Originally Posted by
wfield0455
My take from reading his comments was that he simply felt that FPV offered no real value to the hobby and that the only people interested in it were a bunch of dopes that were going to totally ruin model aviation for us all. The typical gloom and doom stuff that people drag out when talking about something that doesn't interest them and since it doesn't interest them, it should be banned because someone might abuse it..
I found his letter and a bunch of other writings of his on the subject of safety, and his thoughts seem cogent, relevant, and informed. I would characterize them as taking a professional's view of safe operations, and I see his letter as an extension of that thinking. I share his concern with FPV, specifically "see and avoid," as I do not see how it can be even marginally effective to the same extent that is expected of full scale pilots. Simply trying to determine whether traffic is of "constant bearing, decreasing range" requires the pilot of the FPV to point his aircraft velocity vector toward the traffic - which to me seems inherently unsafe. But that's just my opinion.