All I really remember about the time and the SFA was that:

A, The AMA contact told our club secretary that to retain the club charter and liability insurance, all members and guest flyers had to be AMA members. Legalities were involved with the insurance company.

B, There was absolutely no prohibition against any AMA member carrying any additional insurance, whether SFA or any other, mentioned.

C, From the previous AMA letter, it appears that the restrictions against dual charter were of a legal nature, and not necessarily an internal AMA directive. There obviously were provisions to allow a group to obtain a version of dual charter by having the non-AMA group take on a different name within the same club structure, without jeopardizing their AMA charter. This sounds like a lawyer thing rather than an AMA thing.

D, After a number of my own inquiries with reps from SFA, I was never able to get any direct confirmation that SFA insurance would protect me while flying anything other than R/C aircraft. They would only confirm that their insurance would protect the property owner, not me or any one else actually flying. After several such inquiries, I started to have doubts that the SFA insurance would actually cover any flyer. Since I and a number of other current and former club members also fly CL and FF, this reduced the value of the SFA membership to us.

E, I remember during some problems locking in the exclusivity of our current R/C frequencies, there was an article in RCM stating how they were instrumental in aquainting some members of Congress especially John Glenn, with model aviation. The suggestion I got was they thought mr Glenn, and a couple other names they mentioned, were ignorant of model aviation until they were appoached by the SFA with demos. Actually, there were several photos of Mr. Glenn, and several others from the mentioned group shown with their own models in older issues of the model press, including pictures taken at the NATs. Reminded me of some TV informationals, and started me thinking of the SFA in the same terms as I thought of the sellers of "become a millionaire through Negative cash flow" investment schemes.

A competent competitor might be good to have. The AMA is an organization run by human people, and therefore automatically imperfect. They will make, are making, and have made mistakes. They have also done many good things. The SFA, and the lately failed UMA, may have been honest attempts to provide competent quality competition for the AMA. Neither had what was needed