I am a full scale pilot for a living with 35 years of experience. I have been flying RC for 37 years.
Well Bryan, fellow pilot, I got you beat! I have 40 years of General Aviation and 51 years of modeling experience. I also have something no one else has. I was a private investigator for 15 years. I also owned and operated as chief pilot, Island Air Tours. Most of this was bush flying. That is, remote flying with no airports. I had a seaplane.
I'm not measuring anything here, I'm just explaining my back story. I've had first hand experience with the FAA, towered and non-towered airports, grass fields and plenty of lakes and rivers. I go back a long way and I, personally, have had flying incidences.
One of which was not having my gear landing light read green. My gear would not lock, in fact it was loosely swinging. I had lost all the hydraulic fluid in the gear lines.
My tie down was at a major airport. My predicament allowed me to "own" the runway. I had commercial jets in the pattern waiting for me to make my decision. It didn't take long for me to realize, just a couple of passes actually, that there was no place on the grass shoulder for me to make my landing. I departed for a more favorable airport. One with a grass strip. The story is long, but the FAA was understanding, helpful, and kind. They could have made my life miserable. The FAA knew the kind of pilot I was and this makes a difference.
I think their position is going to be that there was careless and reckless operation by the full scale pilot irregardless of the collision with the RC aircraft. There is no way that a high speed, 40 foot altitude for the length of the runway pass, SMOKE ON no less (hey y'all, watch this!), is going to be considered a normal go-around, missed approach, or whatever. Especially with a crowd standing right next to the runway. And it's on film. He will lose his license for some period of time.
Absolutely not. The pilot, and you don't have to keep saying full scale pilot, there was only one "pilot" involved. The other guy, is just an operator of a R/C model airplane.
The pilot made his intentions clear by making his first pass. He made his second pass because his first pass went unrecognized, the spectators stayed. Also, and without seeing the video, my guess is the pilot didn't make his pass over the runway, but to the side farthest from the spectators. As any trained pilot would do. Hey, I'm not omitting that the pilot may be an idiot, that's possible and remains to be discovered.
Many pilots have made high speed passes down a runway and then called it a "missed approach", but everyone knows he is just having a big time. And, well, it is fun. If the story gets out to the feds, the story is "well I was just doing a go around" and it's he said she said as there is no hard documentation. Of course they are never stupid enough to do it at an airport with a control tower.
Here's how this works. When the tower tells a pilot he has permission to land, "they, the tower ATC," are giving the runway to the pilot. This means, at the pilot's discretion, he can land or change his mind. I've been told I could land but then did a go around. You don't have to explain why. You can do a low fly by and say. "Good by I've changed my mind." Also, no matter where I flew to, I had to take off and return to a large metropolitan airport. The runway was 15,000 ft long! Where do you think I put my airplane down on, the numbers? then do what, taxi 14,500 ft to my tie down. No! I flew the airplane down the runway and landed 3,000 feet from the end. The tower doesn't care if you do a fly by. Hey, my high speed pass/flyby is 147 MPH! That's slow motion compared to their day at the office.
The FS pilot needs to repair his left lower wing,
The AMA could get out of this unless they sanctioned the event? Should be something in writing. My guess is there will be a civil lawsuit against the operator of the R/C model, as the defendant, The plaintiff is the pilot. He has damages. Also keep in mind, this is on private property and the pilot lives here and owns the field along with the HOA.
The RC community has the most to lose.
Well, there you go. Ya think?
Basically, if we regulate ourselves adequately, then the feds don't have to.
How long have you been in the hobby? Did you see or read what I said about loosing flying fields because of behavior? "Regulate ourselves adequately." I've seen this, yes, some of us do. But what about that small percentage of individuals that couldn't care less? The small percentage that brings adverse attention to all of us and this great hobby. It only takes a few and ALL Clubs have a few. Correct?
The main thing to be learned here is that one RC'er can cause grief to the entire community if there is a high profile event.
Gee, isn't that what this whole thing is about? Remember the report? "after the pass the R/C operator brought his model back onto the runway and continued to hover." Or something like that. This guy displayed total disregard to the pilot of the aircraft. This you will see in writing and, most probably, the word "disregard" will be used.
Something else to think about. The FAA has some smart and ambitious people working for them like any organization does. Many of them are young and technically literate. Imagine the evidence they could complile from our own internet forums from just using cut and paste. "Those kinds of fliers are dangerous!" "No, those guys are unsafe!" Two days of research and they could go to their boss and say "Gee, boss, even these guys consider themselves unsafe. Here's 4,720 pages of safety issues in their own words. How about I write some new regulations and get a big promotion?" Something to think about.
The FAA doesn't work like that.