President's Perspective
Dave Brown AMA president
OCCASIONALLY the subject of distributing Model Aviation to the public arises, and this month it came up in a different manner than I had seen before. I was shown a letter to the editor from a member who relayed considerable concern about the image we present in our magazine because of the concentration on safety and accidents. He specifically referred to my column as an example. I suspect he was referring to the column in the February 2002 issue where I outlined an insurance settlement.
The member wanted to drop off his used copy of Model Aviation at a public library or public waiting room in an attempt to promote this great hobby. He was afraid that the number of references to safety and accidents would turn people off and have the opposite effect of that desired. He even expressed concern that this may affect our ability to obtain flying sites.
Frankly, I don’t really disagree with much of what he wrote! I don't think the negative effect of that type of article is as overwhelming as he seemed to think, but I am sure such content can occasionally have this effect.
You are probably asking yourself what this has to do with Model Aviation on the newsstand. Well, it has a lot to do with it. If Model Aviation were to be successful on the newsstand, the content would be determined by what would sell the magazine. Much of the information we currently publish, intended to better inform our members, would have to be sanitized or eliminated.
In short, the magazine could not accomplish its mission of communicating with the membership if we modified it to be successful on the newsstand. The opposite is also true. It would likely not be successful on the newsstand if it continued to serve principally as a membership magazine.
I believe most of the content that concerned this member was intended to educate the readers, making them aware of examples of safety issues and allowing them to avoid similar accidents. My mail response from that insurance column indicates that this is how most members view the information presented.
Should we eliminate that type of content? I don’t think so. I think it serves the membership in terms that go to the very purpose of the organization: education. That education tends to reduce the number of accidents as people become more aware of what to watch out for.
I assure you that the response I received from that insurance claim outline indicates that many clubs have taken a new stance in terms of safety issues at the field. That is a good thing, and the benefits of that awareness outweigh the negatives.
We are not the only organization faced with this type of dilemma. I think many organizations are faced with the conflict between laying their incidents out in the open — with the hope that it will reduce the number of similar incidents for the future — and “sweeping them under the rug,” hoping no one will notice. In our case, the way we provide insurance would give the second method a doubly negative effect.
Do you want to leave our magazines where the public can read them? I wouldn’t be afraid of leaving Model Aviation for this purpose. I think most people would see the content as an attempt to make the activity as safe as possible, rather than as an attempt to sensationalize it.
If you are really concerned about this, there are several other fine magazines, such as Model Airplane News, Radio Control Modeler, Flying Models, and R/C Report, that you might consider leaving. I’m certainly not against the concept of getting more public exposure in this way.
I ran across an interesting fact the other day while preparing to “argue” our case on various subjects at the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale meeting in Switzerland.
It seems that the number of AMA members is virtually the same as the population of the city of Geneva, which is the second largest city in Switzerland. When you think about it in those terms, it becomes more obvious that our membership reflects the same social mix as the population in general.
Speaking of responses to columns, I had a member make a comment the other day on the telephone that tickled me. He said he was an “average” modeler: he built two or three models during the winter, destroyed them in the spring, and flew Almost Ready to Flys for the rest of the season!
Hmmm. I can’t think of any way to top that!
’Til next month.
Dave
Dave Brown AMA president dbrown@dbproducts.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
