ORIGINAL: Mike in DC
I've been an AMA member 5 years,
//SNIP//
Personally, I think the oral history is not going to work any more for teaching safety. Right now, the elders try to instruct the newbies, but it's haphazard, and there are many opinions. If you take up skydiving (or any inherently dangerous sport like rock climbing or scuba), you're in for some pretty formal classroom-like training in safety. Perhaps we need something like that. What would it take to really stop the practice of adjusting your engine from the front of the plane? How can we convince the AMA members that safety is not a bad word, and may be critical to the future viability of this sport?
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Mike, I've belonged to AMA continually since 1956, and I don't know how long off and on before that. I started somewhere around 1947 and was off/on until '56. I don't think I have missed a year since. I got my CD/Leader in '63.
Above, you used an example of your perception of something unsafe. Each has some such perception. I have only, in my 50+ years of modeling seen one serious accident because of your stated perception. That was because the person stuffed a twice too-big engine in an ARF with no structural addition and it caused the firewall to leave the aircraft fuse. after a number of flights. Got him big time, but he still flies and does some of the same dumb things.
If I perceive a problem, in today's modeling, it is the entry into rather Hi-Tech modeling with no basis or background concerning the activity or what one can encounter in its operation. The ARFs, the ready-to-go-NOW and the general attitude of being "cool" by NOT concerning one-self with safety practices are all contributing factors in the realm of safety.
Another, IMO, very BIG factor is that AMA WILL NOT, HAS NOT, AND HAS NO PLANS TO DO SO, confront the Model Aviation Industry on the standards of workmanship (Yes there is more than "LIGHT" and Cosmetics in the workmanship arena) that are now being sold in bundles to the uneducated potential modeler/model flier in this country. The current leadership in AMA definitely has NO intention of attacking the root/s of the problem.
Just blame the unknowing users and make more restrictive rules are all that AMA will do. In less than 6 months, I have witnessed 2 ARF Firewalls (Gas burners) depart the front of the fuselage with a running engine, one being of a recommended size. I have refused a number of trainer "first flights" due to, IMO, poorly constructed ARF-wing units.
Place all this "marketing" of the industry along with people having no background in the operation and there is all that is needed to light a roaring inferno.
To think that one will make a law that all have to be trained in such background is as ludicrous as trying to stop all the quick-marts from selling cold beer to the drivers making a quick-stop.