What did The president of AMA say?

[Mike Griffin]

If this is the future of Model Aviation, well, I guess you can count me out.  I will take up woodcarving or something.

[Andre Ming]

I wouldn't say it's the "future of model aviation"... but it's the future of amateur videographers/etc. as more and more get onboard with camera drones and some are creating some pretty interesting (legal) results.

I guess I don't completely view the drones as "the enemy"... just that it's not for me at this time. 

[wwwarbird]

I wouldn't say it's the "future of model aviation"... but it's the future of amateur videographers/etc. as more and more get onboard with camera drones and some are creating some pretty interesting (legal) results.

 Hello Andre,

 Apparently you haven't seen this:

 http://stunthanger.com/smf/open-forum/from-your-ama-president/

[Andre Ming]

Hello Andre,

 Apparently you haven't seen this:

 http://stunthanger.com/smf/open-forum/from-your-ama-president/

No, I don't think I read that the first time around.  Thanks.

I guess I should say for ME (and I suspect a lot of others), drones don't represent the future of MY (or OUR) model aviation.  Perhaps for the AMA, they see drones as an income generating avenue to replace those of us that are aging out of existence, or leaving AMA for other personal reasons.

Whether there's an AMA or not, or whether they cater to the drone crowd or not, or any other AMA scenario, won't change the way I enjoy model airplanes. I still get the same good feelings when I fly one of my airplanes with an AMA membership just like I did all those decades I had lapsed from the AMA. For me its all about the flying and the friends I've met along the way.

[Sean McEntee]

Maybe this explanation will clarify:

    Military UAS as well as any manned aircraft, fixed or rotary wing, that carries any sort of payload (cameras, SIGINT packages, weapons, ect.) is referred to as a "platform"  The sole purpose of the aircraft is to deliver these payloads to the battlefield to accomplish whatever mission that they are designated to perform.

    Thats all quadcopers are:  camera platforms--for now.  The serve a range of purposes; imagry/photography, first-person racing (some of the footage i've seen is actually pretty neat), and a few other uses.

    This explanation doesn't change a whole lot, except to say that they aren't "models".  This is why the Academy of MODEL Aeronautics can "support and educate" all they want but hopefully they are painting a picture with the FAA of "If they break the law, and are not with us, they're all yours" 

    This would benefit the AMA if all of this registration business takes place, as dumb and pointless as it would be.  Either pay a bunch of money just to register EACH your quadcopters, or join the AMA and get a monthly magazine, some stickers, and all of your flying things are covered.  Give everyone 2 strikes for violating an AMA/FAA safety regulation:  a warning for the first, bar to renew membership after the second.  Without AMA membership they should be subject to all of the fines that full-scale pilots are when violating the FAR/AIM.

    Not a leakproof solution of course, but this is the best way that I can see that this all would work and not much change would be felt from the "traditional" modeling community.

[Target]

I still maintain that it should be the FPV gear and the automated flying software and hardware that should have to be registered, not airframes.
People can scratch build multi-rotor airframes very easily, by-passing the registration process altogether.
Its probably not as easy to build your own FPV system (I'm guessing).
In this way, none of the traditional modeling would be changed or bothered.

Regards,
Chris