AMA goes to Washington
Rich Hanson
richh@modelaircraft.org
AMA has always had a liaison with the federal government. In the early years, this was typically assigned as an additional responsibility to one of AMA’s executive staff members. In the 1990s and early 2000s, this was delegated to Jay Mealy, then AMA’s Programs director. Throughout the years, we’ve interacted with nearly every facet of the federal government, working through one issue or another, but never have we seen the level of activity that we’re seeing today.
In the 1980s, AMA worked closely with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to acquire 50 new channels for recreational RC use. In the 1990s, it again worked with the FCC to allow narrowband RC receivers.
AMA worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and Waste Management to acquire access to capped landfills for use as flying sites, and worked with the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation for access to federal properties to turn unused federal lands into recreational properties for use by model airplane clubs and other recreational users.
Our work with the United States Army Corps of Engineers goes back decades and many of our oldest flying sites exist today on what started out as an Army Corps of Engineers project.
In the early 2000s, Jay began working with the FAA in an effort to rewrite the Model Aircraft Operating Standards, written into AC 91-57 in June 1981. This early work was an effort to rewrite the advisory circular in a way that would separate model aircraft from the emerging unmanned aircraft sector, and allow for the use of unmanned aircraft in the civil environment. By 2007, this work was suspended when the FAA announced its intention to write new regulation to address and enable this new industry.
In 2008, the FAA commissioned an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC), tasked with making recommendations for the construction of new regulation addressing the operation of small unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds. AMA was invited to participate in the ARC, along with 19 other aviation stakeholders.
In response to the invitation, AMA created a part-time Government and Regulatory Affairs position to represent the organization on the committee and report to the AMA Executive Council, and consequently began the road to where we are today.
During the two years following the ARC, AMA worked directly with the FAA to create a set of operating standards for model aircraft that could be used as an alternative to regulation. This quickly morphed into a set of standards that significantly altered AMA’s safety program and presented the need for an alternative solution. In the process, the part-time Government and Regulatory Affairs position rapidly became a full-time job.
In 2010, AMA hired a professional lobbyist to work alongside the Government and Regulatory Affairs representative. The aim was to work with Congress in creating the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, a rule that would allow AMA to continue managing the aeromodeling community as a community-based organization. In February 2012, the Special Rule for Model Aircraft was passed into law, allowing AMA members to continue operating free from most of the new regulations governing the use of unmanned aircraft.
In 2013, AMA’s Government and Regulatory Affairs representative became a full-time staff position and an additional staff member was soon added to help handle the increasing workload.
“Our pledge to you is to continue advocating for AMA members and the aeromodeling community.”
To date, the government affairs team has served on an FAA task force dealing with the registration requirements for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and participated in two additional ARCs. One is tasked with addressing UAS flight over people and another is concerned with the requirement for UAS to broadcast identification and tracking information.
The team is part of the UAS standards developing bodies for both the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA). AMA has a seat on FAA’s Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) and has positions on two of the task groups for the DAC subcommittee. Additionally, as part of the UAS-ID ARC, AMA participates on two of the committee’s three workgroups.
The government affairs team is led by Chad Budreau, AMA’s Public Relations and Government Affairs director. Tyler Dobbs has joined the team and is handling and tracking more than 250 separate pieces of UAS legislation passing through multiple state legislatures and the governing bodies of counties and municipalities across the country, many of which have implications for the aeromodeling community or create unintended consequences for modelers.
Their efforts are in addition to the work that AMA Executive Director Dave Mathewson, Executive Vice President Gary Fitch, and I do to support the team and protect the hobby. Our pledge to you is to continue advocating for AMA members and the aeromodeling community, and to continue to protect and fight for modelers’ rights to access the airspace.
