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Old 10-20-2013, 05:32 PM
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Jim Branaum
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Location: Fair Oaks Ranch, TX
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Originally Posted by SkunkWerkz
Really bugs me that this guys was flying within 100 feet of an active heliport. I am a commercial helicopter pilot and have been for many years.

As far as the charge of flying for compensation, anytime you are in any airspace doing anything for what in our FAA regulations calls "compensation or hire" which means if your getting paid, receiving beers for the work, getting any type of compensation, you must possess a commercial pilots license and medical certificate.

Point is, if I'm flying a patient back to the hospital and a dji flame wheel hits my tail rotor, I'm going down. We fly low quite a bit and i mean below 300'. Sometimes lower during an off airport approach and patient pick up. That's a 3.5 million dollar chopper going down over a 1500.00 toy. I myself fly a DJI flame wheel with goggles out of sight and I do it in parks where I know that one of my fellow pilots isn't going to be making an approach or flying below 500' which we do all the time because helicopters are allowed.

The reason they want a commercial pilot certificate is because one of the parts of that training is so that you learn airspace and their usage, types of airspace, flight altitudes and a ton of other safety information so you don't fly into other aircraft. How are you supposed to avoid other aircraft when you are only looking forward with limited peripheral view??

You cannot fly a UAV safely within other aircraft's airspace without flight following and separation from a tower or air traffic control.

I guarantee you that this will bring attention to the FAA as far as overall usage. Unfortunately, they have nothing better to do then regulate airspace and that includes rc aircraft. All they have to do is get enough complaints and be having a bad day and boom, recreational use of UAV's is gone.

Sucks but from my side, I feel we as full scale pilots have enough to worry about than a model whacking our choppers. There's enough damn birds out there to worry about!

Make sure you are operating within the laws. One bad apple can really screw it for everybody. Just my professional input.
QFT!

I don't fly choppers, but I hate the idea of being on an approach and this dude with his quadcopter or whatever decides to take pictures to get some job. You hit the nail on the head, there are enough birds out there to make life difficult and I don't want RC to be part of the problem.

My 'feeling' is that this guy NEEDS some cell time to let him develop some care and attention to details like safety.