ORIGINAL: ravill

Dragonpilot,

Well written sir.

Raf

ORIGINAL: bcovish



I have to disagree with these two statements.

We were flying turbines in Waco two weeks ago and the president of the Waco club came to me and stated that they have put a ban on turbine flying during "burn bans" They were not contacted by "cronies" as you stated. Remember what happened up there last year or was it the year before. It took eight fire trucks on scene to finally put the fire out.

As for as Seguin is concerned, they had there ban long before we did here in Austin.

Now Bomberfield
Yes at this time you can fly turbines year round at that field. Unlike Austin which is owned by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Dept, Bomberfield is a priviately owned (by one man) flying site. If a fire starts there it is his baby to deal with and not any government agency.

ORIGINAL: dragonpilot

Thank you Raf, just stating what is right. There is no reason for an argument or a trial.

If The JPO and the AMA have the educated foresight and knowledge to make and change their rules based on self-policing, This should be no different at club level.

The answer is a simple re-vote by only ALL WAIVERED Jet pilots associated with the club. It can even be done via email. It's simple.
A thousand pages of evidence to support one theory or the other isn't needed.

ORIGINAL: FTiano

What puzzles me is this. Aren't we supposed to help each other? Aren't we supposed to be a fellowship? We are already in the minority when it comes to modeling in general, at least as far as numbers are concerned. Yet here we are, discussing how to prevent one obviously bitter person from ruining the pleasure of others just because he feels that he isn't getting his way. We can talk all day about who did what in the past, what rules the AMA has and which ones are ridiculous, but the bottom line is that the majority of us think any person who wants to make it his "job" to insure that a flying club loses its field, is really off base. Why are we listening to his drivel?
Is this the kind of person you think deserves your respect? Perhaps this is not the proper forum for this, but in any other forum, in any other sport, anyone who publishes his intent to do harm to others would be banned from the community. Just as you would treat any trouble maker, whether he threatens your home, your hobby, your family or your livelyhood! There is no place for an individual like this in our sport! What kind of low life person makes threats like these? Anybody who does this sort of thing should be ashamed of himself.
FT

ORIGINAL: FTiano

There is no place for an individual like this in our sport!
FT

ORIGINAL: Gordon Mc

I don’t know if it’s still the case, but certainly until relatively recently the largest property damage claim that the AMA ever had, was reportedly for a fire. A fire started by a free-flight model.

The largest and most spectacular fire in the history of a club that I used to fly at, was caused by a glo-powered helicopter. Took something like 50 firefighters, 9 or 10 fire tenders, a bulldozer, and a CDF fire-fighting helicopter to put that one out. (And they had to come out TWICE, as it flared up again a few hours later).

The firefighters that came out for that one told us that a week before that, an equally large fire was started just a couple of miles away – caused by an R/C car.

I have witnessed several other cases where the reason that a fire started by a non-turbine model could not reach such epic proportions, is that there were turbine pilots present who were able to use their extinguishers to put those fires out – extinguishers which would not have been there at all if there had not been turbine activity at the club on those days.

The point I am making with the above, is that fire risk from non-turbine models is NOT as low as many people would like to think, and having the turbine guys present during “high fire risk” days has saved the day a few times – just because we are at least partially prepared for fire whereas the modeling community at large hides behind the “it could never happen with OUR models” myth.

I’m all for the turbine guys having voluntary no-fly times at clubs with high fire risk, as it can help with the community relations that allow turbines to be welcomed at a club. With that said, I believe that if the club decides that there should be a rule saying “no turbine flying during burn bans”, then perhaps they really ought to also add a requirement that fire extinguishers be present when non-turbine models are flown during such high-risk times. And what about Li-Poly’s ? Should those be used during a burn-ban, given their higher propensity for burning when punctured on impact ? Not only would a comprehensive solution to minimizing fire risk improve safety for the club, it would also reduce the risk of seeming political.

Fire from turbines DO happen, but they are not the “almost sure thing” that a lot of people seem to think. Several years ago, the fire risk was much higher than it is now, but improved designs, improved pilot education, improved regulations (failsafe shutdown, banning of plasma bags etc) etc., have all made turbine accidents considerably less likely to result in a fire than used to be the case. Unfortunately, we have not done a good job of educating others about this improvement, and so many “outsiders” still view turbines in the same way as the models from years ago.

There’s a cliché about “Perception IS reality” that comes to mind … if the modeling community at large thinks we are dangerous, then we have to fix that perception, not just keep fixing the reality.

Gordon