ORIGINAL: cj_rumley
ORIGINAL: Top_Gunn
A public airport, IMHO, means any airport that a licenced pilot has access to for flight. In Florida, there are a lot of ''privately own airports'' where residences that own the airport. Or the farmer that has enough land to have his own private strip. I am sure there are a lot of those in Cali too.
OK, but the question is why is the AMA's guy who deals with this issue talking about ''public airports'' only, when the law refers to ''airports.'' The provision in the law that's supposed to give modelers, or at least some of us, a sort of exemption was supposedly drafted by the AMA. The quality of that drafting does not inspire confidence. For example,
the law about something that ''should'' be done (agreements with airports in some situations). As has been discussed at length in other threads, laws saying people ''should'' do something are very rare. Usually laws tell you what you must do or what you may do. And it says nothing about what happens if the agreement that ''should'' be made isn't.
I'm glad the AMA is trying to help with this matter: nobody else is. Still, ....
The ''must do'' is giving prior notice of your intention to operate model aircraft if within 5 mi of the airport. The ''should do'' is parenthetical good advice that if followed would save the bother of having to do so every time you fly. Agree that use of ''should'' is rare in laws (and contracts), but in this instance it doesn't seem inappropriate.
Regarding Hanson's talk of ''public airports'' only, perhaps he simply read into the law what he wanted it to be.
cj
Laws that give good advice (or even bad advice) are rare. You may well be right, but the fact that the legislation even contains advice shows how sloppy its drafting was: mixing advice and rules is sure to create misunderstandings. My concern is that the FAA may use this language to impose very strict rules for cases in which there's no agreement. And while it's true, as another commenter noted, that the law contains no altitude restrictions, it seems obvious that the FAA rules will impose those restrictions, at least close to airports. The FAA certainly won't, and shouldn't, allow modelers to fly at any altitude near any airport, just by notifying the airport that they are doing that. Even full-scale planes can't do that.
You may be right about Hanson's wishful thinking. My main concern about airports isn't the big ones. The FAA isn't out to get us and controlled airports are likely to cooperate with reasonable requests. It's the guy with the private strip who may not want us flying anywhere near his house, or who may not even bother responding to our inquiries, who worries me. The result could be a 400-foot limit near private airports, even some that get little if any use. One airport within five miles of where I fly is a small airport (but big enough to have been on the sectional chart for a few years, unlike nine of the airports in my county). A local club flew there for a couple of years. I flew there myself dozens of times and never saw a full-scale plane. The owner kicked the club out after a while though, after a plane hit his house. Under today's rules we have no concerns about that field. If the FAA imposes a 400-foot height limit on RC planes flying within five miles of any airport unless the airport owner agrees otherwise, we could have a problem.