ORIGINAL: J_R

Well, Sir, here are my thoughts

I am a CD. I have never asked for, nor been asked for an AMA license. That might well be a geographical distinction. “Let me see your AMA card” is what you will hear most often here, or “AMA membership is required”. The simple fact is, the thing is designated a license in the by-laws. The changing of the by-laws is a non-trivial thing… very difficult to do. While some of us here believe some areas of the by-laws need to be changed, the designation of the card as a license is so minor that discussion of changing it has never come up here. Whether it is a license or not has been discussed. Changing the term is trivial, IMHO. The AMA has been issuing licenses since it’s inception. Recently, the AMA had a growth rate of 3% a year, on average. In the last two years, the AMA has lost about 10,000 members. I somehow doubt that was due to the sudden recognition by members that they were carrying a license.
There are many discussions here about insurance. You won’t find many that do not view insurance as an integral part of the AMA’s appeal, or that is the financial engine of the AMA. For the 85% that view the AMA as insurance, fine. I have no problem with that. The day all of the other 15% believe it, the AMA is done.

If you want my to know why I say the AMA would be done, and are interested in my opinion, read on. If not, we can agree to disagree.

The market for entry level “foamies” is a new one. I believe this is an entirely separate issue from the current membership decline. There is, in my opinion, a huge opportunity to grow the AMA, IF the AMA can find a way to show that it has value to these people.

The title of this thread is “Why the AMA is not growing…”, so here is my opinion as to why, and it is directly related to insurance, although from a different perspective. I can not believe that enough of our older members are dying and not being replaced with new younger members to account for a 10,000 member drop over the last two yeas. The numbers available do not support such an argument. So, where did they go, and why? The reasons all relate to “risk management”. Here are a number of examples of actions taken. The AMA has (not including a few experimental aircraft) a 55 pound weight limit. Forever, it has been the custom of modelers to weigh a model dry. We balance our aircraft dry (with some minor exceptions), we have determined our building skills by weighing a plane dry. Light aircraft fly better, right? It never made much of a difference in the scheme of things. Manufacturers produced models that were larger and heavier as technology allowed. The turbine and giant scale manufacturers supplied the demand for product, in accord with desires of the membership. One day, in the name of risk management, someone decided that the 55 pound limit is a wet limit… it includes some rather heavy fuel. That put some very nice, and very expensive models on the bubble, requiring that they either be set aside and not be flown, carry an minimum amount of fuel that many consider unsafe, or… they be flown at over 55 pounds.

A rule appeared prohibiting the touching of the rudder of planes. It was also done in the name of risk management. Not as a safety issue, but, because it was indefensible in court, according to Dave Brown. While there were not a lot of people flying big birds complaining, the rule had included light electrics, and 40 sized profiles and small 3d machines. The owners of those aircraft had a choice, don’t touch the tail, for no apparent reason, or… touch the tail in violation of the safety code.

A rule appeared, without reasonable explanation, banning autonomous flight. Besides the fact that it banned free flight, on the face of it, RC autonomous craft were also banned. The ban was so wide that it was not clear that it did not prohibit “co-pilots”. Here, again, the owners had choices. They could either put their machines aside, or fly them in violation of the Safey Code. This was not a safety issue, nor an insurance issue, although many folks blamed the insurance underwriters. The “risk management” in this case related to the potential to use aircraft as terriorist weapons, NEVER as an insurance issue.

Li batteries have come under scrutiny. Misleading and false information have been put forth, and concerns raised over this developing technology. We have many members who are simply disgusted with the lack of accurate statements in support of the technology.

We won’t go into older issues, such as the rules for combat or pylon.

There are people that are flying overweight turbines and giant scale planes. There are people touching the tails of planes. There are people flying autonomous aircraft. There are people using Li batteries. I believe many of these solid, knowledgeable, skilled modelers have left the AMA membership in disgust. I believe we have lost those members right out of the heart of the AMA in the name of “risk management”. Insurance is a tool to reduce the risk to the organization, not to eliminate risk of activity.

The historical model for the AMA is that after a dues increase, there has been one year of flat growth, then a return to normal growth. Not only did we not have flat growth the first year, we had negative growth a second year. By the historical yardstick, that means not only did we lose the 10,000 but an additional 3% (5100 members) in the second year, for a total of about 15,000 members lost.

While there will be some that feel that Dave Brown won a mandate by winning the election by about 8000 votes, I submit to you that the mandate is the 15,0000 members lost that voted with their pocketbook and feet. Now, I do not view Dave Brown as trying to destroy the AMA, or as stupid. I do think that he darn well better reconsider his views on risk management and return the AMA to being an organization for the furtherance of model aviation.