Paint Ball Shoot Down
 

The paint ball shoot down was posted in the June issue of AMA today. I know nothing about this event other than the image of the broken airplanes accompanying the article.


This looks like a really good way to cause a catastrophe. Where will that airplane go after it has been disabled by a paintball?

The real question is, should AMA be promoting this type of activity.

Maybe I am all wet here. What do others think about this event?

Jerry

My club does one of these every year. It's safer than at least half of the ordinary flying that goes on every day. The target is low and slow and on the far side of the runway, and if it's disabled by a shot I'll just chop the throttle. So far, it's been hit quite a few times, with only cosmetic damage. The plane we use has solid balsa sheeting on the fuse, and while a paintball can punch a hole in the sheeting, it will be liquid by the time it gets to the interior of the plane, so It can't damage the control system.

If you want an absolutely safe sport, there's always checkers. Shooting paintballs at a plane is probably a lot less dangerous than things like driving to the flying field.

Thanks for the reply top_gunn. It sounds like your club has a good handle on how to do this with minimum risk.

The real question is, should AMA be promoting this type of activity.

They do this at warbirds over Delaware, with electric foamies. It's a hoot, they even used potato cannons. They put about 30 foamies at once in a full out combat mode.

I have initiated same in my club's initial Fun Fly in February. It was a lot of fun. I was using some very old stuff, but then we used some small fast items in a bit close.
I use the paint ball pistols with 10 rounds loaded. Have a line of 3-5 pilots lined up with another one flying the airplane about 20-30 feet out. There were some hits and "repainting" but nothing made a hole in the coverings. Lots of crowd-cheering their man on.
I am a very conscious SAFETY person and I see no real problem with this playing. The pistol balls only go about 30 feet before starting to drop. Only about 60 feet until they are down with a 20-30* shooting up. While there were a number of hits, maybe 10-15% of the shots, no airplane went down or sustained any damage other than a change in the paint colors, like a redistribution of camouflage. :o

A paint ball shoot is not a safety issue.

Doing this is certainly no worse and in my opinion significantly safer than RC combat or pylon racing, just to name two long running RC events with good safety records. Zero fatalities in RC combat ever and two or three racing related fatalities many years back in various forms of pylon racing. Pylon racing safety rules have improved since those long ago accidents.

You are at more risk driving to the flying field than you are from an RC related injury accident.

http://nationalmodelaviationday.org/...ll-shoot-down/

Going by the damage and the type of airplane it appears that they were using higher powered paint ball guns. Our back ground and what we have seen often change our perception of things. The only paint ball gun that I have seen belonged to my next door neighbors kid. He wore padded clothing when he went to the paint ball park along with a hard helmet with substantial eye protection. Without protection that thing would bruise you at 30 feet.

There is a utube video that shows a real machine gun shoot down of model airplanes. It is fun to watch. They use all tracers. It is not promoted by AMA. That does not make it any less fun or any less valuable as a recreational activity to those that participate.

Years ago when I was in Vietnam I offered to pay 50 cents to any one that could hit my ucontrol model and I would collect 5 cents for each shoot fired. Would you believe that the very first shoot sheared the needle valve off of the engine without damaging anything else. The local Vietnamese machine shop made a needle valve assembly for that engine. The next time we tried this I did a series of square loops and random figure eights. Several of the guys were yelling "that's not fair". Safety is relative. Toward the end of my tour there the captain ordered all of the weapons checked back into the armory.

So much for my reminiscing. The question still stands unanswered.
Should AMA be promoting this type of activity?

Hossfly, you and Top_Gunn have a well controlled environment and if I were there No doubt I would be anxious to participate.

Thanks for your input.
Jerry

Yes, the AMA should be supporting this. It works as a fundraiser (have seen local clubs do it) and as a fun event. No downside to worry about when it is done with some common sense safety rules.

i think the replies describing how it has been done safely imply the positive support you are looking for.

this argument had been had more than once in these forums, and it really has never been proven to be a bad thing.
the executive council looked it over and decided to allow it as an AMA covered event, so, if you want to change that, lobby those guys.

If safety is the issue, paintball ranks way down the list of common hazards in model airplane operations. On a higher rung is the geezer that hasn't flown for at least the past 2 decades, having spent all his modeling time scratch-building a 40% Brewster Buffalo. Now it's ready for the maiden flight before the gathered throng at the 4th of July club picnic, and he has even spliced some replacement NiCd cells into his Heathkit R/C transmitter battery in making ready for that glorious occasion. Fess up, you know this guy or someone very much of the same ilk. Would you rather be on the flightline with him or the guys plinking at an old foamie trainer with paintballs?

If I had my druthers, AMA would can their whoopdedo for commercial and public UAS, and leave the model airplane paintballers be. Heck sanction modelers for pelting non-model UAS with paintballs, pumpkin cannons, scatterguns, T-shirts or what else AA flak they choose.

cj

I think it really depends


low powered foamie planes and low powered pistol style paint ball guns and sure, its a fun for all event that you could bring the kids out to and is likely a lot of fun in the right setting

bigger planes or higher power paint ball guns bring a couple of things that need to be considered.
- Where is the plan going to crash if it loses control ( I think this is more important here than other scenarios as your physically trying to bring the plane down in this event )
- where are the paintball "bullets" going to land should the miss the plane. with low powered pistols, probably not an issue, but many of our fields are in populated areas, and as your shooting into the sky you need to make sure that there is nothing down range of you. Probably minimal chance of serious injury, but I'd hate for some club to lose their field b/c some little old lady got bombard by paintballs 50 yards away...

personally I think it sounds like a blast if "cooler" heads are the ones running the show....

Mattnew,

Look at the June ama today if it is still around. The airplanes in the junk pile are not fomies. They are glow powered airplanes that have been pretty well destroyed with radios hanging by a thread. The damage could not have been done by a low powered pistol. All of the respondents to this thread that have run such and event did not describe anything like the damage show in those pictures. They described a fun low key event that offered little danger. The pictures show what appears to be a medium sized glow model that was likely disabled in flight.

The hobby does not need that kind of attention with all of the pressure that it is under now.

Jerry

Fortunately, planes that aren't hit by paintballs never crash.

Seriously, does it make any sense at all to suggest that people shouldn't engage in modeling activities that can lead to crashes? There's always plastic modeling (a fine hobby, which I engage in myself) for people who believe that.

If you are intentionally trying to crash something in an uncontrolled manner, should you be using a plane that has the potential to hurt someone. keep in mind, these events are at fly-ins, with spectators about... not you and your best buddy flying on a sunday afternoon with no one around.

like I said before, if its a foamie with a low powered pistol... great fun, especially for the kids... .40 sized glow engine though... what would that do to a 5 year old?


There is a difference between an unintended accident and an intentional crash.... the best analogy I can think of is if you drive your car intentionally into a tree, your insurance company won't cover you if they have reason to believe you did it on purpose.. if you drive it into a tree accidentally... your covered... while the outcome is the same... the cause and intent are different and because of this your responsibility in the event is different.




we tend to think in terms of bigger faster louder... and thats the danger here....big planes with big paintball guns would definitely produce much more spectacular crashes... ( cue tim the tool man here ) but at significantly more danger to the crowd... I think thats all I'm saying.... be smart about it....

The only question that matters is whether paintball shootdowns are unreasonably dangerous. The ones I've participated in aren't, and I've never seen any evidence to the contrary. Certainly a picture in Model Aviation of a crashed plane is not evidence of any such thing. Sure, the planes will sometimes crash. But that doesn't mean they are likely to hit spectators. The fact that people are intentionally trying to hit a plane is irrelevant, because it doesn't make the activity unreasonably dangerous. You concede this yourself when you say it's OK to do this with foamies. Car companies crash cars with dummies in them every day. Should they stop because these crashes are "intentional"?

If you don't want to do this sort of thing, by all means don't. But please don't tell me I shouldn't do it unless you can come up with some sort of evidence. Saying "definitely" is not evidence.

My problem isn't with the event, its with the size of the planes used ... if your participating in safe ones awesome.. show me where they are and I'll come join you. All I'm pointing out is .. the bigger the planes the more towards "unreasonably dangerous" the event becomes....You aren't going to hurt anybody if you shoot down a crack yak...

simply baffled ... you can argue either way on this with the same logic... the fact of the matter is you simply don't know and have no way of knowing until the planes hit the ground

people trying to hit a plane intentionally increases the likelihood of an uncontrolled crash...

When they start crashing cars on main street with spectators and people in the crosswalks I'll say something, until then while it is still in a controlled environment with everyone behind protective glass I'm ok with them doing it


Like I said before, I think it could be a great idea or a terrible one, it all depends on the execution and the people behind it.

Well, you're right about that. So isn't it sort of dumb to say that these events shouldn't be promoted? I've seen, and participated in, a lot of these. Never seen an injury, or even a close call. So I'm not inclined to start trembling because a model magazine showed a picture of crashed planes.

Mr. Mattnew, not posting your posts above, just another comment:

With the equipment I use in "Paint Ball" war, I have no fear of damage to people or equipment. That said I see more carnage at the flying-field on a week-end
than I have witnessed in a paint-ball shoot-out.
Now think on these items: (1) Have you ever been to one of those events where everyone brings a part of a broken model, they have a go for who, or usually a team that can make a flight first by patching up some parts. That is done every so often in this area and I have seen such event advertised in AMA's MA list of sanctioned events.
Now think on this: The AMA rules (Safety Code) are totally thrown out of the window because the Safety Code says that at any Sanctioned Event, models must have been previously tested for flight before entry into a Sanctioned Event. :confused: Yet AMA has - to my knowledge - never turned such an event away from sanctioning, or fired a CD for having such an event.

Sometimes - IMO - we need to turn around and check things out. Now my big NO-NO is the current DRONE thing and the problems with one FAA item. Drone fliers do not want to be restricted to line of sight. Many RCers do not want to have to advise the FAA when they are flying within 5 miles of an airport. Here we have two real Hazards in the current fussing - mostly FAA and Drones having to remain in sight. I do not fly close to any airport but did at one time. I support the FAA getting information about flying within 5 miles. If I have the opportunity to be in one of those build from scrap stuff and fly it, I will, yet I am probably the most hard-butted AMA Contest Director in the country. Sometimes one needs to make choices, and your choice is your business, 'Nuff said! :)