why_fly_high

My Feedback: (19)

Crud, I guess Gunradd wins. That is going to be a tough score to beat. Let's go ahead and throw the law abiding AMA safety code following FPV flyers under the bus.

ravill

My Feedback: (11)

I think many of us can agree with this. We are much stronger united.

And what to do about all the FPV foolios endangering me wanting to fly my toy airplane out in the middle of no where?

If you are doing FPV stuff at the flying field, well that's one thing, but flying in and around buildings, people, etc.....Those guys are going to kill us in a hurry.

IF we are BUNCHED in with them.

Frankly, I think it would be cool to be doing some low flyby's under the golden gate bridge with my F4 and my ultra bandit. But what would that do to our hobby? Wouldn't it be endangering all of us if I did that?

Would you helicopter, foamie and glider guys want to be bunched up with me?

AndyAndrews

Or we can welcome them all with open arms and happily sink with the ship together.

AndyAndrews

I think it would be cool to create mini guided missiles out of Estes rockets, that use mini cameras and gps that I can watch with a HUD with a hood. They could use micro servos to steer little micro fins to lock on gps coordinates or even visually through a pointer device attached the HUD. The technology is already there to do this. But I don't think many people would think it was a good idea.

why_fly_high

My Feedback: (19)

No, we should not welcome them all in. Only the ones that are doing it properly, and set up a system in which people can be directed to do so. Most people I know doing FPV are doing it in the middle of no where not endangering anyone. Why should they not be allowed to do this? The FAA certainly needs to get control of the nuts causing the problems but a blanket ban on FPV is not going to do that.

AndyAndrews

That sounds reasonable to reasonably minded people. Unfortunately the FAA has been know to not be reasonable.

SushiHunter

Easier just to drop pipe bombs over a crowd from drone like copters. But I think the more probable scenario would be accidents happening like unintentional drone crashes while flying over people, houses, buildings, etc. that results in injuries, death, and/or loss of property from things like fire. Murphy's Law is in there somewhere I'm sure. Guy gets the idea to fly a drone over his neighborhood, crashes into a house which catches fire, a firefighter gets injured or dies when something goes wrong while fighting the fire. In such a scenario the guy goes from happy go lucky, not a care in the world flying his drone in an other than responsible way to getting into a bad situation in 60 seconds.

What's a GoPro weigh? Just waiting for one to come loose and fall from 1,000 feet up while over a busy city street. What are the damage capabilities in the case it hits someone in the head from that alt? Just waiting for it any day now in the news.

Fast forward to 7:27 when it starts getting really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6kEYdb4wQ

why_fly_high

My Feedback: (19)

My personal opinion is that the FAA got lazy on this. They don't really care about people flying foamy planes FPV out in the middle of no where. They want to stop looking bad with all the nut jobs doing dangerous things with multirotors and posting it on youtube. Just an outright ban on FPV is easy. The part about industry and paid demos is again laziness. They don't want to be bothered with what is truly commercial UAS and comercial hobby applications. It is easier to just say, "If money is involved, its commercial and you can't do it."

Bolshoi

My Feedback: (2)

There is a good point being made, AMA members, those who support and follow the rules should support one another. It begs the question, WHY IS THE FAA TARGETING THE AMA FOR INCREASED REGULATION AT ALL! Historically, the AMA (members) have done a fine job managing the hobby, it's this new, rather nondescript group of folks flying in public spaces that are obviously the problem, and the primary concern of the FAA. Because these folks aren't part of any organization, the FAA has no means of collecting data on them and therefore it's nearly impossible to regulate them. So the AMA members are being unfairly targeted, why? Because we can be. The FAA is attempting to quell the "drone" fears by grabbing the low hanging fruit, US! This maybe the message to send to the FAA, the AMA and it's members are not the problem! We're like the good child who gets yelled at because we'll listen and respond. It occurred to me that we're all on here being sometimes unkind to each other, while the jack offs who are causing the problem are still out there having fun at our expense, totally unaware that this conversation is even taking place. Just consider this- cheers

SushiHunter

Here's one that goes "falls" right to the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYYxZ7RKGc0

ravill

My Feedback: (11)

I wonder when we will see the fires being started on these vids or neighbors getting pissed off and shooting it.

Those vids are probably not surviving the fires!

SushiHunter

GoPro's are like Timex wrist watches, "takes a licking and keeps on ti.........recording",

Hopefully the individual who ends up crashing their drone will have set it up with enough recording space and battery power to record 6 to 8 hours worth of footage....enough to video record the entire incident, emergency response, trial and conviction.

AndyAndrews

Yeah but that's no were near as cool!

SushiHunter

We better be careful. I don't need any No Such Agency guys coming around paying me a visit.

falcon_56

More than the "line of sight" argument to me it is more about airspace, range and respect to private property

You do not see many with rc cars go into an interstate, travel between states, or park inside neighbors garages or yards without permission.

I would love to have a micro-fpv aircraft I can fly inside my house, out of my line of sight and without a spotter. On the same token, I do not want to be in an airplane after it sucks a 10 lbs quad into one of the turbines.

There has to be a middle ground somewhere

ravill

My Feedback: (11)

And its kinda ironic that RCU pretty much always has a quad copter special on the right upper hand corner.

These "drones" are selling.

And we are "paying" for all the stupid stuff people are doing with them.

jetpilot

My Feedback: (48)

there are so many awesome videos from these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yTX4kJmTeA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtiDPmjde94

jmodguy

My Feedback: (4)

From Steve on page 2
So sorry guys but I couldn't disagree more with many of Mr Violett's thoughts. Too many to mention but here are just a few.


I agree with this more than anything I have read on this subject. Especially item 5. Mr Violett is totally for this except where it affects his business.
As for ANY gov't agency, they use fear and control to move their agenda - Give them your freedoms a little at a time in the name of "safety" or "the children" and when you turn around they will all be gone...
Embrace new technology, bring back personal responsibility and get the feds out of our daily lives.

Jeff
Private pilot, Aircraft owner (E33A Bonanza) and builder (GP-4), 30yrs in RC community. 30+ yrs in aerospace industry, Retired Navy, bla bla bla

starcad

My Feedback: (7)

I'll tell you the moron that is going to ruin this for everyone. It will be the idiot with the shotgun that decides to take it upon himself to shoot down that drone and hits and kills the kid standing in front of him. Or, it will be the jerk jamming the signal causing the quad to impact on a car with the whole family inside traveling down the freeway returning from church on a Sunday morning killing them all. Yeah, go ahead and shoot them down idiot and you better hope they don't hit something or someone on impact. I have yet to read any reports of a drone hitting any airliner and for that matter lets look a the Florida incident. The pilot reported an R/C Jet. Not a quad.

We can all draw scenarios, these are mine. Quads and planes can co-exist at the field along with those that fly FPV. Resistance to park fliers was rampant several years ago and in some areas still is until those that resisted found out how "Cool" it was to fly in there front yard. Now almost everyone has one. The same thing with Lipo's, many resisted, now they're main stream.

BTW, I have yet to see a video of a Phantom with a lipo crash resulting in a fireball and mushroom cloud.

I give it about a year and good ole boy BV will be jumping on the bandwagon offering BV drones to the unsuspecting general public, He's only trying to protect his own interests.

AndyAndrews

Do you have something against jets? If so why are you here posting in the JET forums? The argument here is FPV not the type of model or the batteries used. And regarding the comment you made about BV, yeah he is trying to protect his interests. His interests are OUR interests. So take your sanctimonious crap somewhere else.

starcad

My Feedback: (7)

No Andy, nothing against Jets. Because this just happened to pop into my email. So what is your issue with FPV? So is FPV just another industry that has every right to exist. So, why not take an FPV flight and see what your missing? Maybe you'll learn something instead of crapping all over people when you don't understand what is going on.

DeferredDefect

To be honest, the fact the jet guys flying 200 mph,100 lb, kerosene laden and prone-to-explode-on-impact aircraft are not a threat, but are concerned that a kid flying his scratch built foam+tape FPV model weighing less than a pound is likely to cause some catastrophe is more than a little bit counterintuitive.

That being said, I have nothing against any form of modelling or flying, but accidents happen in all scopes of this hobby and the most inherent danger will always be with the heavier and faster aircraft.

Bolshoi

My Feedback: (2)

Counterintuitive? Not at all. The type of jet you are referring to is in the $20k range, and they require a substantial level of technical and piloting expertise to operate them. This sector of the hobby requires a huge investment and carries with it a substantial liability. Therefore, no one who is flying large scale jets takes it lightly or casually, not everyone is intelligent to be sure; but our community is very small respective to the park flyer/ foamie / quad community. In addition, we must earn a turbine waiver(license) and belong to the AMA (in the U.S.) in order to fly jets. It's nearly impossible for a model jet flyer to fly via FPV, lose control and crash and burn( Lipos burn much easier and more frequently) while remaining ANONYMOUS. Both the AMA and FAA know where to find us. Have you ever flown a large scale turbine jet? It's a whole different ball game. On the other hand, tens of thousands of anonymous quad copters flying thousands of feet, far beyond the line of sight without any accountability, requiring no training, no connection to any organization ; sky is the limit. This is the primary concern of the FAA for a reason. Flying a fast, heavy jet via FPV seems insane, whereas flying smaller lightweight FPV aircraft SEEMS OK, and THIS my friend isCOUNTERINTUITIVE! Can I get a + 1 from a fellow jet guy- cheers

DeferredDefect

Bolshoi -
I understand that there is a colossal amount of work to get into turbine models, which is probably a good thing. Usually the highest level you can "buy" your way into the hobby stops at the RTF 60 sized glow trainers, or a fast EDF. The skills and licences are doing a good job at making sure turbines are flown by experienced pilots.
However, that doesn't seem to be stopping accidents from happening. For literally months, the front page of this site was filled with countless threads detailing high profile jet crashes, usually FEJ models. Nobody can deny getting hit by an out of control turbine model, be it from a structural failure or pilot error, would be fatal.

Likewise, there's a lot of ways an FPV model can cause problems, as we've seen with people violating airspace restrictions, or coming in contact with a full-scale aircraft.
The technology itself is simply not dangerous, though, in the same way that R/C is not dangerous when used properly. There's no reason to regulate the technology when we should be persecuting those breaking the law. People have been using cars and computers to commit crimes, but we don't have the media begging for stricter regulation after a multi-state car chase.

Anything can be used anonymously in a dangerous manner. That doesn't mean that the object itself is dangerous, or responsible users should be demonized.

Edgar Perez

My Feedback: (13)

I knew FEJ was going to get us into trouble. Even the FPV guys know about them

.... Just Kidding