I joined the AMA mostly for the insurance, I figured it would be easier to find a place to fly on the local farms if I was insured. And, if your plane flies away and into a car windshield causing a wreck, you will need all the insurance you can get. A nearby club had a fly-in and it sounded like a good way to meet fellow fliers. The club happened to be made up of experienced pilots flying big, beautiful gassers and they weren't interested in new members, especially one flying FT foamies. It was a group of people forming a private club and they had every right to be exclusive. I wouldn't have fit in anyway, being a nooby and all. So far I have 2 FBs and maybe if we can get more people interested we can have our own club, informal, I hope.
Jim
Jim, funny you should feel that way...I felt the same about my club at my first meeting. Most of the guys flew expensive 3D planes, or really nice balsa warbirds, from what I could tell.
And then I showed up at the 3rd meeting since joining, and presented my Sea Duck for Model of the Month.
These guys were completely fascinated that something so DIFFERENT could be built out of "cardboard" because it was WR foam board (I finally had to show them scrap for them to realize it was foam board LOL), and shortly after, what I thought was a bunch of "old fogies" were building Fogies and Krakens and Versa Wings and Simple Cubs! Sure, they liked the expensive planes, but they were surprised that there was another good medium to make planes out of, one that they hadn't thought of.