Today's A.M.A. Email
 

Received today's email blast from the AMA. It seems to be about 80% Drone related. I'm SICK of drones. When are they going to stop romancing these things?

Get a load of this.

http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/med...er-11-13-2016/
http://spaceportamericadronesummit.com/registration/

So if I want to drive up and "visit" with the AMA officials (in person) on the love affair they with "drones" have I have to pay.$40 bucks to do it
Nice I'm not feeling the love..

Mike

Anything safety or regulatory related in the email?

franklin_m,

I don't recall. It was so overwhelmingly "drone" that nothing else comes to mind.

What do you need to "feel the love"? Should the e-mail focus on scratch built P-51 Mustangs and flying the pattern with a J-3 Cub?

Didn't you get the e-mail?

Mike

Perhaps the 80% figure is hyperbole, or an exaggeration used to support your dislike of drones....but it hardly looked like 80% to me. As for "romancing"...well...that's subjective. I wonder if the free flight folks felt the same way when the AMA embraced 3D gassers, and helis.

Lets see..the first part is about Embry-Riddle (arguably one of the countries best aviation universities) sponsoring this years 20016-2017 uASSTEM program.
Next was two ads, one fixed wing related, one quad
Then a free webinar on Know before you Fly
Then two ads...fixed wing related
Then a discount promotion on 107 Test
Then two more ads...one fixed wing related...one AMA Foundation
Then a story on Warrior Day at Muncie
Then a story about Camp AMA West
Then an article on the 1,000,000 prize for Drones for Good award. I'm sure someone or some "traditional" RC group will be along shortly for a similar program.
Then a story about the NATS at Muncie
Then an ad for buying AMA related merchandise.

14 "topics" in the e-mail, 4 "drone" related. That's 80%?

In reality, it's a perception issue. It appears you don't like drones, and don't like that they are part of the AMA. I suspect even one ad in the e-mail would be too much. The reality is, they are here, and here to stay, nothing anyone does is going to change that. That's reality.

Now, if I was into Free Flight, and Control Line, and Heli flight...I'd be ticked. Not a single targeted ad or story about that genre of flying. Odd that they aren't complaining.

Freedom of speech really bothers you, doesn't it!

LoL...ironic. I guess freedom of speech is only o/k in some instances, but not for me?

I'm no more bothered by freedom of speech than you are bothered by an alternative viewpoint.

Guess I'm more particular about accuracy. I didn't see an e-mail with 80% drone related issues.

:D So , about the whole drone thing ....

Does anyone other than me ever wonder exactly how much hobby based FPV flying is being done in strict adherence to AMA doc #550 ? As in , is there more hobby based FPV flying BLOS than within the LOS spotter's actual visual line of sight as #550 requires , and thus "out of bounds" for being considered a hobby flight under our #336 exemption ? A look at the popular video sharing sites shows far more non #550 flying being done , now I won't go out on any limbs here and try to put any percentages to the difference in "#550 legal" VS hobby based BLOS videos that my searches return with , but let's just say it's a surprising number of videos that can be found of folks hobby flying BLOS VS "#550 legal" . If the FAA eventually forces all BLOS to be part 107 and file flight plans & such , I wonder how many will jump through the hoops VS jump on to the next fad hobby if the numbers of folks willing to comply with #550 is as small as the percentages of the videos I found shows ?

I don't think many folks are really concerned about it, or question it honestly. I think the majority of folks are going about their RC business as they have in the past, other than some that are annoyed about the whole drone issue. I don't really think it's had any meaningful affect on most folks. It doesn't seem to be a big issue or concern at the fields I fly at. I know at the main field I'm involved with we have folks that do some drone flying for picture purposes, but mostly its FPV racing. We fully comply with all regs, and I've seen folks take corrective action when someone steps over the line. I presume that happens elsewhere as well.

My question,in relation to drones, is this.

What are you, as a traditional modeler, doing differently now than when this all started?

1. You're writing a reg number that costs for 3 years less than a trip through the dollar menu for breakfast at McDonalds. Yes.

But other than that? What are you doing differently?

Complaining.

That nothing has really changed other than the reg hasn't stopped the complaining, the blaming (mostly on the AMA) and "droners", the "us versus them" narrative, and of course, noting that the reg was just the first step, horrible things await just around the corner.

Usually missed in all the complaining (or "questioning") as some will say, are all great events still going on, the continued increase in membership to the AMA, more work done by the AMA on our behalf, and of course the continued growth and popularity with FPV racing.

In another words....almost anything positive.

Nope. Changed my email address with them a few months ago after I mysteriously stopped getting the emails. Now it's happening again, completely different email address / domain / provider.

The DC area modelers are certainly doing things differently, especially if they want to fly within the 15 mile circle. If they want to fly within the 30 mile circle they can't go above 400 feet. Outside those examples, anyone who wants to fly within five miles of an airport is certainly doing something different (required notification). These may not seem like much, but they are in fact things that are very different, and are more operationally related than expense.

My biggest beef with the whole email things is that AMA touts these communications as one of the important things about their "programming" that drives their pitch for people to be members. Yet genuine operational safety is seldom if ever covered. Instead it's full of what I'd call self congratulatory stories of what AMA is doing. I don't begrudge them trying to show value, but then don't pitch these emails as so critical to safety that they justify trying to make membership mandatory.

In terms of safety content, they missed a great opportunity to include an article on the topic that came up in the JULY EC meeting. As a waiver holder yourself, perhaps that would be something you could write? Perhaps an account of the perceived problem, JPOs' response, their plan, etc. I would have been genuinely interested in reading that sort of content.

But therein likes another problem. When I stopped receiving these several months ago, they had me change my email address saying that they were being rejected as spam. So I did. To a completely different email provider and domain. Now I've stopped receiving them a second time. My point is if these emails are being sold as such a critical part of the "programming," it sure seems like the delivery method fails quite easily.

And that doesn't even address the issue that just because they're sent whether or not someone reads them. I think of it this way - someone transmits on the radio - but nobody acknowledges it. How can anyone know if it was even heard?

Just a couple thoughts...

Maybe changing your e-mail address is the issue. Might want to check into that with a phone call to someone at the AMA, rather than insinuating people at the AMA have been told to ignore you.

It was the AMA that asked me to change my email the first time. For giggles I'll call again. Will be interesting what I hear this time.

I think I can guess how the call will go.

1-800 I FLY AMA

Try updating your profile on the AMA site as well. Seems to work pretty well.

Phone call to HQ, operator switched me to customer service, who switched me to a voicemail. Left message and callback number.

That's what I did last time, in April, at their request. Changed to completely different email domain in my member profile.

Worked fine for April through August. Then stopped working again. My profile contains the email address that worked fine from April - August.

Are you still getting the MA mag? would think the pull the same info from the profile on record. Presume you're checking SPAM filter as well?

Unfortunately, looks like that is not going to happen, looks like the masses of average joe guy is more interested in MRs/Drones than traditional plank flying.... :mad:

I'm not a moron. I turn my spam filters completely off on all accounts. It was turned off when they said there was a problem with my earthlink address. I switched to a Google domain and made sure it was off. Since August I haven't received anything at that address.

While I think MR/Drone will continue to be popular, at some point the sales will drop off and we won't hear about hem as much as we have over the past two years. They are a fad to some degree, at least for the general public. I'll use the club I belong to as an example. We have a part of our field solely for MR and Helis. We saw a big influx of MR only guys over the past two years, about 25 overall. I actually expected more since we allow them in the club, and even have a track cut out in our field, but it didn't happen. What did happen is that more than half of these guys slowly gravitated over to fixed wing flying. Not only the foamies, but larger size balsa planes, and ducted fan as well. Most of these guys spend more time flying planks now then they do the aerial blenders. I'm sure some folks will stay MR, and some will stay plank...but there is cross-over happening on both sides. I don't think the club scene or the hobby as we know it is going to drastically change. There are so many new planes, and new technologies coming out for fixed wing to keep folks very interested for a long time, imo.