Originally Posted by Mike Cohen

Hey everyone, you can complain about the AMA, the FAA, whatever. You may be 100% right, but at this moment, this is not the argument to be had. "Be cause in the matter". Send the template email. Call your government rep. Invite them down to your field. But do something to promote our passion and reinforce we have been doing this hobby since long before any of them were in office. Check out our track record. Google it. You will find people operating at a club field have no issues, ever, with full scale. Now, if a person in their backyard or at a school soccer field needs to keep it below 400 ft AGL, well, I don't care. Club fields need to be exempted! Plane and simple.!

Well said.

I think they got the 700' and 1200' here

Originally Posted by kingwoodbarney

I think they got the 700' and 1200' here

Yes, as I noted, Class G generally goes to either 700 ft agl or 1,200 feet agl. There are a few places it goes to 14,500 feet, but those are rare.

Now, if a person in their backyard or at a school soccer field needs to keep it below 400 ft AGL, well, I don't care. Club fields need to be exempted! Plane and simple.!

Now, if a person at a club field needs to keep it below 400 ft AGL, well, I don't care. Backyards and school soccer fields need to be exempted! Plane and simple.!

See how that works?

If you're determined to throw someone under the bus, at least make it the folks the government is actually concerned about. The incredible ease of the weaponization of FPV technology is what has government suddenly concerned about flying models.

Originally Posted by DT56

Now, if a person at a club field needs to keep it below 400 ft AGL, well, I don't care. Backyards and school soccer fields need to be exempted! Plane and simple.!

See how that works?

If you're determined to throw someone under the bus, at least make it the folks the government is actually concerned about. The incredible ease of the weaponization of FPV technology is what has government suddenly concerned about flying models.

I would look at a club like a race track. You can’t speed at 150mph through your neighborhood but you can on a track. It’s a designated course for exactly that. No different than clubs in G airspace.

Originally Posted by mike2663

They were assuring us that none of this would happen because were AMA members........................................... ................. Where ya been?

Mike

Watching and wondering what they were doing. The last big meeting the ama had with the faa,the ama was relegated to the equivalent of the children's table at a family gathering. Not as much power and influence as were have been led to believe yet we still have to pay those dues if we want to fly at an ama field.

Originally Posted by Bhodi11

I would look at a club like a race track. You can’t speed at 150mph through your neighborhood but you can on a track. It’s a designated course for exactly that. No different than clubs in G airspace.

The big difference is the race track does not have a bus on the track full of people. If you want to fly outside of the NAS, you will have to fly indoors. It is funny how many modelers think the airspace is owned by the hobby and they can do as they like. The FAA has been telling us 400 feet since 1981 and it has been ignored. Now we want to redesign the NAS around model airplanes.

Organizations like the AOPA have some foresight and understand working with the FAA is an ongoing job; changes take years, not months.

Originally Posted by Bhodi11

Gee Franklin you must be positively glowing at this. It must be awesome to be you.

1. AMA tried to use the law to mandate membership, and the leader of the AMA called all non-members "rogues" and asked FAA to hammer them. Meanwhile, despite flagging revenue, they've refused to focus on tangible value for rank and file members, focusing instead on intangibles and continued support for giant staff at Taj-Muncie and money losing magazines. If this drives fundamental change in AMA, then it's a good thing.

2. For quite a long time, I've felt there needs to be some operational discipline imposed on recreational sUAS. This is a step in the right direction. RemoteID and testing will be additional steps.

And contrary to what some believe, I do not think this is a quick and easy step to "get everyone flying," with the idea of going back later and putting in place a whole lot of special site specific LOAs. The FAA is smart enough to know that once they open up the can of special treatment for members of private dues collecting organizations, they create equal protection clause issues. A loss on that risks all of the LOAs thrown out in one court decision. Thus the obvious thing to do is one rule for everyone .... private dues collecting organizations and rank and file citizens. Even easier given they've made LAANC available to anyone.

As I said above, AMA needs to seriously contemplate a future that includes nothing over 400 AGL everywhere, testing that exposes AMA members as not nearly as knowledgeable as EC says they are, and RemoteID mandatory after some date in the future.

https://fpvfc.org Maybe this is the way to go for those who have a problem with AMA.

I'm not sure if they would like to have new members who only fly fixed wing. Perhaps AMA has some competition now.

Originally Posted by franklin_m

But the point was that AMA is at best a bit player. Other stakeholder represent billions of dollars a year in revenue, or millions of passengers. And that doesn't even touch on the DoD and DHS concerns. So for AMA to think that what they want will carry a lot of weight, I think is delusional.

And yet, you seem to think that they should be able to perform magic, constantly pointing out their apparent lack of success and incompetence ... So which is it? Are they incompetent, or simply lacking in sufficient wealth and power?

Originally Posted by fliers1

https://fpvfc.org Maybe this is the way to go for those who have a problem with AMA.

I'm not sure if they would like to have new members who only fly fixed wing. Perhaps AMA has some competition now.

These new 501(c)(3) are going to be a real PITA for AMA. The membership price is reasonable and is what the AMA membership cost should be.
I expect the upcoming CBO's will take a good number of AMA members and fields under their belt. Let's face it...the only, only reason to be an AMA club/field is if it hosts competition; the same for AMA pilots. Lay aside the lame excuses about insurance provided by AMA, that is insurance any club can purchase on its own.

At this point the AMA should be glad they did not get their way about mandatory membership in a CBO. Of course that would not happen anyway, no more than it would be a requirement to belong to AARP in order to get your Social Security check every month.

Originally Posted by atreis

And yet, you seem to think that they should be able to perform magic, constantly pointing out their apparent lack of success and incompetence ... So which is it? Are they incompetent, or simply lacking in sufficient wealth and power?

AMA is a bit player and has always been a bit player. It has only been in the last few years that our hobby became a potential problem for NAS. AMA is both incompetent and pisses away the money they have. In order to keep the egotistical status quo of the organisation they have set their selves up for dissolution.

In a few years, AMA will be a non-player in the NAS game. Lean and legally astute CBO's will make the difference and AMA, is not lean or legally astute.

I find nothing wrong or incorrect in the analysis of AMA that has been provided by Franklin. Hard to beat critical thinking and time and time again Franklin has proved he is correct about the AMA and the FAA.

Problem is that many AMA members just can't past their 1950's belief the AMA stands at the right hand of the FAA.

Originally Posted by atreis

And yet, you seem to think that they should be able to perform magic, constantly pointing out their apparent lack of success and incompetence ... So which is it? Are they incompetent, or simply lacking in sufficient wealth and power?

Misguided and incompetent. One does not need wealth and power to make changes, heck I got Congress to put an "or" in the law instead of an "and," effectively ending AMA's ability to contend that the law requires membership.

I lay this at the feet of the two principal drivers of AMA governmental policy, Rich Hanson and Chad Budreau. Rather than work WITH the FAA and meaningful compromise in the years before 2012, they chose a scorched earth approach in the form of a Congressional end-around. They got 336 over FAA's objections. Bureaucracies don't forget stunts like that, and for proof look no further than how FAA treated AMA subsequently. The FAA didn't send decision makers to meetings, and despite having it for years, the FAA didn't approve AMA's CBO petition.

This allowed time for other stakeholders to weigh in, and the AMA government policy architects missed another opportunity when the FAA authorization was up for renewal (and 336 at risk). Rather than working with those other stakeholders, compromising, and taking to Congress something upon which they could all agree -- the AMA took an "all or all" approach. What they got was instead was worse than nothing. 336 was gone and significant operational limits were now law (349).

Now, yet again, the AMA is taking an "all or all" approach. They want what they want and they deserve to get it just because they said so! I see it as an organizational toddler-like temper tantrum. AMA refuses to acknowledge they are reaping what they've sowed.

FAA has slow-rolled the AMA's CBO petition. This allowed time for other CBOs to spring up, and the competition for membership dollars will do nothing but accelerate the AMA's demise ... unless the AMA acts boldly, swiftly, and makes fundamental changes to how they operate. If they quickly focus on becoming lean, which means selling Taj-Munice, cutting staff, and putting member dollars at the "front line," the local flying field, they may survive. If they choose to go the way of incrementalism, "the way we've always done it," or small steps, they'll be gone.

We are seeing "A Perfect Storm" drowning the RC hobby that existed for the past 80 years (or whatever).

I don't think aviation in general has the appeal it had in its Golden Age, when tens of thousands of people would gather to greet those who broke new records, and when young kids dreamed of flying, and built models of their favorite planes. These young kids are old now, and dying off. Our club is half as big as it was 10 years ago and almost everyone is retired. We have only one member under 60 years old! Most of us old guys are now flying foam electric planes "because it just easier."

We could only fly for half of this year because it took 6 months to get our field lease agreement with the Army Corp approved due to new regulations.

The new FAA testing requirement, registration requirement, and reduced number of flying sites is likely to further dampen interest by young people. Sure, people can fly tiny toy airplanes with SAFE in parks, but I think it gets boring fast, and it will be all to easy to "get reported."

Most local hobby shops have closed and even some of the on line companies have shut down. The FPV craze seems to be dying off too. The new FAA regulations pretty much limit it to LOS and that is very limiting.

Likewise the drone craze is probably subsiding. Things that fly themselves also get boring after a while. So does taking pictures and video that eventually clog up the computer. Who wants to pass a test to do this?

And all this drone delivery stuff is doomed to fail. It really never made any sense.

The airspace will slowly be cleared of recreational pilots just like the fearful people in our government and citizenry have wished. The AMA will eventually disappear and there really will be not much market for new CBOs either. Flying fields will become housing developments.

Someday soon we will be asking wistfully "Where have all the pilots gone."

Originally Posted by franklin_m

It is a "perceived need," as there is no affirmative "right" to fly soaring, pattern, and IMAC w/o impact.

And there is no "right" for general Aviation either......