What do you like/dislike about your RC club?

[rifleman_btx]

Absolutely! Man I love low passes in the race wing, full out, 2ft ft off the deck. So much fun!

[crankestein]

400 is max, like one of the guys at the field said, put some big letters in the wings, and fly as far until they cant be read so to give me an idea of the distance.
I heard rumors is gonna be 300 soon... at the field a guy mentioned that.

[rifleman_btx]

Yes it is, and the 300ft I haven't quite heard yet. I wonder if that is gonna happen, I know a few IMAC pilots are not gonna be happy about that.

[Beeg]

disregard..

[Grossman56]

And yet there we are at Nefi and a full scale does a low pass right over the field!
Why aren't they held to the same rules?

Grossman56

[rifleman_btx]

They are supposed to hold to a minimal 500ft rule

[OV10]

And yet there we are at Nefi and a full scale does a low pass right over the field!
Why aren't they held to the same rules?

Grossman56

He could've been held accountable if any of us had pulled our head out of our butt and got the Number and turned it in.:(
It was so damn low whereas we just stood shocked with disbelief.:Scared:
Am a good judge of height and that plane was definitely below 400 :Loser:

[rifleman_btx]

Yeah that was a guy just being a jerk. Would have been nice to ring his ass for that. Theirs is a hard deck, ours is a suggestion, however not a regulated law until within a 5 mile radius of a controlled airport. So I remember reading. I still stay to the 400 ft rule just as a personal rule.

[fhhuber]

400 ft limit in USA is a hard limit for RC (now) unless "flown in compliance with an approved community based organization's rules"

AMA has aerobatics competition maneuvers that will have the planes going as high as 850 ft. (as defined by the top of the Pattern Aerobatics "box'" )
This 'box' has been defined the same way for over 30 years.

RC soaring (gliders) have commonly operated more than 1500 ft above ground since the 1960's and going above 2000 ft wasn't considered as anything other than a goal, because attaining high altitude equated to better duration in duration contests.
This essentially proves the 400 ft rule is simply unrealistic.

The origin of the 400 ft "rule" is FAA AC 91-57
I have no clue who came up with 400 ft... probably some misinformed person interviewed by an FAA representative at some model airfield near his office.
An AC is a glorified memo... AC = Advisory Circular. (This might be a good idea) It is not a regulatory document.
So the parts that made sense we paid attention to, but the 400 ft limit was generally ignored, except by certain clubs who operated in close proximity to airports.
That was fine for appx 34 years...

Then we had a sudden change in RC technology and pricing.
Higher capability models became available at greatly reduced cost and without the need to spend weeks or months to learn to build and fly them. 2.4 ghz (and other systems with ranges of over 15 miles) RTF package deals and electronic stabilization. Relatively low cost, clean, easy to operate electric power... and the quadcopters we now call "drones". Then add the FPV systems allowing controlled flight well past the distance the model would be visible to the operator on the ground.

People began flying through and above clouds where "see and avoid" is 100% impossible. (the full scale is unlikely to see a model in time to avoid and the model has extremely limited view through the FPV systems.
And people began flying these things doing obviously unsafe stuff, then posting the flight videos on YouTube.

There were some close calls with full scale aircraft.
There were some incidents of full scale + models including a collision of a biplane with an appx 40% model hovering near an active runway. (a few $thousand$ damage to the full scale and complete destruction of the model... 4 ft difference in impact point could have killed the full scale aircaft's pilot.)

I can remember AMA regulations limiting us to 10cc (total displacement on the aircraft) engines for any competition, 11 lbs (5 kilos) for most competitions and 28 lbs for scale (with FAI limiting to 11 lbs for international scale competition)
I can also remember radios that we considered to be outstanding that had notable unreliability and maximum useful range of appx 2500 ft.
100 mph models were rare except in pylon racing.

We are victims of success...
Our hobby used to be ignored by the government, because it wasn't seen as causing any danger to full scale aviation.
More people, flying more models, in more places, to higher altitudes and larger distances from themselves. AND for some reason people seem to think that 30ft wingspan RC is a goal...

Now, the difference between a hobby RC model and a military grade observation and attack drone is about 30 minutes of work.

[rifleman_btx]

I thought they did that but wasnt sure. But my above comment was the last I knew for sure. Glad I stayed with that 400ft rule. Lol

[fhhuber]

We have a good relationship with the airport appx 5.5 miles from our flying site.

They do not care if we take a plane to "speck" height (just a dot in the sky)
We watch pretty well for full scale aircraft.

The local Army heli pilots have surprised us a few times popping up after cruising low over the lake and suddenly appearing over the trees at the edge of our flying area... Trees block the sound of their approach.
We are actually about 1.5 miles outside where they are supposed to be practicing that stuff.

[rifleman_btx]

Oh and of course I can tell you from experience, the army has a way of increasing their training areas without warning. Because of such things I ended up with a torn up knee as a couple of higher ranked NCOs were making the decisions in land nav. We went through a swamp. 500 meters outside of our training grid. Told them 5 times this ain't right, but nooo, and who pays the price. Me... turn off those gps units, and they get lost in the barracks. Smh...

[Valkpilot]

We have a good relationship with the airport appx 5.5 miles from our flying site.

They do not care if we take a plane to "speck" height (just a dot in the sky)
We watch pretty well for full scale aircraft.

The local Army heli pilots have surprised us a few times popping up after cruising low over the lake and suddenly appearing over the trees at the edge of our flying area... Trees block the sound of their approach.
We are actually about 1.5 miles outside where they are supposed to be practicing that stuff.

I've got a similar problem, though it's geese, ducks, and hawks, not helos.

[F22trainer]

Oh and of course I can tell you from experience, the army has a way of increasing their training areas without warning. Because of such things I ended up with a torn up knee as a couple of higher ranked NCOs were making the decisions in land nav. We went through a swamp. 500 meters outside of our training grid. Told them 5 times this ain't right, but nooo, and who pays the price. Me... turn off those gps units, and they get lost in the barracks. Smh...

Even he published MTR’s (Military Training Routes) have no real ‘known dimensions’ for chart users. Except for takeoff and landing 500’ is the minimum altitude for aircraft operation over an uncongested area, 1000’ for congested areas (cities, towns, villages, livestock, etc.)
If you want explanations of differing defined airspace, I can help with that also. Class A, B, C, etc.)

[rifleman_btx]

There ya go!

[benjack71]

He could've been held accountable if any of us had pulled our head out of our butt and got the Number and turned it in.:(
It was so dam low whereas we were just stood shocked with disbelief.:Scared:
Am a good judge of height and that plane was definitely below 400 :Loser:

There is an actual working airport located approximately 1 mile from flying site number 3 at Muncie AMA site. Its Reese Airport 712.

https://www.funplacestofly.com/Airport-Info-Reese-Indiana

I was not there so I do not know if the guy was just making a low pass or possibly setting up for landing or maybe just took off from that airport. I knew there was an airport really close to the AMA site. You do not hear much talk about it since the "new rules" now.

[fhhuber]

As long as the modelers operate in a manner that doesn't cause issue for the full scale, the airport is never going to care.

It is legal to fly from an active airport with permission of the airport operator and proper measures to ensure no conflict with the full scale operations.
I used to fly with a club that did exactly that, flying models from the active runway (the only runway)

Its not hard to prevent conflicts.

[rifleman_btx]

Agreed, just have spotters and common sense.

[Twowingtj]

My club field, Binghamton Aeros, is located on a full scale private airport. Aside from full scale aviation, there is also a PPG school located there. We just use spotters and monitor the radio. We all play well together.

[Grossman56]

One of our fields was in Cowley, Wy. Right next to the small airport which probably had a plane land and depart 5 times a week. Never a problem with the airport. Big problem with the idiots who liked to drive their 4x4's on the field and chew the heck out of it. We got sick of dragging it a couple times a month and gave up on the field. Too bad, it was huge!!


About half a football field wide and three long, hard to tell from the pics, but it was pretty hard to fly and not be over the field!

The airport was just to the left of the benches and over an access road.

Grossman56