ALL the airspace over the U.S. was under the sole authority of the FAA. The addition of the Homeland Security Act has added another agency. Regular, or commercial use airspace is usually defined as any and all controlled airspace. Controlled airspace altitudes differ by their location. Under a flight corridor, near control zones and airport traffic areas, this airspace extends from the surface to about 60,000', if I recall correctly. In "uncontrolled" airspace I would think that we have a lot more leeway in altitude usage.

Regarding advisory circulars, they should be considered as rule. An example is the FAAs' "Airmans Information Manual". The vast majority of the contents is advisory in nature, but will be used as if it were a governing authority should there be any kind of accident or legal action.

Dealing with the FAA is something best left to those that know the system well. The AMA should become very good friends and supporters of the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association. They have a tremendous amount of experience and expertise in working with the FAA. They would also be able to provide us and the AMA with workable solutions to altitude restrictions. In many ways, we share the same interests.

Mr. Browns' column addressed some issues that I had suspected were going to surface for some time. With the advent of larger models and superior technology to what we had available 15 years ago, I'm surprised we haven't heard from the FAA and NTSB sooner. Especially in light of 9-11. We must restrict some forms of model aircraft flight and available technology. I am aware that small r/c aircraft have been used in agricultural spraying operations for a long time now. Without going into detail, I think you can all understand why that may need to be a specialized and separately licensed/regulated activity.

As a group, we must find a way to allow the flight of R/C gliders at greater altitudes. This will probably require that "special use" airspace be allocated for such use, and that advisory circulars be made available to full scale pilots that fly in the surrounding airspace. Don't forget that the protection of full scale aircraft and passengers has priority over any other form of aviation. A 120" span glider at 10,000' agl impacting the front of Cessna at the same altitude would in all probability cause the death of the Cessna's occupants.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm am in no way opposed to jets, large aircraft, or any other form of radio controlled or other types of flight, but I can easily see the need for establishing some better guidelines than those we don't have now if we want to continue this "hobby"

Although I agree to a point that Mr. Brown may have not been completely informative in his column, I do believe that the intent of the column was to give us, the membership, a real good "heads up' about things to come. In that, it worked quite well. I would not think that any rules or regulations have been decided on by the federal agencies yet, but I'm certain they are coming. We can only hope that we will be able to influence those regs in a manner that won't be too restrictive.