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Member participation
in the new AMA online
forum is slowly building.
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Our
League of Cities (LOC) outreach program will be complete for
the year by the time this issue of MA reaches you.
LOC is an organization composed of officials from
municipalities and counties within the state. Most, if not
all, states have their own LOC.
The objective of this program, which began in 2008, is
to reach out to administrators in local communities and
promote the idea that public and municipal lands are
appropriate venues for model aircraft flying sites. This was
the message we took to each of the conventions we attended
this year.
In 2008 we participated in three state conventions.
This year we doubled that effort. Our booths were staffed by
a combination of the AMA district vice presidents, associate
vice presidents, and member volunteers.
At each event, we received a number of positive
responses from those attending the conventions. Many
visitors to our booth indicated that they had open lands
that they felt would be appropriate for a model aircraft
flying site.
In each case, we followed that contact with additional
information and alerted clubs in the area of the opportunity
to meet with local officials to discuss the possibility of
creating a new flying site in their communities. Our intent
is to further expand the program in 2010.
The AMA Expo, held each January in Ontario,
California, is right around the corner. The dates for the
2010 event are January 8-10.
This year, the show will feature a number of planned
speakers including Robert “Hoot” Gibson, space shuttle
commander and a member of the Astronauts Hall of Fame, and
United Sates Navy Captain Tom Huff, commander of the Naval
Test Wing. Both of these men credit aeromodeling for
sparking their interests in aviation, leading to successful
careers in aviation and aerospace.
More information about the Expo can be found on the AMA
Web site at
www.modelaircraft.org/amaexpo.aspx.
Member participation in the new AMA online forum is
slowly building. The forum is intended to be an online
resource to discuss AMA issues. Although membership is
required to post in the forum, the ability to read posts is
open to everyone. You can get to the forum from the AMA Web
site.
AMA is now participating in a number of social
networking sites that provide additional methods of
communicating with both members and nonmembers. A
toolbar link at the bottom of the home page on our main Web
site will take you to each of these sites.
We are in the middle of AMA elections for 2010.
Elections this year are to select vice presidents in
districts II, IV, VI, VIII, and X for a three-year term
beginning in January 2010. There is still time to cast your
vote if you haven’t yet done so.
If the current vice president for your district is
running uncontested, it’s still important that you vote,
because the person currently in office will use the election
results to help gauge his performance. Candidate statements
will be included with the ballot and were in the last issue
of this magazine.
At this time there is nothing new to report regarding
the ongoing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rulemaking
effort, directed toward small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS).
As I wrote last month, the effort to present a Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) has been pushed back by at
least one quarter and we don’t expect to see anything
probably for another year or so. Meanwhile, AMA continues to
build our standard guidelines that we will present as part
of the process.
The first draft of this document is expected to be
presented to the AMA Executive Council at our quarterly
meeting held at the end of October. As the document nears
completion, it will be vetted through AMA’s Special Interest
Groups as well as other segments of the modeling community.
There is a special section on the AMA Forum focusing on
this effort, and we have also created a Twitter site where
you can receive updates on the progress of the Safety
Guidelines Workgroup and the rulemaking process.
As the process moves further along, there will be an
opt-in survey element that can be engaged to examine new
ideas and concepts as they are brought to the table. We
think this will be particularly useful once the safety
guideline document is submitted to the FAA and we begin
conferring on specific aspects of AMA’s safety program.
AMA’s first membership drive is now in the books.
During the next several months we’ll be reviewing the
program and analyzing its success. At this time, I expect
we’ll hold another drive in 2010.
Congratulations to those who won rewards this year and
thank you to everyone who took part in the drive and made it
as successful as it was.
Finally, AMA will be participating in the AOPA’s
(Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s) annual
convention, renamed the Aviation Summit, this November. It
will be a great opportunity for our two organizations to get
together to share ideas and build relationships and programs
that will be beneficial to both of us.
plan a report on this event in a future column
after the summit has taken place. MA
See you next time ...
Dave Mathewson, AMA president
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