Top_Gunn

My Feedback: (6)

I have no problems with your letter. But I'm inclined to follow the AMA's suggestion that we not start sending these letters yet, since the rules aren't final.

Please point to a statement I have made about the airspace that is even partially wrong. Certainly nobody has pointed to an error in any of those statements yet. (Someone else made a claim about flying over airports which was true only in Class D airspace, but that wasn't me.) I am serious but not particularly concerned about the possibility that the FAA may not use the geographic center of some private airports to measure the five-miles when the rule goes into effect. This isn't something I said after having been "proved" wrong, it's always been my position. I simply don't know what they will do. The FAA doesn't even use the geographic center for all purposes involving full-scale aviation. For example, the size of the class D airspace around some towered airports is determined by reference to the location of the ends of the runways; the geographic center just tells them where the center of the circle is and gives pilots a point to measure whether they're close enough to have to contact the tower. I'm sure the FAA determines the geographic center of the airports that go on the sectional charts. I'm not sure that they go to every backyard airstrip and determine their geographic centers. Maybe they do, maybe not. Nobody has even tried to "prove" this. The fact that there are latitudes and longitudes in the FAA's list of airports doesn't show where those figures came from. Major T says they do it by flying over them, which is impossible, as you'd have to know the boundaries of an airport to locate its geographic center, and you can't do that by flying over it. But why would they even bother if it isn't going to be on the sectional charts?

The "geographic center" question is a very minor issue, though. The major issue is that the FAA proposes to give all airport operators a veto over model flying within five miles of the airport, a proposal which, if adopted, will probably affect most club fields in this country, at least if they are concerned with complying with the regulations (I know some people aren't, but I didn't think you were one of them.). The time for commenting on the proposed interpretation is almost up, and most modelers aren't even aware of it. Some of those who are seem to think it's too early to worry about it. Hey, it wont affect us for a year or three, so why worry? You and others have claimed that this rule will apply only to airports on the sectional charts (some claims) or in the airport directory (one claim) or even only at airports with traffic control (a couple of claims). None of the people who have made these claims have cited anything in the law or in the proposed "interpretation" to support them. When I point this out, the only response is "you're wrong." It's like being in kindergarten again. If I'm wrong, give a reason or point to a law. I really wish someone would show that I am wrong: I don't want the rule that I think we're about to get.