Originally Posted by
H5606
I'm an AMA member because I belong to an AMA chartered club.
Times have changed; there was a time we would have liked to have recovered lost models...
At the risk of having fingers pointed my way, I honestly believe I share the silent thoughts of a majority that would not want to share a unique identifier on their models.
Last time I had a fly-a-way was due to stupidity assisted by impairment and flying in a place I shouldn't have been; I was tempting fate by flying into and out of a low cloud layer. Now-a-days, genuine fly-a-ways are very unlikely but I set model failsafe to crash as expeditiously as possible like I'm sure many do anyway. I certainly wouldn't want to be bothered by the worry of a lost fly-a-way even if it landed unscathed. Would you?
Why would you want anyone - say a local farmer to discover your model in his field then report this find to FAA authorities and have them show up at your door because of a unique identifier?
The problem is not the farmer reporting the plane to the FAA ... a fly-a-way is not inherently illegal of itself. The bigger issue is did the plane do any damage and are you covered? The law is to have the sticker and not having the sticker gives your home owners insurance company an 'out' because you are flying illegally. So now, the claim
falls back to the AMA secondary insurance which may or may not cover the claim. That is yet, as far as I know, to be determined whether AMA insurance will cover an
incident where the aircraft was not registered or, registered and not labeled.
I asked my home owners ( Erie ) if they covered and there answer was if the plane is not registered and is being flown as a hobby it is very likely they will not cover the claim. They would likely consider it an illegal incident and not cover it. It would be up to the agent at the time. Any commercial flights and certainly they would not cover the incident.
Just as important is that not all home owner policy's will cover the RC plane. Erie happens to consider it a model so it comes under the H.O. policy. Other companies may consider the RC plane an 'aircraft' and in that case the H.O. policy probably would not cover the incident. Best to check with one's insurance agent to make certain if their H.O. covers R.C.