Hi Jay

Welcome aboard.

Your club sounds as though it should be a model for the way things should be. The really nice thing is that it was done without anyone saying you had to do it that way. It shows a lot of concern and maturity on the part of the leadership of your club.

As always, I have a thought or two.

If the club consisted of 35 members, would the same model work? It could, but, in the real world, how many of the 35 would be willing to become as involved? Would the system be so emasculated that something with less organization would be more desirable… and safe… than a *******ized version of something designed for larger clubs?

Out here, one of our largest flying sites is at a non-AMA chartered field; the Sepulveda Basin. At the basin, AMA membership is not required. It is not unusual to have a dozen planes in the air at one time. Although there is an AMA chartered club associated with the basin, it has no control of operations. That is the way the City of Los Angeles has set this site up. If anything were required by rule, it could/would not be enforced. If attempts were made to, say, investigate an accident involving an AMA member and a non-member, it could result in a confrontation. That’s the nature of the basin today, although it was not always like that. Although instruction is generally available, it might just as well be a non-member doing the teaching as an AMA member. These are the types of things that make mandated programs virtually impossible to enforce, IMHO.

Part of my concern does not lie entirely at the feet of Bill Oberdieck. Training/safety is a real issue. There is much speculation as to the intent of the documents that have been posted. As always, there are those who would lay blame at the feet of the individual that produced the documents, and it can, very easily, get out of hand. IMHO, the responsibility for this lies not with the members of this forum, but with Bill and with the AMA leadership. This is not a new issue. There has been time over the last couple of years to make the membership aware of the facts in Model Aviation. There should be no reason for speculation as to what an accident is, in terms of the documents. There should be no speculation as to whether this will be mandated, or voluntary. The discussions (not word for word specifics, but general discussions) that have taken place at the leadership level should have been put forth to the membership in MA, and if input was desired, it should have been requested. If the opportunity to do this was not afforded the author of the documents, that too, should be made known. If on the other hand, it has intentionally been kept close, then there is blame to lay.

It seems obvious that this is a complex issue. It is going to take many people, the Safety Committee, the SIGs, time, and work to resolve it. It certainly, IMHO, should not fall on the shoulders of one individual, or a small committee. There are just to many issues involved. On these issues, unintended consequences are not acceptable in it’s resolution.