Silent-AV8R

At the very least let's hope the Mayans were wrong!!

alanrw

The way I heard it was when the Mayans carved out the dates on the stone tablet, they got to 2012 and just ran out of space.



alan

JasonP

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Man
What a great day it was at the Basin.
I have not been there for a while. I sure did miss it though.
Good to see all the guys too.
Perfect weather. 5 miles winds from the south.

Jason

scale only 4 me

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Jason,,
I flew out there in November, was great to see and talk with Rob Janiger, he had that little Jet. I do mis the basin,, Especially this time of year. I'll be back out in April if not sooner.. Hold down the fort for me..

Cya, Tom

alanrw

Here is an op-ed piece in which the author advocates that we have licenses to fly our rc aircraft. Hmmm, I would prefer we first start with driver's licenses for all drivers, enforcing no cell phones while driving, and insuring that all guns never be used in the comission of a crime. I wonder what color the sky is in this guy's world?

Of course, we could also outlaw all cameras. Wouldn't that solve the problem as well?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/..._story_display

alan

undare

Perhaps he meant that hobbyist should have AMA license and that is perfectly legitimate…after all we are playing with very low end sensitive electronics and anything may go wrong with these gadgets and having an insurance does not hurt anyone of us, unless the person is careless and reckless which most hobbyist are fun guys joined the hobby to enjoy it and elevate their skills.
As far as the sky I am sure the sky in his world has the same color as yours and that too is perfectly fine.

alanrw

The problem is that when the government gets involved, it is never as simple as just joining the AMA. There are numerous examples of government mandates that have gone so far over the edge in the pursuit of "making things safer for us". The problem is that when a bill passes, somewhere buried in the 2000 pages of the bill is a paragraph which will end up costing us money or a requirement that is almost impossible to meet.

Demonizing rc airplanes is about as stupid as demonizing anything else the bad guys might chose to use in their particular quest.

As for the guy who wrote the op-ed piece I referred to, it is pretty much a safe bet he has never been to an rc field or can tell a transmitter from a receiver. So he has no dog in the fight here.

And let's be perfectly clear here. If a bad guy wants to use an rc plane for some nefarious purpose, do you honestly believe that instituting a mandatory licensing program will deter him from trying to fly a ducted fan F4 into the national capital?

alan

undare

Alan, sorry I did not see the link, however, I did read the article and I too have reservations if the skies are wide open to the public…after all our airports were very liberal and we suffered tremendously. Don’t forget there are many whack jobs out there and I am sure you and I cannot identify them, however, it will take one nut job to do the bad deed and the rest is history…! I don’t mind certain restrictions as long as we can create some additional security. Perhaps we can discuss this matter further in details in person next time when we are at the field and I am sure there will be a lot that we may agree on or disagree…and that too is perfectly fine. �

ira d

My take on the article is he is talking about non recreation use of rc planes and there is heavy regulation on the horizon for that type of craft. Also there will soon
benew FAA and AMA rules for us that fly models for just recreation or sport.

alanrw

I think the core of the problem here is that all law abiding citizens will fly their models in a responsible manner. We are not the threat. But instituting a license which will probably have a few surprises in the verbiage of the bill instituting all of the above will do absolutely nothing to make the local skies safe from the bad guys.

I have yet to see a terrorist say "oh wait, we can't do that, it is against the law" which means the law does absolutely nothing to prevent what it was drafted to prevent in the first place.

I have seen first hand how these bills work and don't be surprised if there is a fee so you can annually register your radio or a fee for a backround check if you want to fly a model over X pounds. There is no bottom to what well intentioned legislators can come up with. You could also see a levey placed on all rc model airfields as a means of helping to fund the new RC Security Administration.

If this seems extreme, just think about other newly initiated government programs and administrative bodies. The examples of new fees and ridiculous rules are many.

alan

saramos

The core of the problem is not the government. The government just passed a bill that President Obama signed telling stating that there be no regulations over recreational model aviation that is conducted under a nationwide community-based organiziation guidlines. The problem is that there are people such as the author of this OpEd who are either ignorant, or lying for some agenda that he sees as being served by scare mongering. I think the best approach is to bring this to the attention of a nationwide community-based organization and urging them to respond with their own OpEd.

scale only 4 me

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Expecting them to Actually do research and mention "Facts" within a story,, come on,, that's old school

The Times has been a terrible paper for over 20 years now, It's full of the worse lazy reporters out there. It's just one big Opinion page from front to back,, you'll never read an unbiased objective story. Unfortunately that's more and more common in the news industry today,,Sad really

Their agenda,, yes they have an agenda, it's to sell papers, If they have to frame everything as Black/White Racism, Terrorism, Corruption, Sex,, what ever sells, so be it.
I remember when it was to tell the whole truth, and let the reader decide

alanrw

I agree with the last 2 posts. I think you guys are right on the mark. Obviously, the author of the op-ed piece knows absolutely nothing about the rc hobby and wrote an article that was biased.

I couldn't help but wonder if terrorists switched to rocks and bottles, would he advocate the licensing of those objects as well?

alan

saramos

Better yet, ban golf clubs because they could be used as a weapon. That way, we could incrase the size of our field down at the Basin!

alltumbs

OK ........ Now you've gone and done it. That's going too far. Keep your hands off my golf clubs !!!!!

Bob93447

No it isn't. Just ask Tiger Woods!

BasinBum

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Hello everyone, long time no see! I get out of the hobby (to pursue another activity) and this thread seems to dry up. I do check into RCU occasionally and I was wondering about something lately........

With the acceptance of Spread Spectrum radios and that based on my last visit to the field they are the majority of radios now.... do people still blame 90% of crashes on "being shot down"? I can't count the number of times that I watched an inexperienced pilot with an overly advanced plane like an Extra pull too much elevator and cause a high speed snap resulting in a crash only to yell out that they got "hit". Combined with dumb thumbs, loose connections, bad batteries reused crashed receivers and all sorts of other user errors that were all attributed to being someone else's fault or worse yet the "black hole" out towards the big tree that just happened to be on the down wind turn for approach to a landing.

With the majority of that excuse being negated with SS what do people now blame for a crashed plane?

Live Wire

Brown Out

GoeKeli

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Hey old friend, how you doing?!!! I flew my foamie 3 days last week. The basin is better than ever. Hope all's well with you.

Kmot

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Looks like the writing is on the wall for internal combustion flight at Sepulveda Basin. [&o]

scale only 4 me

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Tom, that's a trend all over,, more and more guys are flying EP these days, especially newbies, shoot I have several myself, our club even has a EP only field. But what makes you think gas/nitro is going away for good?

BasinBum

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Joe! Been wondering what you've been up to. Glad to hear you are still flying. How can the Basin be "better than ever" without Rex using his frequency scanner and yelling about someone's flag being up for several hours, was anything more entertaining than that?

I'm not surprised by the results of that poll and the decline of Nitro which was getting more expensive and always made a mess of your plane. Gas and electric and of course turbines have become more economic and available so it makes sense. Are the war bird guys still at it?

I am surprised at the lack of responses to the Basin thread and figured there were no English speaking people left at the field to participate in the thread. Glad to see that is not entirely the case.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

I do not think gas/glow is going away for good. I think the results of the poll show that it will become less and less popular and instead of hearing the great sounds of an IC engine putt-putting or a tuned pipe howling, we are only going to hear the Dremel like whir of electric motors. I have a few electrics myself but I will always prefer the traditional model airplane engine that uses glow fuel.

rcphotog

Hey Richard,

that's soo funny ! I haven't heard that one in years ... use to hear it all the time ! ... the DREADED downwind turns ....LOL

I miss all those antics at the Basin.

Ken.
ps; I hear that the "rude-squadron" has all but disapeared. Allways spectacular crashes with those guys.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Hey you Basin 'ole timers,,, I was surfing and found a old shark that's still lurking

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1617826

hard to believe the guy has the guts to show his face anywhere r/c related,, thank god for 2.4