ORIGINAL: Gordon Mc
ORIGINAL: pilott28
I am aware of one situation where an individual with the AMA discussed revocation of membership for gross violation of the saftey code, but I don't believe this would be representative of the current leadership. My personal opinion, though I do work closely with them on the insurance committee and I have been involved in a few specific conversations around this point.
I've had the "may revoke membership for willfully flying outside the safety code" info in writing from a number of AMA officials.
With Dave Mathewson in charge (who to me seems much more reasonable than DB, in the exchanges I've had with him), you may well be right that the threat is fairly unlikely to be turned into actual action. My intent here is simply to educate people to the AMA's stated position and the
possible downside that exists … what the actual odds are of the threat being carried out is something I leave to others to guess.
A reasonable analogy here may be people driving, say, 75 mph on highway 85 here in my hometown. A gazillion people do it every day without penalty, but just because the hammer hasn't yet fallen on them, that doesn't mean that we should tell everyone that "75 mph is fine – you're allowed to that".. because once someone DOES get hammered for 75 mph in a 65 mph zone, they're entitled be p'd off that we misinformed them.
The specific problem the AMA has with this is defining where the line is. The leadership is rightfully concerned about consistency in any action they take, and frankly would rather spend their time on other issues than defining at what point "willfully flying outside the safety code" should result in a revocation. This is the specific issue that has come up in the discussions I have participated in. BTW, I agree with this. I'd hate to see the AMA allocating a lot of time and energy to additional rule refinement, definitions and enforcement.
Your assessment of Dave is spot on ... I am impressed with his listening skills and ability to collect facts and act in a rational fashion. I would also say the EC in general is moving in that direction. There are a number of VPs now that are pretty progressive in their thinking and very open minded toward many aspects of the hobby.