ORIGINAL: Red Scholefield
ORIGINAL: j_keiter
The AMA is not growing because technology has created tiny high performance, cheap planes and helis that allow people to drive or even walk to there local park and fly with small risk of injury and low noise.
The AMA grew when technology moved from rubber band power to IC engines.
The AMA grew when technology moved from silk and dope to prefinished coverings.
The AMA grew when technology moved for free flight to Radio Control.
The AMA's lack of growth can be attributed to the change in the way people look to join groups of like interest. These groups, be they social, technical, veterans, sporting or any other, are all suffering from lack of growth.
The two latest technology leaps have been electric flight and 2.4 gig. radio. Both of those are anti- club(therefore AMA); electric because of small aircraft that don't need large flying areas, 2.4 because of no need for frequency control.
The hobby ( at least of flying, if not building) may be growing, but AMA is not.
The reason is simple: More folks are not building model aircraft that require an AMA club atmosphere.
We can go on an on about old fogies, attitudes, young folks attitudes, blah-blah-blah, but until we figure out why interest in larger model flying is not growing, nothing will change. And even if the answer is found, there is probably little anyone can do about it.
Apparently, NOBODY, from AMA down to us knows the answers.