Most people that buy these planes have no clue about clubs and the AMA. Of course there is not a lot of info available to the overall public about clubs and the AMA. The AMA spends millions of dollars advertising in it's perceived target market but not realizing the true target market. If they spent have as much on getting info out to the general public and flight instruction, the membership number's just might go up. I wonder how many Airhogs have been sold? Out of all those sold how many have learned about the AMA thru this? How many have actually learned to fly? How many said to themselves gee I am glad I didn't spend $300.00 on that nitro plane?
The Doc
I also like to add that the only way the AMA will ever capture the Airhogs audience is to sell them a specialty product at a specialty price. They will NEVER capture an Airhogs customer at $58 even if they did know about the AMA. Heck they can hardly hold onto glow customers. The perceived value is WAY too high in retrospect. Now if they were to grab them at $20 or $25, they would at least get them in the door and then upsell them to a new sector of the hobby which includes everything you are asking for. It's better to have them at a reduced price than nothing at all. Now this is where the anti e-ticket revolutioists tend to disagree, but it couldn't be any more obvious, otherwise you wouldn't have made this most obvious comment.
Think about it, what's the difference if the AMA spends millions of dollars trying capture an audience in mass media marketing, or perhaps losing or perhaps making money on a reduced program aimed just for them. The name of the game is to just make things happen and obviously Airhogs knows how to put ideas into action. If we only had a few women in this hobby things would get done, which I believe is one of the biggest problems, not enough women in this hobby. Oh and too many Texans, way too many Texans.