As the historical tracking of FCC licenses, and more recently the attendance at the AMA Convention show, more RC pilots are not AMA members than are. 58% of the tickets purchased at the AMA convention were purchased by non-AMA members (certainly some small number were wives and girl friends, but if you have attended any large modeling show, it is mostly attended by males).

The question posed by for this thread asks if the AMA has a real future. As long as AMA supplies landlord insurance, it’s a good bet that it does.

The AMA will never get all of the RC pilots, unless there is some unforeseen governmental intervention that requires it.

The question becomes: can the AMA offer services, including insurance, that appeal to enough people to keep it viable. That is exactly the role that the EC has given Don Koranda in their appointment of him as the Executive Director of the AMA. He is in the process of determining which existing programs should continue, which should be discontinued, and what additional programs may appeal to the market.

The AMA is a business. A business based on some very altruistic principles, but, never the less, a business. It has products just as any business does. How well they market those products will determine just how big, or small the future is for the AMA. The current EVP, Doug Holland, along with the EC saw that the time had come to quit trying to micromanage the operation and hired Koranda. Apparently, the new EC members have bought into his expertise as well. Take a look at the D 9 web site where Mark Smith gives his views in the VP’s corner. http://www.amadistrict-ix.org/VPCNR.htm