I just got this in my email concerning a soaring club in Visalia California. It appears that they have an altitude exemption in the works and that Tyler Dobbs at AMA was involved. The process is a bit slow but is in fact working. I won’t be contributing anything more to this thread except for when I find out that operations up to 2,000’ have resumed. Hopefully the thread won’t be flooded with petty bickering between now and then.


Fellas,

As you know back in 2018 the FAA issued new mandates for altitude limits for Unmanned Arial Systems (UAS) in controlled airspace. The CVRC flying field is within that controlled airspace in proximity to Visalia Municipal Airport. CVRC board members have just, this morning, joined and completed a Safety Risk Management (SRM) panel Zoom meeting to ask for a 2,000 ft AGL altitude flying clearance for our flying site.

After 5 hours of talks about risks to manned aircraft and mitigations to reduce that risk, it was decided by the panel to approve our request to fly to 2,000 ft AGL with certain mitigating actions to be implemented as well as a Letter of Agreement (LOA) with Visalia Municipal Airport and Fresno Air Terminal. Tyler Dobbs from the Academy of Model Aeronautics, who has helped many other RC clubs through this process, was present and helped us get the approval, however, the LOA has not yet been drafted and signed, this paperwork process will take approximately two months to complete. Tyler said that we should not hold any events with flying above 200 ft. till we get that document endorsed, as now we are on the FAA and Fresno's air traffic controls radar. If we are observed flying above the 200 ft. mandated ceiling before the LOA is implemented, we could lose our requested 2,000 ft. limit. Once it is implemented, CVRC can resume events as we have done in the past

I am very sorry for the late notice. I was hopeful this would not affect the Aerotow. We are considering rescheduling this event for maybe January or February 2022, what do you guys think, will you come in the colder months to beautiful Visalia?

Again, please accept my apologies for this, I know there will be many questions, so please let me know. I'll probably wait a few days before responding and then answer many questions in a group email. Don't worry, we'll all be flying together again real soon.

Thanks,

Tim Johnson