You can begin studying for the test here: https://www.modelaircraft.org/trust

I would suggest waiting awhile, I tried but it's taking forever to download. I lost patience....

Went to AMA site and it took forever to load even the first page. So while I was waiting, I opened another browser tab and went to the UAV Coach site. Was complete with UAV Coach (certificate in my inbox) before AMA's third page even completed loading. Zero missed questions, maybe 8 minutes max. I would have done it quicker had I not been flipping back to AMA's garbage web pages to see if they finished loading yet. AMA's third page (after "next" twice) hadn't even loaded yet by the time I was done with certificate in hand at UAV Coach.

Typical crappy AMA execution. Don't waste your time - unless you like watching those spinning things while web pages load.

Keep in mind, I got UAV Coach start to finish with certificate in hand in less than 10 minutes.\\

Meanwhile, I went back to AMA site to give it another chance. Made it to page 4 (and took more than 10 minutes to get to this), not even to first question on test. I'm gonna venture a guess that they tried to do this in house. As I said, typical AMA execution.

The question is, how much of our member money did they spend to get this level of failure?

AMA was probably pretty slammed. I did the test with my teenage son while also browsing this site and with dinner thrown in. It did take forever but it was fun to see my son pass with me without missing any questions. I still don't like calling my planes drones and probably will never need any of the "can I fly my drone here" apps.....

Honestly , Ill stow it next to my FAA registration in the side pocket of my flight box and forget it........seems like a waste of time if you aren't someone who bought a drone on amazon and don' know anything about flight......

ok
from the link above,

took just under 2 hours to get through the education/test process.
sudden;ink/altice high speed internet connection.

and yes, i passed.

I know the rules cold, so I ran a test this morning.

UAV Coach (link below)
Or, you can use the AMA's crappy site where it's not only slow, but crashes too!

https://uavcoach.com/faa-recreational-drone-training/

Thanks for posting the link.

I did the AMA site this morning, plenty quick.

I assume they got slammed yesterday when they sent the email to membership. I tried yesterday as well, and slower than molasses. Instead of waiting and complaining on the interwebs, I returned today. Done.

While there are plenty of areas of the AMA were I am not happy, I have no complaints about money spent on testing implementation. The site is far from a "failure".

We got overwhelmed when it it, it happens to much larger corporations than AMA, we worked on the issues throughout the night and things were much faster in the morning.

The combination of member email and being first on the list the referring site at FAA the hosting companies servers got a bit overwhelmed.

I took it about 1 hour ago. It took me about 10 minutes from the AMA website. I'm sure its just that the email had just gone out yesterday, so many were trying to access the page...

AMA had a chance to shine - to take advantage of being first on the list - and they failed. Many people's first impression of AMA was that of a slow and buggy website. Rather than make excuses, why not question why the IT staff (paid with member money) were NOT PREPARED for this level of demand. After all, not a secret that "A" falls before most letters in the alphabet and, if AMA was chosen, they'd likely be first on the list.

I think you are being a little unfair. Do you recall the problems when the FAA drone reigstration site went live in (I think) 2016? It took forever to just freaking give them their $5. "Opening day" on a lot of websites is tough.

The weird thing is that the website doesn't ask you for an address or date of birth or anything. I'm thinking of going back and getting a certificate for Eleanor Roosevelt just for the hell of it.....

And lets not even get started on the Healthcare Marketplace rollout or the states unemployment web sites when the pandemic hit.

That said, it wasn't really the IT folks to blame, that's hosted with a company that should have known better

It's Mr Mellott's nature to be critical of AMA in all things. He doesn't post anything else.

But Andy, THAT DOESN'T FIT THE NARRATIVE!

R_Strowe

Agreed. It would have been financially foolish to spend huge sums of money on extra bandwidth, etc., to cover the first 12 hours of testing. The next morning, everything was running smoothly - as several of us have attested.

Franklin joined this forum in 2002 click on his name then all posts by Franklin. Scroll through his posts see if you can find a single AMA post that Franky hasn't run down the AMA. Somewhere along the line he got his knickers in a knot with the AMA and he is intent on nothing but disparaging diatribe directed at anything AMA. At least in Canada with MAAC we have in our constitution to remove membership from those who's sole aim is to cause disruption and harm to the organization. In the past one President was removed from office, a second resigned after attempting to use his office to bully other members whom he disagreed with. One Zone Director had his position revoked then when he kept up his antics his membership was revoked for 2 years as well. He thought he could still fly as an associate member of the AMA but associate membership in the AMA requires you belong to your home organization. The AMA was informed and his AMA membership was revoked and his associate dues returned to him.

Its a good thing for Franky that his influence does not amount to more than a half dozen or so members on this forum (I think he's banned on most other forums) or he just might suffer a similar fate. Then he would really have something to crab about.

Dennis

Who at AMA decided to engage this company?
Why didn't they ask the rather obvious "What if?" question about bandwidth?
Will AMA even admit the problems?
Will AMA hold anyone accountable?

As for comparison to government, I would call your attention to the MONTHS that it took for those agencies to regain credibility after those events. Unemployment agencies in some states are STILL taking heat - and rightfully so.

Since you brought up the healthcare rollout, why don't we compare and contrast how the officials responsible for that reacted compared to how you are. First, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Katherine Sebelius, ADMITTED the problem (note 1). Sebelius later resigned (note 2)! The difference is there was some sense of ACCOUNTABILITY with healthcare rollout, and contrast that with complete lack of it in AMA's case. There's a frightening lack of it when it comes to member money being spent on things that don't work. Obvious questions that don't get asked. Or magazines that continue to lose money. Or ad agencies that don't deliver. Or membership revenue trends that continue to be negative. But it makes sense, nobody is accountable for these failures. Why should they? The EC will just make excuses.

Note 1: https://time.com/61395/kathleen-sebe...acare-rollout/
Note 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/u...secretary.html

You are so desperately trying to defend the AMA that you have resorted to comparing them to other miserable failures?

Let's see some parallels drawn with some successful organizations instead. I double-dog dare you.

Regards,

Astro

By the way, the test is up and running smoothly on the AMA site as well as others. Go get your certificate and get out and enjoy the hobby. .

Sounds like a plan!!!

Yep ! I went to the AMA site the first day, and to make a long story short, it too was forever loading to the tune of yes, this not a misprint, 3 hours for the test and 30 minutes to just print off the cert. Once I started, I wanted to see how the 'system' worked, it just crossed the "T" and dotted the "i" for me on typical "launching" of a site

Yes, the first few hours were a problem, but I went through the AMA site yesterday and it took me about 20 min or so including a careful read of all the material, I could have done it MUCH quicker if I just clicked through to the questions.

They probably should have done a better job planning for the initial peak with their hosting company, but as others have said, this is not an uncommon problem and they certainly would not want to size their service on an ongoing basis for that short duration initial peak as it would drive costs way up. I also suspect that the AMA site got slammed harder than the other sites due to the high concentration of AMA members all getting the e-mail simultaneously and jumping right over to site. Perhaps another technique that could have been used was for the AMA to have phased out the initial announcement e-mail in chunks over a 24 hour period (this is another tactic often used to minimize impact when you expect high volumes at the launch of anew site).

All in all though, I think that the AMA did a great job coaching the FAA into making this more of a training exercise and less of a true technical knowledge test. My understanding is that this started out being a very lengthy and technical "test" and the AMA (and I am sure others) helped steer the FAA towards something much more approachable. Assuming that is true, then credit where credit is due.