President’s Perspective - 2009/07
The new wing is scheduled to be completed before the end of this year.
Claude McCullough
Most of our members, especially those who have been involved in model aviation for any length of time, will recognize the name Claude McCullough. Claude’s modeling career began early in his life and was an important part of his life until his death in 2008.
Beginning in 1935, Claude participated in a wide range of competitions, including:
- Indoor
- Hand-launched glider
- Free flight rubber
- Free flight scale
- All sizes of free flight power
- ROW (rise-off-water)
- Control line stunt
- Control line scale
- RC pattern
However, his first love was radio control scale modeling and competition. Claude’s extraordinary designing and building skills, coupled with his piloting ability, led to his becoming one of the most prominent scale aeromodelers in the United States. His long list of accomplishments includes winning a number of RC precision scale competitions and FAI large scale events at AMA’s National Aeromodeling Championships.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Claude participated in dozens of QSAA and Scale Masters competitions, winning numerous awards including best scale model, best scratch-built model, best civilian scale model, and best biplane scale model — many of these awards multiple times.
Claude was a longtime employee of Sig Manufacturing. Countless modelers learned to fly with his Kadet series of trainer aircraft, which included the Junior, Senior, and Seniorita designs. His other designs — such as the Komander, Kougar, and Kavalier — helped pilots transition from trainer models to more advanced flying.
Claude was an ardent supporter of the AMA and served on a number of committees and contest boards during his career. His first appointment to an AMA committee was in 1948, and in 1957 he was elected AMA president. After his tenure as AMA president, he returned to a supporting role and was appointed chairman of the Scale Advisory Committee, which became the Scale Contest Board in 1970. At the time of his death, Claude was still an active member of the Scale Contest Board representing District VII. His 53 years of continuous volunteer service to the AMA is believed to be the longest of any AMA member.
Claude believed strongly in the AMA and its mission. Because of this, he made a significant donation of over $150,000 to the AMA at the time of his death. The only stipulation placed on his bequest was that it be used to improve the International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana.
A number of possibilities were considered, and it was decided that the best way to honor Claude — and to benefit all of our members — would be to build an education wing onto the National Model Aviation Museum. Claude had a deep interest in introducing model aviation to young people and believed that aeromodeling could serve as an excellent stepping-stone to careers in the aviation and aerospace industries. This addition will allow the AMA to do more outreach in education, which will ultimately reinforce our position that model aviation is a valuable educational activity. The credibility we gain from doing this will pay dividends for all of our members and clubs.
The new wing will be named the Claude McCullough Educational Facility and is scheduled to be completed before the end of this year. A page on the AMA website has been created so that members can follow the construction progress.
FAA ARC and sUAS
As most of you know, the FAA Aviation Rulemaking Committee’s (ARC) recommendations to the FAA for consideration as a regulatory basis for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) activity in the National Airspace System (NAS) have been released for public viewing. It’s important to note that what has been released are just recommendations; they are not regulatory policy.
The FAA will now evaluate what has been submitted and ultimately develop new proposed regulations that will define how sUAS may operate in the NAS. The proposed regulations will eventually be released for a period of public comment as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).
There are some parts of the ARC’s recommendations that relate to model aviation and concern the AMA. Over the next several months, we will be working directly with the FAA to address these concerns.
Resources and updates:
- Many of you received an e-mail from the Academy in mid-May alerting you to this process.
- A section has been created on the AMA website to keep our members apprised and updated on this issue.
- Included in this section is a video of Rich Hanson, AMA’s Government and Regulatory Affairs Representative, giving a presentation at our general membership meeting held recently at the Joe Nall Fly-In. He provided a good overview of the ARC process, what has taken place so far, and what we should expect going forward.
We will continue to keep our members updated through our website and in Model Aviation (MA).
2009 FAI World Championships (Model Helicopters)
Later this summer, from August 2–11, the AMA will host the 2009 FAI World Championships for model helicopters at the International Aeromodeling Center. Teams from nearly two dozen countries will be in the United States to compete.
This will be a great opportunity for our members to witness some of the world’s best precision RC helicopter flying. I hope to see many of you there.
See you next time...
Dave Mathewson AMA President president@modelaircraft.org
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
