I would like to thank everyone for the rapid-fire response we’ve seen to our recent Congressional Awareness Campaign. So far we have had over 27,000 individual letters sent to Congress… But don’t stop now. My hope is that each and every modeler and aviation enthusiast with a love for the “Freedom of Flight” will respond to this call to action.
To put it in perspective, I would like to share with you a recent letter received from Ali R. Moshiri, and AMA member. This letter touched my heart and Ali expressed better than I can why our efforts are so important.
-Rich Hanson, AMA Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs Representative
| Hi AMA team,
Regarding recent motion by FAA about regulating our hobby, it saddens me. I was born in Iran and came to USA in 1976. My earliest memory of building a model airplane is when I was six years old. As I was growing up and still lived in Iran, any time I build a flyable model my father was against it and he was very unkind to me and my passion of flying my model planes. I used to use shaving blades to cut balsa wood and many times I cut my fingers doing so, but I loved building model planes. I used to use regular righting papers to cover my planes, not because shrink papers were not available but I was forbidden to go to buy it. I used clothing elastic to power the rubber powered airplane and the results were not that great. My father always broke my planes by hitting it at the edge of the table saying that my son does NOT play w/ toy planes While I still lived in Iran,I used to take bus then walk a few miles to get to where radio controlled plane were flying to just watch and be amazed.. When I came to USA my first goal was to find a near by hobby shop and see what’s there. Now lets forward fifty three years. I still fly RC planes even when at that time my wife was not happy with me. Once she told me that if she had wings I’d pay more attention to her. But her and my father failed to see that aviation was in my blood and no one could take that away from me. I have always enjoyed flying and I am always amazed by any thing that have wings and can fly. After all flying is man’s oldest dream. And now the big brother (FAA) is coming in and is going to tell me where, where, and how I should fly my plane. In short I am facing my dictator father with another name (FAA). Please don’t let them do this to me, after all flying is indicator of free spirit, and now big brother is say that I am that rich kid in the block and I have the ball. My ball my rule. I do understand that as a civilized society we must have rule, but there are soft rules and there are hard rules. For example a traffic stop sing indicates that you stop your vehicle, look both ways and then if there’s no car coming in your path you proceed and drive on through. A hard rule is a red light. You can NOT pass it unless the red light changes. Please AMA personal don’t let the big brother make hard rule. After all this is a hobby that should be enjoyed and not be limited. Thanks for your time.
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