RE: [RCSE] AMA numbers

[Chuck Anderson]

Since I was in on the start of the thread, perhaps a note as to how I 
achieved such a low number might be in order.  I got my first AMA number in 
1947 and used it in UC and FF contests  until I entered the Air Force in 
December, 1953.  When I finally graduated from college in 1962, I began 
flying contests again and received the AMA number 33117.  I received my CD 
license in 1969.  At that time, the AMA gave 3 digit numbers to CDs and 
tried to select three consecutive numbers from the 5-digit AMA number of 
the member.  In my case, all possible 3-digit numbers were already in use 
so they gave me 371.  This was to cause me a minor problem at the 1970 Nats.

I entered RC pattern at the 1970 AMA Nats.  My nephew also went to his 
first Nats and entered several free flight events.  I dug out a couple of 
my old free flight models  from the attic and took them along to fly with 
my nephew on the half days that the scale models were using my channel.  In 
those days, we had to process a model the night before flying to verify 
that the model met the class criteria, had the contestant id information 
somewhere on the model, and the correct AMA number on the right wing.  The 
official processing my free flight model noticed that the number on the 
wing was different from the one on my AMA card.  That year, for some 
reason, AMA sent me two cards with the old and new numbers so I just pulled 
out the other AMA card.  The only thing I accomplished at that Nats was to 
dispose of all my old free flight models.

Sometime after 1969,.the AMA ran out of 3-digit numbers and started giving 
CDs 4-digit numbers.  Don't know how they do it today. 

RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News.  Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.  Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format