Originally Posted by
JohnShe
Unfortunately, the FAA did not specify the airport types and qualifications in the interpretative rule, but I think it absurd that just any cow pasture runway will qualify. However, it is remotely possible that some cow pasture operator might try to restrict operations. It will be amusing to to observe said operators failure to do so.
How many clubs have been refused under the three mile rule? By the way, I know of at least one club that operates on airport property (
http://www.binghamtonaeros.wildapricot.org/),ther e may be others. Do you think the airport owner will throw them off the airport?
The "three mile rule" (which is not in fact a rule at all) doesn't give anybody the right to prohibit model flying.The FAA's "interpretation" will give anybody who operates an "airport" the power to shut down all modeling activity within a circle of some 78 square miles. According to the AMA, there are some 17,000 airports in the US. Do you really think the fact that some airports allow clubs to operate on their property proves that none of the 17,000 people who operate those airports will ever try to shut down modeling without good reason if they can?
The problem isn't that all airport operators are bad people who will put the kibosh on modeling whenever they can. The problem is that giving 17,000 people the power to do that, without even giving a reason, is wrong. Why should they have that power? Even if only one of them does, it's one too many.
Thee bigger problem, though, seems to me to be the inability of some people to read simple English sentences. The FAA announces that any airport operator can say "no" to modeling within five miles of an airport. It does this as an "interpretation" of a law that says only that modelers must "notify" airports. And then people say that the FAA is interpreting the language of the statute "exactly" and that airport operators can only shut down modeling if that modeling is endangering the airspace. It's as if ordinary words have lost all meaning. Sad, really.