For those who believe the AMA is not being as effective as it should:
Did it not occur to anyone that the AMA leadership may be doing the best they can with the resources they have? And maybe it's too small an organization that represents too much of a niche in the broader American society to exert the kind of influence on the FAA that we'd like. I compare this to the situation in the 90's when Clinton was pushing to ban firearms. The NRA was the big resistance, and even with probably 20 times the membership and money that the AMA has and much better developed lobbying skills they were only partly successful.How could anyone think the AMA would do any better?
Honestly, I think the AMA has done a good job representing us. They haven't gotten us everything we wanted, but they have made some reasonable requests and gotten a few concessions. The FAA couldn't care less about what we do. They are focused on the multi-billion dollar industry of commercial flight and the millions of human lives at stake every year who use it. If we keep flying or don't keep flying makes no difference to them. It speaks well of the FAA that they listened to us at all and tried to let us keep enjoying our hobby within the confines of what they needed to do to keep commercial flight safe. And I appreciate that the AMA put so much effort into listening to its membership and representing us to the FAA as best they could. For such a small organization to have that much influence speaks well of their effort.
So no, it's not perfect, and we didn't get everything we wanted. But we got more than we would have without the AMA, and the FAA was able to do its job. From what I can see, the only real regulation that came our way was the $5 every 3 years SUAS registration. I thought the AMA did pretty well in keeping our cost down to $1.67 a year considering that the FAA could have turned it into a cash cow had they chosen to. Otherwise, the vast majority of us are still flying as we always have even as public opinion is against us in many places. That sounds like a win to me.