Originally Posted by
Thomas B
I guess I do not see how FPV aircraft operated under the current AMA rules for FPV would be any more dangerous than any sort of normal R/C model at your flying field. With a decent FPV spotter, it actually might be safer flying FPV at your flying site than it would be for a guy to fly a normal model with no spotter to keep an eye out for the local heli traffic.
Flying FPV does not automatically mean that you fly away from the normal confines of your flying field.
Safer possibly, but proximity to neighbors is a big issue as well. People outside the hobby don't want to see a large flying insect with a camera mounted underneath flying over their house. It might be safe but it might get your club shut down also.
The pilot flying FPV only has a view to the front with limited side to side and up and down. The demos we have seen demonstrated that the primary pilot was not fully aware of his proximity to obstacles. I feel you are correct that a good spotter would help keep things clear, but remember that the spotter with LOS must be able to fly the aircraft also. This is a limiting factor at some clubs where multi-copters are not the norm. Also, if you are moving to FPV after a long time in the hobby, do you really want to have to rely on a spotter every time you go up?
Some of the autonomous features of the multi-rotors are great in that they return to take-off point when losing a signal or on command from the pilot, so if we could get them to stay in the normal pattern and 3D maneuver area I think we could make it work much like we have with heli's. A lot depends on the actions of those pursuing FPV flight at excisting clubs.