AMA Question

When I was a youngster and first heard of the AMA, I just new it stood for "American Model Airplanes" or something like that. Where did the term "Academy" come from for AMA and why.

Just curious,
Zuriel

It is academic, my dear Watson.

Although the term "academy" conjurs up thoughts of resolute students pursuing their elusive PHD, the word itself came from the name of a grove of trees in Athens where Plato and friends met to discuss their visions of philosophy. Still, neither answer fits as well as the definition offered by Webster of "a society of learned men united to advance an art or science."

I think that fits well with the goals of the AMA as an organization, although there are some women's libbers today who might wish to dispute the word, "men" in this definition of the term. (And certainly a few women have become prominent in the hobby, either in pursuing it in their own right, or in bringing an occasional beer to their beloved husband who has found himself trapped in his workshop feverishly attempting to complete his latest model in time for the upcoming games of war which we so beningly call "contests".)

>When I was a youngster and first heard of the AMA, I just
>new it stood for "American Model Airplanes" or something
>like that. Where did the term "Academy" come from for AMA
>and why.
>
>Just curious,
>Zuriel

The most common misnomer is "American Model Association". The organization has always been called the Academy of Model Aeronautics since its inception in 1936, so that is probably what it was called when you were a kid.

FYI,

I have in front of me a copy of volume 1, Number 1 of "Model Aviation" dated June 1936, published by "The American Academy for Model Aeronautics". Throughout the pages it says "It will be the endeavor of Model Aviation to cover all phases of the field, including organization, representation, scientific research" and so on, hence the use of the word academy. The whole document can be found in the 1934 Frank Zaic yearbook. It says that organization meetings would take place at the 1936 Nationals.

Don't let the 1936 info in a 1934 book throw you, Frank republished this book in 1980 and threw a whole bunch of historical data into the back end of the book. If you don't have copies of his work, especially "Circular Airflow", you are missing a good source of info on what is happening in flight.