AMA’s advocacy has a long history
Rich Hanson
richh@modelaircraft.org
At a conference of modeling experts, designers, and builders, held in Newark, New Jersey, in 1935, a member of the conference who was not a modeling expert condemned the use of gas-powered models. In 1937, Registrar Frank Goodwin, of Massachusetts, ruled that “gas-powered models are legally aircraft and cannot be flown in the state of Massachusetts unless licensed and operated by licensed pilots.” (Model Airplane News, October 1937.)
Likewise, the Connecticut Commissioner of Aeronautics issued a regulation that “No model aircraft shall be flown in or over the State of Connecticut if powered by any means other than rubber bands. (Model Airplane News, November 1937.)
Thus began a nationwide effort to ban model airplanes using any kind of powered propulsion other than rubber bands, which was eventually taken under consideration by the United States Board of Commerce. Before the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), established in 1938, and the FAA, founded in 1958, the commerce department was the governing body overseeing aviation activities in the US.
Charles Hampson Grant, often referred to as the “Father of Model Aeronautics in America,” namesake to AMA’s national scholarship program, and then-director of the International Gas Model Airplane Association (IGMAA), made a call to arms to the members of the IGMAA to “collect every bit of ammunition possible with which you can combat any action which subversive forces have taken or may take.”
Grant suggested that a meeting be called of all who have an interest in gas models to make them aware of the situation and the efforts to influence the Department of Commerce to ban gas model flying. He suggested that every one of the IGMAA members write to the director of the Bureau of Air Commerce and express their views and assure the bureau that every possible effort would be made to safeguard the rights of property owners and anyone who might encounter gas models. He also urged members to contact anyone in their state or district with political influence and enlist their help
“No model aircraft shall be flown … if powered by any means other than rubber bands.”
in resolving this issue to the betterment of the hobby.
Grant also proposed that the public be made aware of the value of the hobby and the educational benefits gas-powered models provide for our youth. He argued that aeronautics benefited our educational system and increased the knowledge derived from courses in physics, chemistry, the study of electricity, structural design, and the strength of materials in mechanical engineering.
The IGMAA and its leaders, along with the National Aeronautic Association and its model airplane division (the Academy of Model Aeronautics), lobbied for the benefits of gas model flying.
A delegation of Department of Commerce officials was brought to the 1937 National Aeromodeling Championships, after which they decided that gas models should not be banned and that restrictions placed upon the flying of gas models, by what was then the overseeing community-based organization, were sufficient.
Sound familiar? This is much like what we are hearing today in Congress, state legislatures, city councils, and park boards across the country, regarding concerns and resistance to new unmanned aircraft technologies—drones—which is now ubiquitous for anything unmanned, including traditional model aircraft.
Advocacy is not only part of AMA’s history, it’s part of our DNA. Model aviation has always been in the forefront of technology. New designs, new techniques, and new aeronautical advancements often emerge from the workbenches of modelers and from using models to prove new concepts. AMA has been in the forefront of advocating on behalf of new aeromodeling technologies.
Through the years, AMA has always adopted new modeling disciplines and found ways to safely assimilate new technologies into the aeromodeling culture. We have fought for the rights and privileges of the aeromodeling community and will continue do so as new technologies emerge.
