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Author Topic: A New Modeling CBO?  (Read 2055 times)

Offline mike londke

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A New Modeling CBO?
« on: February 13, 2020, 03:48:41 PM »
I lifted this from another site. Anyone heard of the Professional Modelers of America? Sounds like they have started their own organization to work with the FAA regarding model aviation. Something similar was done many years ago in skydiving with the USPA when members were unhappy with the leadership and its direction. It failed.  It looks like there’s more than one organization working with the FAA. It’s the first I’ve heard of these guys. Mac Hodges name was attached to this as well.                     
       
If you have a model flying field that would like to participate in our new adventure with the FAA and the new Community Based Organization (CBO) Called PMA, please send me a PM. Professional Modelers of America is an organization that has been working closely with the FAA over the last year to separate us from the classification of UAS which includes all drones. As many of you are aware, this has had a major impact for our hobby and industry.

The FAA has asked us for a list of RC model aircraft fixed line of sight model aircraft flying fields.
Our primary insurance program is in place and things are moving forward. If you would like to be included in this new adventure with the FAA and help secure our great hobby of flying model aircraft, this is your opportunity!
No need to write to Congress, no need to sign petitions. Joel A Wilson and myself have been working extremely hard over the last year to bring back our flying rights. I am 100% on board with him. You want change? Help us to help you!

Please share this info with your club!

Just need the club name, President and address/GPS. Coordinates
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Offline mike londke

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2020, 06:39:59 PM »
I found this as well. Sounds like they are separating themselves from drones and FPV all together.    December 13 at 2:51 PM · Breaking news! Our FAA lobbyists had a great meeting this week and the final touches of one year of hard work has finally paid off for all of us !!!

COMING SOON !!!!

• PMA is Professional Modelers of America
NO DRONE ZONE !!!
• PMA is a model aviation organization, representing a membership who flies LINE OF SIGHT ONLY, from every walk of life, income level and age group.
• PMA is a self-supporting, non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote development of model aviation.
• PMA is an organization open to anyone interested in model aviation.
• PMA is the organizer of annual jet rally and Big Bird Airshows in combination with a full scale show held in Iowa, located on the old Aviation Expo grounds in August every year. Also will sanction any Fly-in For Chartered Clubs of the PMA in this Great Country with Full support and event $2,000,000.00 Primary Liability Insurance, plus FAA waivers when needed at full scale airports.
• PMA is the chartering organization and is actively working toward chartered fields all over this great country. PMA offers its chartered clubs official sanction, insurance, assistance in getting and keeping flying sites and flying
Site assistance. We will also be developing flying sites all over the United States for our members to use.
• Membership means you have a voice with PMA. We provide liaison with the Federal Aviation Administration. We plan on fixing the altitude and airspeed issue by working with the FAA and not against them.
PMA also works with local governments, zoning boards, and parks departments to promote the interests of local chartered clubs.

• For more information, contact PR Rep. Joel A Wilson/ Professional Modelers of America, 6010 Cliffland Rd Ottumwa, Iowa 52501. Contact number: 641-680-9375 email flyottumwa@gmail.com

PMA VISION FOR THE FUTURE

We, the PMA will take model aviation into the future and protect this hobby from detrimental regulations and politics.
PMA will always have the ear of the modeler and help preserve the hobby for all ages and race in future model aviation. This will be our mission, and accomplice by the following:
• A partnership with leaders of the manufactures and government.
$2,000,000.00 PRIMARY LIABLITY INSURANCE
Making your current Field certified by the FAA and Protected!
• A clear understanding of the issues at hand and deal with them; listening to the member with an open mind.
• A leadership team that is aware and current on the hobby, and can respect the hobby and promote it to the youth of this great country. A leadership team that goes to events, and supports the PMA”s vision for the future vision for and the development of this hobby

PMA Mission Statement

The Professional Modelers of America was formed by modelers for modelers to: Promote, develop, educate, advance, and provide safety among modeling activities.
The PMA provides leadership, organization, communication, protection, representation, recognition, education and development of the future for modelers.
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Offline Ara Dedekian

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2020, 10:19:04 AM »


       My gut is telling me to wait this out. Just think of the Sport Flyers Association from years ago that tried a similar thing and failed.

       Ara

Offline Dan McEntee

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2020, 10:59:53 AM »
I dont like the use of the word "professional" in the name. Makes it sound sort of elitist and they not like our kind around d. They do not mention other disciplines l I'm e c/l and free flight either. I remember the Sport Fliers debacle also.
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Offline Bob Heywood

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2020, 11:24:56 AM »
Email response from AMA:

Dear club officer,

 You may have received an email from an association presenting itself as a CBO managing flying sites. We understand this has created some confusion among members.

 Despite the message you may have received, the FAA continues to identify AMA as "the national body for model aviation." As a result, AMA has already conducted efforts with the FAA to ensure that your flying site receives the necessary protections as outlined in Section 349. You can read about some of our efforts at http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2019/12/23/approval-for-over-400-at-ama-fixed-sites/. To prevent any confusion or compromise with these efforts, we recommend that you only share your flying site data directly with AMA staff or leadership.

 Happy flying,
 AMA Clubs Department


"Clockwise Forever..."

Offline L0U CRANE

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2020, 02:25:07 PM »
I'm with Dan. We are not full-time professionals paid to take part in our hobby. We are, essentially, mostly amateurs.

A poor joke about the difference? Amateurs do it for love; professionals do it for money. Isn't doing "love" for money called prostitution?

The debacle of the SFA, long ago, is worth thought. Their promos promised total guarantees of support for all model flying. Period. Their membership dues app, or a separate summary of their insurance coverage, gave notice that control-line matters were excluded. I seem to recall that FF wasn't even considered - thus not covered.

With this new group, their NO DRONE ZONE comment sounds attractive, but...

Who DO they include? RC only? Anyone who pays member dues? (and what will those be, BTW?) What standards do they offer to the FAA and FCC about non-interference with general and commercial aviation? Claiming to be a CBO sounds nice, but what does it mean? Do they plan to use AMA's wording, since that's an acceptable existing set of CBO standards?

Unless there is much more, currently left unsaid, I would only recommend watching closely, without committing ourselves to anything before we can decide based on informed knowledge.

\BEST\LOU

Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2020, 05:33:31 PM »
I dont like the use of the word "professional" in the name. Makes it sound sort of elitist and they not like our kind around d. They do not mention other disciplines l I'm e c/l and free flight either. I remember the Sport Fliers debacle also.

   Knowing who is behind it would be a useful bit of information, because I think that might tell you a lot about what sort of organization they are proposing.

   Even the phrasing of the press release reminds me of SFA, and there are a few people who have been playing AMA politics for literally decades, for whom this undoubtedly seems like a crisis to exploit. I even have a few likely candidates, but I decline to list.

    Brett

Offline mike londke

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2020, 11:56:56 AM »
   Knowing who is behind it would be a useful bit of information, because I think that might tell you a lot about what sort of organization they are proposing.

   Even the phrasing of the press release reminds me of SFA, and there are a few people who have been playing AMA politics for literally decades, for whom this undoubtedly seems like a crisis to exploit. I even have a few likely candidates, but I decline to list.

    Brett
The names I found are Joel A Wilson and Dino Digiorgio.  They are leading the charge for PMA.
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Online Jim Kraft

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2020, 12:23:59 PM »
I suppose this means I can not fly at my granddaughters farm because it is not an official AMA FAA recognized site.
Jim Kraft

Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2020, 12:34:54 PM »
The names I found are Joel A Wilson and Dino Digiorgio.  They are leading the charge for PMA.

   I don't recognize those names, which probaby *ads* to the plausibility - because the Likely Suspects would make it another AMA politics scam like the SFA, and the antics of several known "bomb-throwers" who are obsessed with AMA politics. Note that the AMA is already telling you they are going to crush them like they did the SFA - a conflict in which no one came off looking good. Anybody with any perspective or was a serious person very quickly got shunted out, and only the firebrands and manipulators were left fighting at the end.

  But I find it hard to imagine that a completely new organization which undoubtedly very low numbers and no profile in the Washington lobbying circles would be likely to succeed where the AMA failed. Particularly at this point, which is nearing the end of the road. It wouldn't hurt to look into it.

   Our best bet, as far as I can see, is to harp on CL being "not a UAS" and deal directly with the FAA, since that is well-supported by law. Whether the aforementioned AMA "form letter of agreement" plan or whatever idiotic angle they might be working. has already wrecked that approach is an open question.

   And, for what it is worth, I don't see a path to a positive end for RC, it definitely *is* a UAS, it *will* be subject to increasingly onerous regulation that will be difficult or impossible to comply with for scratch-built or kit models. The AMA may be fine with that, actually, because that means all RC modeling will be buy-and-fly, which requires advertising, which they will be happy to supply. They get nothing from guys doing RC the way we do control-line (and there are some people still doing that).

   Short of another "bolt from the blue" last-minute intervention, that is. That has happened many times in the past, like when gas models were going to be outlawed entirely in the 20's. The (fledgling) AMA and it's predecessors flailed away against other entrenched interests, like the many corporate "model clubs" like the Junior Birdmen banned them right and left and lobbied to get rid of them. But, at the last minute, someone in actual power noticed how silly it was, and implemented regulation that permitted them, albeit with licensing requirements. Of course, a million kids simply ignored the regulations, did it anyway, and thus the AMA turned into a real force. And the "stay away from the dangerous gas models" corporate flying clubs all died from lack of interest.

   Of note is that the AMA still claims this incident, if you read enough, as evidence of their great influence. When in fact, they got absolutely nowhere, everyone involved ignored them, and a single individual not associated with modeling interests saved it for them. Sound familiar?

     Brett

Offline Bob Matiska

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2020, 01:44:28 PM »
The names I found are Joel A Wilson and Dino Digiorgio.  They are leading the charge for PMA.

Both of those gentlemen are on facebook. Mr Wilson doesn't say much on his timeline about the organization, but Mr Digiorgio does, though the posts are vague and still don't have many details about it. I'm tempted to change my profile pic to a Ringmaster and send him a friend request, asking him about provisions for controlline, just out of curiosity.  I wonder if he even knows what it is.

Bob in NEPA
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Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2020, 02:00:03 PM »
Both of those gentlemen are on facebook. Mr Wilson doesn't say much on his timeline about the organization, but Mr Digiorgio does, though the posts are vague and still don't have many details about it. I'm tempted to change my profile pic to a Ringmaster and send him a friend request, asking him about provisions for controlline, just out of curiosity.  I wonder if he even knows what it is.

  I would guess that most sport RC fliers under the age of 50 either don't know about it at all, or at most, have seen only vague references that didn't register and they didn't care about. FF even more so.

  Any probing I would do would be to detect anyone associated with it that was previously associated with the SFA, hold a grudge over it that they are trying to get even for, or have been playing internal AMA politics up until now. Red flags would be former failed or ousted AVP candidates, anyone associated with existing competition beefs (like the people involved in the RC electric team trials fiasco from the 80s or other similar incidents), or any of the usual AMA politics players. Not that this would be entirely revealing or disqualifying,  but you would have to start to wonder about their motives.

   My concern is that they start this now - because the AMA is screwing up the FAA stuff so spectacularly and they are severely weakened - and that someone is out  to settle old scores and recruiting the rest of us to back them up. We all know that can happen, and how it ends up. That's how SFA started, near as I can tell.

     Brett


Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2020, 05:56:19 PM »
All the AMA need do is to declare itself a "No Drone Zone", and all our problems will go away.
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Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2020, 06:22:14 PM »
All the AMA need do is to declare itself a "No Drone Zone", and all our problems will go away.

   It might have, had they done this from the start - which is what we all told them. They would have at least had some argument about the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, instead of making it completely indefensible.  But that ship sailed long ago.

   I would however note that they have done a very rapid about-face on that one, once the obvious fact that *drones were always going to be regulated* dawned on them. In fact, I could probably pin it down to a week, because early one week, I was getting the usual "We are one big happy family with our drone brothers" and by Thursday of the same week I had 4 desperate emails and one rather astonishing phone call about how "drones are trying to take away our right to fly, act immediately or we are all dead!!!!"

   And they appeared to be taken completely by surprise by this inevitable development. I told Budreau specifically what was going to happen and in what order at least 3 years before it happened and nailed it, right down the line. The exchange  may still be lurking somewhere in the AMA Government Relations blog  archives.

    Several other people did the same, because *it was blatantly obvious* unless you were drinking the purple Kool-aid. Of course they ignored it all, and now they are effectively screwed for RC and drones,  barring some savior out of left field.  CL and FF might/probably will escape under the "not a UAS" part of the regulation.

   So, here we are, just like 1950 - essentially, the only game in town. Interesting to see what effect that will have.

    Brett

Offline Dan McEntee

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2020, 07:11:13 PM »
  I sent my first response from my cell phone at work and thought I would expound on it a bit since it looks like something was garbled in the transmission!
   I don't like the word "professional" in the name as it makes it sound like an elitist group and you can't join unless you fly high dollar models. The word professional may mean something different to the wrong person and be a problem somewhere down the line. There is no mention of control line or free flight, or just plain general hobbiest R/C flyers. As the SFA proved out, starting a group from scratch is a long row to how, and we are, what 30 to 40 years down the line from that debacle? The AMA has been established since before the war, and had a long time to draw from a large base of people participating in the hobby, and being established with better leadership over the previous years, have been able to adapt and weather the changing times and shrinking membership. I would think it would be damn near impossible to think that the entire membership of the AMA would jump ship and join forces with a new group. your average American Joe generally does not like change, and if he is relatively happy with the AMA, he's not likely to leave, no matter what he flies, and this is what I think it would take for the new guys to succeed. And what is the AMA membership roster going to look like 20 years from now as most of the membership (which I would guess is a large portion of it) has passed on?. This is going to be interesting to watch. I don't think it's going to be too cut and dried  and will take a while for the whole thing to play out. If we manage to get some good leadership in the AMA as soon as possible, I think the fact that they have been established for so long will play into their favor and be damn hard for a new organization to compete with.
   Type at you later,
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Offline Dave Hull

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2020, 11:51:37 PM »
Stalking horse?

Perhaps the timing is perfect.

Dave

Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2020, 12:05:13 AM »
Stalking horse?

Perhaps the timing is perfect.\

   That's a little paranoid, even for me.

     Brett
« Last Edit: February 16, 2020, 10:23:51 AM by Brett Buck »

Offline Dan Grill

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2020, 10:50:33 AM »
I went to my dictionary and looked up the word professional and there are several meanings not all dealing with money. I for one gave up on the AMA when their extortion went to $75 a year and simply quit flying. Now i will get back into it at my local ball field without them tagging along. Maybe if there is something new we should give it a try and break the AMA monopoly.
Also ex AMA member 604273

Offline 944_Jim

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2020, 07:52:30 PM »
Like Mr. Grill, I fly on a remote lot. It is occupied by a privately owned building on a substantial/large parcel of property with limited access.. While I have permission to fly my CL planes there, I suspect the owners would be less than enthusiastic if a band of RC'ers showed up (I.can appreciate RC, but it ain't for me).

In any event, I do wonder what CBO REALLY means. I mean, I assume that the ORGANIZATION of like-minded hobbyists BASED in the same COMMUNITY would only need to be two or more hobbyists in the similar pursuit of "their" similar recreation.

So my question is "How do we establish ourselves as a CBO?" Does the AMA pay The Government for representation? Is this new organization in this thread in direct competition with the AMA for The Government's "Limited Time and Availability?" If so, then that means only ONE CBO can exist. If not so, then I'm back to wondering how to start a small, narrowly focused CBO. Maybe I'm over-simplifying it, but The Feds gave me this idea by NOT declaring one CBO the "only official" CBO. After all, The Government used the ploral when discussing what CBOs are/do.

Offline Dave Hull

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2020, 12:25:04 AM »
Porsche Jim,

A few thoughts:

I have assumed a CBO to be an association of individuals skilled and knowledgeable in a particular thing, who, when banded together regulate themselves. The examples that come to mind might include the other AMA (American Medical Association), the NHRA, the American Bar Association, etc.  Each has their critics, but the basic idea is that it is in their own self-interest to regulate themselves as they are the most able to do so....  That being accepted as a member carries with it proof of competence. And that gives the body some enforcement leverage. No one wants to be thrown out as it would affect their ability to earn a living among their peers. Do I want to go to a doctor who has been thrown out by his peers? No.

But here is where our AMA seems to overestimate it's standing both with the government and the FAA, and with its own members.

When it comes to it's membership, the traditional attraction has largely faded. The AMA itself will tell you that it is not really a competition organization so much any more. They even tried to get by for a while with no Technical Director. That speaks volumes by itself. It has moved into fun flys and gatherings. I know, because they created Event Directors and have fees for events which are in lieu of a contest. Seems like Huckfests are (were?) a big thing in the Midwest. Do I need a competition regulating body to go around Hucking? No. On the other hand, what percentage of current members goes to the NATS? If you want to challenge the best to see if you can compete at that level, then you can't afford to be an outsider to the CBO.  That is leverage. But if the GPS-linked autopilot crowd does not want a piece of that offering, or the AMA does not know how to provide it, or is viewed as a "late to the party" opportunist, then...they ain't got no leverage, because they are trying to co-opt a new community that doesn't speak the same language, or they don't want to. Think early skateboard culture. Or surfing. Or...well practically anything. They want to be the new outlaws. It's a new thing because it is their thing. Ok, not all of quad culture is like that. But of the fraction that is, how long is it going to take for them to decide they are better off falling in line with a old, established, stodgy CBO and following the rules? Thereby finally giving you some leverage?

So the AMA resorts to the easiest and simplest argument (leverage) available: our rules, our dues, or no insurance. Then, to a much, much lesser extent: want to compete? Our rules, our sanctions, our authority as flowed down via the NAA. So you can see if only they could get the FAA to agree that they were the only, or the most viable CBO then the government itself would be granting the AMA more leverage. But that's not where the FAA appears to be at. And the "professional drone organizations," ie. the commercial organizations are going to pull all the operators who see themselves not as hobbiests, but guys in the industry. They want to make a buck taking shots of real estate, or doing a utube channel, or inspecting crops or recording facilities condition/damage. In short, the FAA carved off the serious quad guys that fly camera platforms and will route them thru a Part 107 certificate. The AMA will likely have no participation that I can see. Are they going to want to insure profit-making entities? So that leaves the quad racers, who are self-styled outsiders, like all new-fad guys before them.

If a new organization comes along and directly challenges AMA insurance, it is the most direct assault on the AMAs authority. You don't have to say the AMA insurance is no good. All you have to prove is that your insurance is valid, and more or less equal. Then nearly all of the AMA "CBO" leverage is gone. Hence, the huge reaction. I am puzzled here about the timing though. If the competing organization has actually been known to exist for many months, I would have expected a very strong AMA response immediately and before now. Perhaps there was work being done behind the scenes. Perhaps.

So my stalking horse comment simply meant this:  if you can't get the AMA to deal with current realities, and they keep pounding away at methods that are not having the desired effect, then a little competition might just wake them up and force some new ideas to be considered. The most troubling aspect I found recently was that headquarters didn't need any help, and the membership couldn't possibly understand the problem better than they, or contribute toward moving the matters ahead. Really? It is a member organization. The AMA was not mentioned in any stone tablets that came down from a mountain....


Dave

PS--Perhaps a final thought?  I would have considered WAM to be a CBO, if management theorists had created the term back when that organization was running.

Online Brett Buck

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2020, 10:22:18 AM »

So my stalking horse comment simply meant this:  if you can't get the AMA to deal with current realities, and they keep pounding away at methods that are not having the desired effect, then a little competition might just wake them up and force some new ideas to be considered. The most troubling aspect I found recently was that headquarters didn't need any help, and the membership couldn't possibly understand the problem better than they, or contribute toward moving the matters ahead. Really? It is a member organization. The AMA was not mentioned in any stone tablets that came down from a mountain....

PS--Perhaps a final thought?  I would have considered WAM to be a CBO, if management theorists had created the term back when that organization was running.

   Well, kind of. There were some, shall we say, "irregularities" between WAM and the boat guys (which were run as one organization by Mom Coad). WAM had lots of money, it didn't just disappear, nobody made off with anything, but it also didn't seem to provide some of the promised services - like insurance. No one knew that until after the fact.

     You have an excellent point about the AMA apparently losing the bubble in both directions. Predictably (since I and many others predicted it) they got steamrolled by the drone industry and commercial users like Amazon. This appeared to come as a stunning surprise to them all - I wasn't kidding that they changed in the period of about 3 days from "arm in arm" with the drone people to panicked phone calls about how they were the enemy. This is hardly the first time, but fine, their plan failed spectacularly. They are also not listening to the members, most of whom could probably see this coming, if they had paid much attention.

   But the question is - why do you think a new organization would do any better or help the situation at this point? The AMA has been shown to be a paper tiger, but there *are* still, so far, 200,000+ members, they hold the keys (insurance) to many sites, and they have already worked the situation with LOAs to make them the gatekeepers there, for several years potentially. You start a new one, with just the "professional modelers", and let's be really generous and say they get 10,000 members. That will not even be a speedbump to Amazon, etc. There *absolutely is* going to be registration, licensing and software/geofencing/transponder  requirements for all UAS models, you can consider that ship to be sailed. I assume that sanity, and black-letter law, will save FF and CL, but RC *will have to comply*, so nothing you do is going to fix that.

If you buy that argument, what is this new group setting out to accomplish?

    By the way, in another way, this is ultimately all of our fault, by letting the AMA get to the state it has. We all sort of let it go 30-40 years ago when the "buy and fly" business took it over, either trying to be "inclusive" and figuring that these toy consumers would help swell the numbers, and we could just otherwise ignore them. This has now, finally, bit us in the ass. It just proves the theory that living with small lies just leads to bigger lies.

    Brett
« Last Edit: February 17, 2020, 10:47:40 AM by Brett Buck »

Offline Dave Hull

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2020, 02:40:00 PM »
Brett,

Hmmm. Wasn't aware of the behind the scenes issues with WAM.

Me personally, I don't think that attempting to replace the AMA with something else would be easy, or result in a better path in the short term. But as you noted, we need these guys to get back to addressing core issues in a realistic way. Almost anything that jolts the leadership enough to perform a reality check would seem useful. Maybe a competing nascent organization would do that. Since I don't know the history here, maybe it has already begun to have an effect. Maybe.

What I really wish is that in 2011, Mr. Hanson had been willing to listen and begin discussions with the FAA that tethered model airplanes operate differently, and many new government regulations were not relevant to them. We--the AMA--apparent did nothing along those lines, because our leadership did not want to risk fracturing the membership or some such nonsense. I have no idea why he would view this as either: throwing the R/C guys under the bus; or, not worth his time to deal with, since there are so few control line guys. We all pay the same dues for representation, right? But if control line regulations had been dealt with then, we would not have been dragged into the sUAS category now. I could send him the exact same letter today, and my request would be identical. So that's nearly nine years with no meaningful progress. At the least, we should have been chipping away at the "easy" regulatory issues. Get the FAA used to the idea of tailoring to meet actual risks. It would have been good practice for dealing with the proliferation of R/C technology that the FAA admittedly is most concerned with today. But no.

The most troubling recent news is that the seasoned EAA government liaison guys apparently are highly surprised at the way the FAA is shoving through the current NPRM. That may explain in part why the AMA team has seemingly been jollied along and then dumped outside any meaningful discussion rooms. In a moment of extreme high comedy, I will point out to all the PAMPA guys that if the FAA has its way, they will be enforcing the builder of the model rule from now on. They have established a 51% rule on models, just like on home-built aircraft. But this won't just be for contest work--it will apply to every weekend flyer as well. So we can forget about arguing over the BOM for the NATS; we can just go to the local flying field on any weekend and watch the club president and the safety officer try to ground the next guy that shows up with a Noblarf?

Oh, and should we say that club officials were caught between a rock and a hard place? Should we have filled out the field location data requested by the AMA, which was immediately transferred to the FAA? These so-called fixed sites are now mapped. It is the current FAA plan to transition away from these. No new ones will be added. The goal is for these to go away in a year or so. Did your site get mapped?

I agree with your point that we members let this happen to us over a long period of time. But unless a whole lot more members find a desire to tackle non-profit politics, it is not realistic to expect any major changes in policy and direction. Look at the recent "choice" we had for AMA president. I could hardly tell two of the campaign statements apart, and the third one didn't thrill, either. Any wonder the vote was so low?

To your point about black-letter law, I would remind folks that we have one other recourse with the FAA. That is that we could submit to their legal department a request for an interpretation of sUAS, vs. drone, vs. multiple types of model aviation--and specifically tethered, non-RF-linked, non-GPS/autopilot, models. Before I did that, I would want to know a lot more about how their office works. This in keeping with the idea that there is an optimal point at which a question should be asked, and that you should not ask the question if you are not prepared for the likely answers you'd get. First and foremost, is their legal office subordinate to the larger groupthink that anything that flies with no one onboard is a UAS; and, are they concerned that their entire organization will be castigated and demolished if they don't toe that line?

Dave

Offline Steve Helmick

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Re: A New Modeling CBO?
« Reply #22 on: February 17, 2020, 03:09:48 PM »
It's all informative, since I know nothing about WAM, and not a lot more about AMA. But I put my hand up at the NW Skyraider's meeting when the discussion came about potentially, eventually,  closing down the club and bank account in the next decade or so. My comment was that we should decide where our funds should go early, and PLEASE do NOT give a dime to the AMA. There was pretty much 100% agreement on that point, which actually surprised the heck out of me. If you "buy a brick" or donate to the AMA, you're just empowering them and deluding them into thinking they're the shiz.

AMA sucks, but if you want to fly contests, it's the only game in town. If you don't want to fly contests, there's not much point to joining AMA, since their insurance is secondary and your homeowners or renters insurance is at the front of the line if you were to get sued. Well, I guess if you live near Muncie, IN, there might be the option to fly at OUR flying site, but it doesn't do me a damned bit of good.   HB~> Steve
"The United States has become a place where professional athletes and entertainers are mistaken for people of importance." - Robert Heinlein

In 1944 18-20 year old's stormed beaches, and parachuted behind enemy lines to almost certain death.  In 2015 18-20 year old's need safe zones so people don't hurt their feelings.


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