AMA Youth Program

[Hoss Cain]

You all probably already know this. yet here is a reminder for you to do something for the youth in your club, group, etc.
 There is on AMA's front page, Today but who knows tomorrow ?

amaflightschool.org/programs/ama-youth-leadership-award

It is a program for youth awards and I don't know at this time the exact rules, etc. Of course you can go there and find out what AMA is going to do.  There is a young fellow that I know of that learned to fly faster than a bird. I am going to try to get his Club to get him in the spotlight.
It seems to be something good. In any case what could happen if you spend sometime with a youngster not yet totally engulfed in the G-A-G situation, (gas and girls). 

[Scott Richlen]

Here's my "Youth Program".  Every Thursday we meet for two hours after school as part of the local Junior High's after-school program.  It's all about building.  The kids start by building a Delta-Dart and then follow that up with progressively more challenging builds: scratch-built Delta-Dart, Z-15, Yard Ranger, No-Cal (this year its a P-51, last year it was a P-40 - both from Paul Bradley's site).  Last year's students are starting off this year by building a Bostonian.

This year the school is letting us use one of their unused classroom "modules" as a club-house!  (You can see that in the last picture of my next posting.)  We are starting to hang models from the ceiling and decorating it.

As opposed to the AMA which aims everything at RC, this is about building simple FF.  As we did this past summer, we'll invite the kids down to our field and teach them to fly CL.  If they can learn to build Bostonians, they will be able to build most anything.  And they will have developed critical skills (such as blue-print reading) that will benefit them their whole life.

Scott

[Scott Richlen]

So, why is a CLer teaching FF building?  Out club has probably put up a thousand kids on our CL trainers with no result (other than good PR.)  CL flight training was just another "fun" thing to do.  Entertaining, but not educating.  And to build a CL trainer you get involved in extensive cutting of balsa sheet, painting (VOCs are an absolute NO! in today's school environment), and the expense of IC or electric power.  Each of these is pretty much a show-stopper.  Whereas these FF, even the Bostonians, can be built from balsa stick chopped to length, glued with aliphatic glue, and covered with tissue using a glue-stick.  Cheap, safe, easy to do, but also skill teaching - tight joints are critical, attention to detail is demanded, and in building the No-Cals the kids have to learn how to laminate. 

So, FF building is the entry point.  (This will be a "duh!" to the guys that came into CL via FF or in addition to FF.)

Scott