Originally Posted by bruceal

I'm the president of the Hudson Valley Radio Control Club in Haverstraw, NY. Earlier this year Rockland County passed "drone" legislation. As soon as we were made aware of what was happening, we set up a meeting with the legislator who drafted the bill, and the Rockland County Sheriff that thought it was neccessary. They both had valid points. The legislator wanted to protect people's right to privacy and the sheriff cited an incident in Florida where a "drone" was used to drop contraband into a jail.


We pointed out that our club flies within LOS, and that we are not the ones peeping in windows or performing illegal acts by the jail. Now at this point in time there has never been a reported incident of any of these activities. They agreed that our club is indeed an asset to the community. Every year we put on an air show for the public and buddy boxing is a big part of it. We even get the County Helicopter to show up and be put on display. The Town of Haverstraw is heavily involved and gives out free hot dogs and drinks to the people. This past August they gave out 1100 hot dogs and we buddy boxed over 100 kids.

When I started this club, my goal was to be a friend to the community. And being involved with local politicians I find that this is the right approach. We operate off of a closed landfill overlooking the Hudson. We pay the Town nothing and they pay for our bathroom, advertise our air show, provide free food for the event (they even cook and clean up) and even sponsor the Guillow Gliders that we give out at our event.

Awhile back I got some heat on these forums because our club didn't allow FPV. Well, we still don't. We are across from a large marina, County park and an active heliport with real helicopters. Our field is just not a good fit for FPV and we let the lawmakers know it. And I'm glad that we did; earlier in the Summer a "drone" crashed next to a nuclear power plant that we just happen to be able to see from our field.

Let's face it, we really weren't much of a problem until the "drone" phenom started. Now we see lawmakers looking to ground anything that flies via remote control. And after Christmas things will be 10 times worse! What can we do? All we can do is to keep promoting ourselves in a positive way, and get lawmakers to crack down on malicous activity and not the hobby as a whole. This is a never ending process, but neccessary to the survival of the hobby.