So-called "instructors" only go through the motions of providing training and after talking to many veteran fliers, I've discovered that literally no one talks about their hobby to relatives, friend, neighbors, people they work with...no one. Which may be the reason our sport is so unknown.
The impression I get is that if a club member gets someone interested, they will have to provide training. Those who teach absolutely don't want to further inconvenience themselves by bringing in more newbies, and those who don't teach, may have been told by those who do, in no uncertain terms, not to volunteer someone else's flying time and whoever brings people into the hobby will do the teaching. Imagine if a 100 member club did the right thing and trained everyone to fly solo, talk about incrediably crowded flight lines.
If clubs really wanted to get more people into the hobby, why don't all clubs provide instruction 4 or more days per week, instead of the one or two days, (if at all) some clubs offer?
Suppose clubs asked government officials to come to your club's training night or a meeting. First thing he would notice would be there would nothing but retirement age members there. He or she might ask that if this is such a great hobby/sport, why is there only 25 members at a meeting and only 15 active members and only 2 instructors and that the roster never seems to increase?
Also, why after its 60 years of existance, there are only 170,000 AMA members? And of those 170,00, there are only 20,000 kids in a US population of 281,000,000? How many voters from clubs would there be in a given location?
I'm sure many, many exuses will arise, but chances are it will not impress the government official when it comes time to asking for more flying fields.
nascarjoe