Hello all.

This would be my first visit to the forums here at RCU so I will have to ask for forgivness if this has been covered and I am sure it has. I have returned to the hobby this summer after taking about 7 years off to raise our kids ( the hard years ). Now that they are all ready to graduate and life has settled a bit so I have returned to a hobby that has changed. Electrics were a novelty when I left the hobby ( I began in 1988 ). They were slow, expensive and not many people chose them. I now see that they are viable and are a growing segment of the hobby. My question is............ How did the AMA screw up so badly in figuring fequency assignments to the electrics and what is the future of the AMA? I am bothered every time I take off with a $1200.00 + 1/4 scale, gas burning investment when I know that little Jimmy could be flying his electric airplane in the parking lot at the end of the field / on the same frequency!!!!! It seems to me that the AMA did not put much thought to this subject and if they did then there must be some major component that caused their decision to go the way it did that I am unaware of.

I am also bothered with the fact that by nature there is no incentive for electric pilots to belong to the AMA? In the past with people I have trained not only did they have lots of time into building their model ( most electrics are ARF ) but most had no clue how to run and operate their engine. They were in short scared and clueless. In most cases they would activly seek out help and in the process you would get them involved in the club. All of this has seemed to change? Now you pull it out of a box , put it together, charge it and go to the local soccer field to crash it??????? The name "park flier" even suggests they do this very thing?

I am NOT dismissing electric flight. In fact I think it has a brighter future than nitro. I am asking some important questions about safety and the future of the AMA......................Please dont respond with critisizms, I am honestly a little worried about the current position I see our hobby in.

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