Like I said, his tolerance for risk is much higher than mine. Flying "mostly" or "primarily" over the water or sand isn't good enough. Loss of control by the pilot either by dumb thumbing or radio glitch was still possible, and there was a pier full of people and a busy road close by. As for it being a public park available to all, well....most if not all at this point have banned RC aircraft for obvious reason, the risk factor. This was a beach. Can the nitro guys show up next?

It's a safe bet that folk here would be howling (and one calling the pilot a "moron" or "idiot" as is common now) if this had been a DJI Phantom that lost control and injured someone, or caused an accident. Between that and the guys name of "troublemaker", the anti drone folks would have a field day.

Again, folks are free to do as they see fit, in this specific scenario I wouldn't have flown there and I'm fairly certain most folks here wouldn't. I doubt Franklin would! It seems to me that the standard is different here because it's a fixed wing aircraft rather than a MR.