The AMA gives you several things, which may or may not be worth it to you:

- Insurance. If you have homeowner's or renter's insurance, your personal insurance covers any accident you cause with your model (like hitting something). After the limit on your policy, the AMA insurance kicks in (called secondary insurance). If you don't have insurance of your own, then the AMA's kicks in first. (Chartered clubs also get insurance from the AMA that covers the club and the owner of the field. In the case of the club, it's "primary" insurance, it kicks in first).

- Flying at other clubs. Fields run by AMA chartered clubs almost always (I'd say always, but there are a lot of clubs out there that I haven't visited ) require you to have AMA yourself.

- Lending support. The AMA does things like lobby the FCC for our frequencies. It was the AMA that got us off of the CB band and on to 72mhz. Right now, there is a new thing called something like "BPL" (broadband over power lines) that could (no one seems to know for sure yet) cause every power line in the country to eventually broadcast interference on 72mhz. This would make a lot of current fields unflyable. The AMA is trying to make sure whatever happens minimizes impact on our flying. The more members the AMA says it has, the more likely the government will actually listen to what the AMA says when it tries to protect what we do.

- The magazine. Like it or not, you get a subscription to the AMA's magazine. Some people like it, some people hate it.

- Competitions. If you want to fly in any kind of sanctioned contest, you're almost certainly going to need an AMA membership.