They do? What control do they have? They have 0 control over this hobby, that's just a perception
Not when you have to join the private club AMA to fly on County Regional Park land, with no provisions to post a bond or outside insurance. Club got park, club requires AMA, County wants insurance and bought the AMA hype about making sure everyone is insured without considering the monopoly on insurers. Why do we need $40-50k insurance to drive, including a 24' Uhaul towing a car, in case we hit someone/something, but $millions to fly a RC plane? That kind of control may be what he's saying.
Can you imagine flying at RC fields with no guidance (not control) from the AMA and no insurance? The club board members and their members would literally be at war with each other fighting over the way the club should run.
So a local club would have all kinds of controversy within its members & leadership.... but some reason there is no controversy when you add a few hundred thousand more people? 20 guys cannot survive with all the conflicting opinions & methods, but the same guys have no differences if there are more people involved?
If local Jim is opposed to local Bob's way to run the club, and they charter up with AMA. Turns out local Bob is using the ama method, how does Jim all of a sudden not be opposed to it anymore? Or is his opinion verboten by bylaws, or discounted as a dissident poster and ignored in the AMA Happyworld
I CAN Imagine a flying place without ama control- well, its more of a reality than imagination: I was in a group of StreetFlyers & that is just what you said, nonAMA ruled or insured. .. no tech checks, no impound/pins, no freq board.... no waiting to fly, no fees, no hassles. Sure the cops sometimes would tell us they were going to use the street and we had to wait 45mins till the cops said it was ok for us to fly... but cops need streets too, and streetflyers are a sharing bunch.
Not only that, do you think the FAA would allow uncontrolled RC flying with no "standards" of operations? Let's say that number of AMA fields went from 98% to 90% to 80% to 70% and so on, what do you think the FAA would do? They would jump right in and start setting the rules and guidelines, only they wouldn't be guidelines, they would be LAWS
How many millions insurance do you need for 103 ultralights in classG or 700'E space where any
unlicensed fool can get up? The feds are hands off management regarding ultralights. Everyone should spend a whole 10mins and read part103 of the fed laws in entirity- all 6 or 8 pages. I dont think the FAA is gonna jump in anytime soon, the FCC will grab up our freqs for some new WIFI they can get $mil Telecom fees long before the FAA has a problem. The one to watch out for is the ATF... er, the BATF... oops, I mean the BATF&E... watch, soon it will be the BATFE&RC, they are grabbin everything, darn revenuers comin on our land
Was the OP talking Internal Controversy, or controversy About the AMA between members & non-members? Cause I can get along fine with most of ya'll AMAers talkin about servos or wing aspect & flaps, but when the AMA comes up in conversation it's the Hatfields & McCoys. Is that not a controversial subject?