Ever since the US Armed forces stopped sponsoring the NATS the writting was on the wall. When you examine the realities of this age, the AMA is in increasing peril. What do we know? It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that the AMA would never survive a multi-million dollar law suit. Even if the insurance ultimately covers the incident, they will never again be able to purchase coverage at any sort of acceptable rate. When that happens the land use rights at many fields will be revoked (No insurance, No fly) Then membership drops drastically, what will you be paying for? It will end up like certain highways in the US, The roads were already funded, and the toll collectors ultimately were just collecting money to keep the toll collectors.
It is funny how anyone can work numbers to their advantage. Like the number of insurance claims filed. Comparing the number of the RC community and the CL community. Yes the ratio of claims to number of enthusiasts may show CL to have a higher rate than RC because the number of CL flyers are significantly less. But you can not go only by that. You have to look at the dollar value of the individual claims. Without seeing the data I can not say for sure but I would wager that the majority of the CL claims are personal injury and by that I mean Injury to the owner of the model or close friend or relative. Perhaps to site wear and tear from a sanctioned event.
But I can easily say that the claim if any filed against AMA insurance for the damage done to a full scale aircraft as in the article above is worth a dozen trips to the ER for stitches because someone stuck their fingers in a prop. (many of which are covered by personal medical insurance anyway) Also if you are going to use the RC vs CL numbers then you have to acknowledge that the potiental for significant accidents is far greater in the RC community as there are so many more of them.
There is a solution to mitgate the risks and the impact but no one is going to like it, since it has not been implemented from the very begining. That is strict member and industry wide self regulation. Required training and certification for the operation of RC aircraft of defined classes. You want to buy that behemoth then show your cert. No Cert no sale. This sort of thing, entrants in sanctioned competitions would have to show the cert as well as thier AMA card to enter.
There is a reason that Scuba Diving as a recreational sport has survived and even thrives. Because from the begining strict self regulatory standards were put in place. No reputable dealer will fill your tank, sell you the required life support equipment without a valid training certification card by a recognized Scuba Diving instruction entity, period! NO dive operator will take you out on their boats without it. It is because of this you can get Divers insurance for the same amount per year as does your AMA dues and this is for a activity where if you screw up you will probably DIE!
Scuba is not in any way shape or form supervised or regulated by any governmental agency other than fishing licenses and restriction of ecological sensitive areas.
How many here have gone out to the field with a cooler loaded with a couple of 6 packs and spent the day flying? Well with CL the damage is minimized not think of all the yahoos out there that do it with these 1/8 or 1/4 scale RC behmoths. The interesting thing with alchol is that just before you become intoxicated enough to have significant motor control impact, you loose inhibitions and are more likely to take chances or do normally stupid things. I wonder how many RC fields have just a strictly enforced NO Alcohol Policy with penalties for violation, let alone any other meaningful self regulation policy.
As Stunt SUpply stated it's no if, but when. Someone better figure out what to do when the AMA goes bye bye.
Topic: RC Pilot blamed for aircraft collision (Read 3222 times)
