RE: FAA Regulations!!!
Let’s be realistic. The real battle is between those of us who fly remote control aircraft by DIRECT SIGHT as a hobby and those COMMERCIAL interests who fly through the lens of a video camera. We have to impress upon or rule makers that we are not the threat to manned aircraft that autonomous robotic aircraft are. The fools making amateur movies for Utube have confused us with them in the public’s mind. The most important thing we can do is clarify this issue to our legislators and anybody else we can convince to make a call, write an editorial, send a letter, fax, or email in our favor. We're the government and we're here to help you is no joke. Since 9-11 we are fast sliding toward it’s no longer permitted unless specifically prohibited but instead strictly forbidden unless specifically permitted.
I've already written to my newspaper, legislators and net sites. My results so far is to be ignored by the left wing paper in Portsmouth, NH that has never seen a law it doesn’t like, surprising silence from my legislators who have always responded in the past and to be put on "monitored status" from some aviation sites I subscribe to for posting off topic. Interesting to hear your Senator rationalizes these proposed restrictions on model flying as a national security issue since the AMA and some in the model community are denying that excuse.
This is nothing more than the usual mass stupidly of punishing everyone because of a very few idiots who do questionable acts but are difficult to apprehend. It never ceases to amaze me how many of us are willing to sit back on our haunches and simply let the "authorities" take our freedoms away. Why wait until some unelected faceless administrators have already made up their minds and published their proposals. After working 26 years for the government I can assure you it’s a lot easier to influence a ruling before it’s gone through committee than change it later. With a large enough ground swell of indignation we might be able to sway any proposed limitations in our favor.