The rules for flying under AMA are about as basic as the lawyers allow. In this era of people suing for spilling coffee on themselves (the woman at McDonald's spilled it on herself... and its McDonald's fault? What kind of goofball stuff is that?) The AMA HAS to write stuff in a way to please a lawyer rather than in a way to make it understandable to the average person.

The basic rule is the same as it always has been... Don't purposefully do something that is inherantly STUPID. Just now... they have to more explicitely say... "This is stupid, don't do it."

They had to say... don't slap the tail on the ground doing the hovering. Why?.... the average Joe R/C Pilot can't handle it. He won't build the plane to handle the shock of hitting the ground hard with the rudder. He can't handle the controls like Chip Hyde and touch down light as a feather 100% of the time. There's all kinds of things that can break if you slap the tail on the ground too hard... and its a VERY bad time to lose the rudder or elevator. And... if the servo strips in just the wrong way, it can be frozen in place, trying to move, and can put a drain on the RX power pack that will melt the wiring harness. You have no control of the plane AT ALL if that happens.

Do we need more reasons to say its unsafe to do it? Do we need to see one of the planes go 100% out of control, pointed straight up full throttle (trying to recover from the bothched tail touch...) and not know who or what its going to hit?

Did I really need to explain that?