You coulda 'splained that you don't _have_ to renew.

Me neither. My membership number starts with an "L", too.

Plane Jim -

There is a 'new' reason to maintain your AMA membership, one that a lot of folks seem to forget these days : FAA.

Right now there are at least two, and maybe more, working groups trying to formulate a plan for submission to FAA regarding the impending regulation of UAVs.

Make no mistake, FAA _will_ regulate UAVs and they will do it in the near term, which is defined as being as soon as their budget allows.

What that regulation will ultimately look like, and how little or how large an impact that regulation will have on model aviation, is about like trying to get a handle on a cloud of smoke. You can see it coming, but it's hard to tell how big it is or how much it stinks.

Lots of folks see no need to join AMA or to continue their membership because the immediate tangible benefits are to them, pretty much intangible or at most have little value.

AMA did not establish the frequencies we use today. FCC did that. What AMA did was represent model aviation to FCC with a view toward trying to preserve the hobby and to carve out a niche in the frequency spectrum allocations for our use. I think the overall effort was well worth the cost. While it may be true that we would still have some snippet of frequency allocation to use, AMA's involvement in the process certainly didn't hurt our hobby.

These days, with push-button terror levels and government paranoia running rampant, it's not a doomsday prediction to say that if FAA acts in the worst imaginable way toward model aviation, we might not be flying models outdoors at some point down the road.

No one on our side of the fence has said anything at all about FAA having the notion to ban model aviation activities, and FAA is on record as having said the same thing.

One must always remember that The Fed isn't always as astute as it should be.

FAA has expressed an intent to regulate UAVs (substitute whatever current buzz-word you like for "UAV" - the term means non-man-carrying pilot-less aircraft).

In the working groups which many of us are trying to monitor, the consensus _seems to be_ that our sort of "UAV" will not be regulated because they fall into the least onerous category of the genre. That is, our UAVs are always in sight, operate below 400' AGL (or they are supposed to, anyway), have no onboard intelligence (that the person twiddling the sticks might not be too bright is not an issue), and most importantly, do not operate over populated areas.

The UAV category FAA appears most concerned with and about are those with some degree of autonomy, weighing more than 100 pounds, and which operate in regulated airspace.

What FAA is 'worried about' are for example 1500 pound fully autonomous aircraft doing their thing at the same altitudes as commercial air carriers. FAA _really_ want to avoid the situation where B-777 pieces start raining on Los Angeles because the aircraft took a 'bird strike' from a large UAV.

So, what's this all mean to you ?

Maintaining your AMA membership is a way of trying to insure that model aviation _as you know it_, whether as an 'outlaw' or a dyed in the wool club member, actually >has< a future.

There is no other national organization whose vested interest is the preservation of model aviation.

One thing is fairly certain - your homeowners insurance company won't be setting up an FAA liason function any time soon.

Horrace and I won't be renewing our memberships because we don't have to. I'm a working slob with a decent income, and Horrace is filthy rich, so annual membership dues never were a problem for us. Further, neither of us is young enough to ever reach a break-even point on the cost of our Life Memberships. I know that even if I manage to keep my eyesight another twenty years, I _still_ would have paid less overall by renewing annually, and Horrace has a lot more grey hair than I have.

The most important aspect of my LM payment is that AMA had close to a thousand extra dollars to use as deemed necessary. The only thing I need to do now is pay attention to the goings-on in Muncie and kick and scream if I don't think "they" are spending the money I gave them wisely.

If nothing else, your membership dues are an investment in our modeling future.