Sure Doc,
It just makes sense that it probably aint just one thing, I also agree that many of these causes are somehow related to various extents. This is a hobby of disposable income, and when that supply shortens you will see the recruitment dropping due to the other reasons gaining strength by the tight money situation.
More folks are going the PF route these days rather than the club.
How many of them do that because it is percieved as a cheaper way to fly. How many go PF so when they crash they can just glue the 4 parts of the plane back together at the field without worring about buying balsa & ironing cover & skill with those. How many go PF so they can toss the LilSparkie in the parking lot at lunch.... and how do we tell the LunchFliers that they need to join AMA to do that.
We dont have the national PF numbers from 1997 to 2007
but who here thinks Non-AMA flying has takes a big hit vs saying the PFs have grown by an insane amount of people while AMA dropped. How many of us have seen RC Aircraft at walmart & on TV? Why is the RC industry screaming gains such that others can advertize on TV & sell container upon container of RC Aircraft to the masses while AMA membership goes down.
But while some folks say the current doward trend is just cyclic and will come back by itself, why bet the farm on that being the case. Shouldnt we look at some (if not many) of the causes and see what we (the AMA) can do to reduce their impact on the member count. If we sat it is cyclic, then we dont need new lures to gain members, we will just gain them automaticly... but why not look at the thingsthat are getting the number to drop & do stuff to stop that.