But then again Bill what was Muncie way back when and what has it become now? Honeslty I don't really know the answer to that question. But I've been there a few times and it's a pretty sweet facility and looks like something that has been improved over time. The more the AMA keeps the NATS in Muncie, the better it will be year after year. Keep moving it every year, you're just starting from ground zero. You've been to Oshkosh, no, the EAA grand event. Well it's never moved and look what it's become today. Talk about your Graceland for aeromodlers.

Dion,

Way back when, Muncie was and is a wide place in the road to somewhere else. Yes, I've been to Oshkosh many times, but there you have older pilots and owners of light aircraft gathering for the annual event. They don't need to try and drum up business, since people who already own, or are looking to buy tend to gravitate to where the airplanes are. We, the hobbiest, don't already have something like the EAA, or the AOPA, to cause prospective participants to look us up. Most of the newbies either go to a LHS, or in the case of the park fliers, go to the Wally Worlds, etc, and next thing they know, they have an RC airplane. Most of them never heard of the AMA, so your constant comparison between the AMA, EAA, and the AOPA is not valid (at least in my eyes).

You are correct, in that the facility in Muncie is a nice facility. The problem is that who ever goes to Muncie for anything other than the Nats. What percentage of the time is the facility used to the maximum potential? I don't disagree that the AMA needs a National site, I do, however, disagree with where the National facility is located. You have to want to go there to get there. What else is in the vicinity for the remainder of the family to do while we are at the National flying site? I can't help but wonder why the E.C. (at the time) chose Muncie for a National flying site. Didn't they understand that the Moms and Sisters want and need something to occupy thier time while the Dads and sons are out flying, or watching someone flying? (No sexist connotation intended, but historically this has been a Male dominated hobby)

The fact remains, and it is an indisputable fact, there were more attendees at the Nats, when it was a travelling road show. Check the attendance records from the 50's and the early 60's, and see if you don't agree. Back then, the AMA was growing. Can that be said for the membership today?

Bill, AMA 4720

"You've been to Oshkosh, no, the EAA grand event. Well it's never moved and look what it's become today. "

It is so grand that they have replicated it in Florida at Sun & Fun.

Red Sun and Fun is no Oshkosh, with all due respect. I've been to both many times. It's not 1/10th of Oshkosh. It's just an EAA regional event, just like the AMA has plenty thereof.

But it is most certainly a good time. The facilities is what make Oshkosh what it is. Every inch of that place tells a new story.

It sounds like none of you ever flew an event at the Nats. Yes, the Nats was a wonderful concept in the old days where all the events (save indoor) were flown on a Naval base. You could fly your event and watch the others. Having it jump around the country was great too, because once you've packed to get on an airplane, it doesn't matter where it goes. It was great to see different parts of the country each year. But it was very expensive for the AMA, and it took a lot of time to organize the number of workers to run each year.

Now the Nats is nothing more than a sequential series of week long local contests that lasts the entire summer.

Amen. And yes, I have been to the Nats many times.

Bill, AMA 4720

Horrace, You make some interesting points about the Nat's. However I totally disagree with some of your thought's on it. When it was on the road it was a talked about event and people went to it, both to compete and watch. As mentioned the numbers were higher and I think the event held a lot higher level of anticipation and prestige than it does now. When the news leaked that it was going to be held in Muncie only forever, I know that the first thought that went through my mind was, I have been to my last Nat's, which was in Reno, NV. The AMA came up with a million reason's to cancel the road shows, yet in my mind there is the entire membership amount of reasons to keep it on the road. It has taken me a lot of years to get to this point in my flying abilities and I am not saying that I am as good as the winners of last Nats, however as a member of the AMA, I would like the chance to compete without the time and expense of going to Muncie. How can it be considered a National Event if a large percentage of the AMA membership are excluded due to time or money restriction's. As also mentioned, I beleive the hobby and the AMA would grow if more was done to get the hobby more public exposure. I can remember how excited my friends and I were at the outlook of going to Reno for the Nat's, and while I will admit that mother nature was not nice in Reno, it was still a great event to go to and you knew that every third year it was going to return to your side of the United States, which meant that you could get ready for it, as a participant, helper or spectator. I know I always looked forward to it.

Dave


Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and not RCU's.

Maybe we should save the talk about what a great flying site Muncie is,
until late January or Feb,
and we can see who is flying there and who is flying somewhere.... oh, lets just say Thawed.

Just swung by [link=http://weather.yahoo.com/climo/USIN0452_f.html]http://weather.yahoo.com/climo/USIN0452_f.html[/link] and they say Muncie average temps
Dec 38/22
Jan 33/16
Feb 38/20

I know this is a crazy idea, but why not have the national flying sight somewhere you can go to when your town is iced over? Just how busy was the runway this past January? Who is gonna pack up the stuff to go from LA (avg Jan 68/48) to do a little IceFlying in Indiana this January? I bet a lot more folks will pack up & dig out from 14" snow to fly at the ThawMixer Week event at the AMA SoCal RegionalSite in the Inland Empire/BLM or at, dare I say it, the AMA RegionalSite in Clark Co, NV.... oh, wait... we dont have any regoinal sites for the months Muncie is in the fridge. Guess we wont be going to the SoCalRegional SummerMeltdown event to get our 125Heat Patch either (you will see a lot more sheet&dope than Kote at that one).

Any other thoughts on what the AMA needs besides this issue?

Just like those who feel an over-powering need to spread the joy of their beliefs, there are some folks who think that it is their duty and also the duty of the AMA to spread the glorious word about this hobby. I spread the word whenever possible but realize that 99% of the desire to participate in this hobby comes from within. Most anyone alive has driven past an AMA club field at sometime or visited a hobby store on Christmas Eve. There is no desperate need to do a hard sell of the AMA. The times that we live in will dictate what percent of the population is in both an intellectual and financial position to participate. I compare stumping for membership like panning for gold... what washes into the screen on the first sifting is 99% of what you will get, no matter how much more time and money you invest into subsequent screenings.

Come on Bill how can you say that the AMA is not like AOPA or EAA, their mission's are nearly identical. Read all of three of them. I see AMA at Oshkosh every year, they must have something in common.

Also you'll be really surprised to know that MOST EAA member and MOST AOPA members DO NOT own airplanes. Plus the fact that Airventure has 5 times more non members attend then members. Most those people don't attend that event because they are owners or even "gravitators", they attend because they are aviation enthusiasts. The EAA doesn't want more business, ha ... come on you get their stuff and you see how they get their MEMBERS to do all the birddogging and they do a darn good job at it. The only difference is that EAA members care about others and AMA members seem to care more about themselves.

I honestly think that you are just trying to convince yourself and others that you want the NATS on the road to give RC more exposure, when in fact you just want to make it more convienient for yourself, but more difficult for the AMA. But like I said, there are plenty of regional events to give the AMA plenty of exposure and it's up to the SIG's and the members to give the public the exposure it needs. I just think it's better for AMA as a whole to keep their grand event at their home.

I somewhat disagree with combatpigg. He is advocating that we lie in ambush and hope an interested person falls into our trap. I would rather see us (the AMA) out making the public aware of model aviation, at local through national levels. Go out and round them up and keep the good ones, so to speak. I do agree that only peculiar people, like you and me, will last and become modelers. But suppose that all the 300 million people in the USA (minus the present day modelers, noise in the census), who know little or nothing about model aviation, became actively aware of model aviation. Suppose one in 10,000 of them pursued the interest. How many new modelers would that be? I think this is what the AMA ought to be up to, and is sadly deficient at the national level.

I think the effort to proselytize our hobby to the masses and come up with a worthwhile return can be compared to repaving I-5 with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Dion,
I don't need the Nats to be more convenient to me. I want the Nats, and by default the AMA to be more visible to everyone. I am too involved with other events to even consider the Nats. Which event would you rather be involved with, the Nats, or Top Gun? I think that if you are honest with yourself, and the rest of us, that answer would be pretty easy.

Combat Pig is correct in that virtually everyone alive in this country has driven past an AMA field, or a hobby shop. What that has to do with the issue is beyond me. Driving past an AMA field is somewhat different than when the Nats was a travelling road show. The excitement was so high, you could almost cut it with a knife. People who did not even participate within the hobby, would attend. Many of them became model builders. Most of those who did, became AMA members. I wonder what percentage of the residents of Muncie are members of the AMA.....I'd bet it's pretty low. In fact, I would bet that there are more members of the AMA in Lake County Florida than in the county which holds Muncie. Any takers there?????

Dion,

Sure there are more members of the EAA, or the AOPA than there are aircraft owners. Oshkosh, has a long history as being "The Event" for general aviation. Muncie does not have that history. From the looks of things, with the attendance of the Nats since the fixed point in Muncie, became reality, it will never get close either.

Look it up....what was the attendance of the Nats (on average) when it rotated around the country? What is the average attendance today? Wonder why?

Bill, AMA 4720

Back in 1998, I went to Muncie Headquarters to help with the Grand Event. There was a hobby shop about a 1/4 mile away. I talked to the owner and he said they might soon be closing because of the lack of business. I gave a few employees some stick time and they all said they couldn't find anyone there who gave flight instruction.

CCR

I guess your right then Bill. Maybe it's better for the exposure for the NATS to be on the road, sounds like it. But it's also just important to keep Muncie growing and maybe one day the NATS may very well become the next Airventure. Hit or miss with me. But like I said, I think more people need to goto Muncie to have a better understand on what they are trying to achieve. It would certainly reduce the animosity we see here daily.

Stick, I wasn't talking about the Nats, different conversation. I was talking about declining AMA membership and what to do about it.

About the Nats location......you will always have your "pros" and your heavy-hitters who don't care where it is held. These folks make up a huge chunk of the highest ranking competition. The next tier are your regional heroes who could not afford the time and cost to travel 1500 miles to make the show. Some categories of competition require a big effort to ship all the equipment, personally I'm only going to travel as far as I could drive in a day with my gear in tow. I think many other flyers fall into this category. The attendance at Muncie will drop off if there is a lack of local heroes to root for. It will also drop off if and when the regional spectators cop a "been there, done that" attitude about the show. I would like to see it come to the Tri-Cities again, then I'll be there.......as well as many other AMA members from this region.

David, disagreement is definitely allowed. It doesn't seem rationed on this forum. Now I flew at the NATs, CL and FF, when it was totally Navy Hosted.
I also flew and WORKED at the last Navy Hosted NATs, Glenview, '72, when we -- AMA -- furnished all the manpower but just used the base. In fact I served as Manpower Director there.
I flew a time or two at the 1st non-Navy NATs since, I believe, before the War, Oshkosh, '73, where I also served as Manpower Director plus Assistent CL Director. Believe you me, obtaining manpower in Oshkosh was a whole lot different than a place like Chicago-Land.
I attended a couple around-the-country NATs while serving as a Vice President.

Whatever the case, I have some level of experience with the older NATs before they became totally operated by the Significant Interest Groups, and spread out over some long length of time at Muncie. Back in '96, I did spend a couple weeks at the Muncie NATs just as an observer. For a number of years after Oshkosh, a friend of mine, the late Bob Vojslavek was employed by AMA to direct and DO most of the NATs logistics for movng equipment around the country plus many other duties. That all gives me some more background in the logistics required for the moving-Nats. Then comes those that get very excited when the AMA spends such money for .075% of the membership that compete in the NATs. That even takes place as we speak. So many more complain than actually participate.

If you are an active Contest Director, you well know what happens when you try to train local club members to officiate a COMPETITIVE event. Most will not commit so you therefore can not train them. Then you have untrained officials trying to work for contestants that are aware of the rules. Not Good. Do a Fly-In and those entrants are not trained to any degree of formality or regimentation, and now you have another problem to contend with. The NATs needs trained officials on a base where the required administrative and hard goods can be assembled to meet with the needs of those dedicated competitors that already know the drill.

AMA is doing the TAG program which, if the clubs would actually do their job, could be very much a good thing. I have not observed such. [&o] Look at what happened to the AMA Grand Event which was supposed to be getting the words out to the public through the larger Clubs. Again the local Clubs flubbed the dub. Lots of money spent with almost no return.

AMA cannot depend on Club support even when AMA does try something. So just how could AMA expect any club or group of local clubs to support a NATs. Believe you me again, It's no fun when one spends weeks and days planning an event and no one shows up for the party. BTDT too many times. The AMA simply cannot afford such, without tripling the current dues, and then these people would have a million and one reasons to quit AMA. What does it gain you to get a BIG pay-raise and then a week later get fired?

That is a good liberal view point, Dave. if you really wanted to be a National Champion, you would find a way to get there. Look at the FAI competitors. They pay their way to other countries, and have to get by elimination contests, to get on the small team. No one owes anyone a road to being a National Champion, or even just the ability to compete for the love of it. Those things YOU have to decide for yourself and set your own priorities. We all have made and will again make decisions along the road that redirect our lives, and once you enter that road, the gate locks shut behind you. That is life my friend. BTDT oh so many times, some which still linger with regret, although almost all were for the best.

Dave, do you think all those good things were because YOU were ALREADY a modeler? Those getting ready for it would be the modelers. So, is it that AMA is the mountain that you go to, or is it that you want AMA to BRING THE MOUNTAIN to YOU?

the AMA desperately needs everything represented in this thread to go away. People arguing over stupid points is what drives folks away. Also, old people who can't change are destroying the potential growth. Since the AMA doesn't want to pay enough for some young blood in Muncie, they're effectively keeping themselves in the dark.

50%,

Just because I have gotten older, doesn't mean I've forgotten how. Young blood, while well intended, often doesn't have a clue as to how to go about effecting change. You can call it lack of experience, or lack of patience, or lack of knowledge. Some day, you will understand.

Bill, AMA 4720

Excellent point Stick! That is the attitude of the majority of the AMA. This attitude is exactly what is keeping people away from the AMA. Folks who think that they're smarter don't have any room for new ideas or, for that matter, any reason to do it differently. Because something didn't work 20 years ago doesn't mean it won't work today. Times change. Remember back when all the powerful aerobats ran a weedwacker on glow? Remember when it would suddenly start to run backwards? Guess what, we've fixed that!

Case in point, 3D flight. How many old geezers do you see at a flying field bashing the younger pilots who are skilled enough to maneuver their plane in a way that defies all principals of flight? These same folks, who for that matter can't seem to fly worth a darn and end up crashing in the pits, like to say things like: "real planes don't fly like that."

Guess what? RC pilots are leading the way. Full scale planes are now becoming 3D capable. The new Turbine Tucan is designed with QQ's aircraft to be a fully 3D capable aircraft. What do these AMA leaders think about that? "It's only a fad. Soon they'll be back to flying the way their supposed to."

Bull crap! What if someone told that to the Wright Brothers and they went along with it???

I rest my case.

In closing, I would like to extend my gratitude to the older generations for all they've done and continue to do. I do not intend to be offensive, nor an *****. However, this is the root of the problem, IMO. The bickering that goes on and on only furthers the distance between reality and nostalgia. We need to work together to further benefit those who would like to enjoy this hobby as much as we do. However, it takes two to play. I do as much on my local level as I possibly can. I sincerely hope you do the same.


Have a great evening.
Christopher A. Todd

You have to make a case before resting.

Hoss, the local pylon, combat, stunt, pattern contests run just fine with the local judges. Go ask your CDs. Whether it be at the club level, the Regionals or the Nats, all the competitors put their pants on one leg at a time. There is no valid reason for a locally run Nats to perform any other way. The same guys who judge the same manuevers over and over at any contest in the country will do just fine at a Nats if you let them. My game is combat and the Nats at Richland were fantastic..

My take on some of your positions is; The AMA needs to have a mobile Nats., as this is a method of bringing model aviation to the public and this in turn will increase membership.

Of the 100s of R/Cers I know and fly with at local R/C events (Fun Flys) it's likely only a handful have been to the Nats. and even less than this has competed.

Model avaition has a million other hobbies/sports/activities to compete with! We have little control over how people become involved in this hobby. Yes, exposure is good, but it's not enough! If you talk to the general public, I find most know about model airplanes and R/C. Their children likely have had an R/C car or other R/C controlled item. What about the likelyhood that those who want to be involved in the hobby, now are? When I started, the buggaboo was people felt they could never build a model airplane! Now, with ARFs they don't have to and this has involved 100s of thousands of more people in the sport than when I started. Many tried it and found it wasn't what they wanted and moved on.

From my point of view, I don't care if one more person becomes involved in the hobby. I'm in this for myself, not for others. However, if they do get involved and ask for my help, I will give it to them gladly!

I don't deeply care about recruiting more flyers, either. I understand about the strength in numbers point of view, but unless you start paying people to take up this hobby [], recruitment efforts will be like trying to chop down a tree with a Dremel.

As far as the Nats are concerned, if it did ever swing out this way again, I'm sure it would get a pretty good turn out.