ORIGINAL: Gordon Mc
ORIGINAL: J_R
Why is it that a waiver holder can not go to his own local field, take along 10 guys with fire extingishers and 4x4s, and do his maiden?
He can, and wherever possible he does - but at his local field he may very well not have the nucleus of jet experience and talent that is available at an event. I kinda thought I had already covered that ?
Not every club has an enormous number and diversity of members, including experienced turbine waiver holders who can handle everyting from a fast sport jet to a very heavy scale jet ; not every clib has suitably experiened heli pilots, giant scale pilots etc. If Joe Blow has no experienced help locally, then it seems he must choose to (a) increase the risk by attempting his maiden flight without qualified help, (b) try to convince a more experienced pilot to travel potentially many hundreds of miles to come help him, or (c) travel to an event where he can get help from the substantial talent pool that is likely to be available there.
Are you aware that we get guys travelling down from Alaska to jet meets in California or Oregon just because they don't feel comfortable getting suitable help in AK ?
Additionally, as I know I have already pointed out, many of the events occur at fields that have substantially larger runways than the local field may have, so having that maiden done somewhere where there is more runway and more open space to deal with the unexpected is something that is clearly advantageous both to the modeller and to hte AMA.
How much of this is about safety and how much of it is about the dollars invested in a turbine? Does it have anything to do with the fact the pilot has, what? $3000 to $20000 invested in the aircraft?
That's a question whose answer will depend very much on the individual, but I can tell you for sure that the turbine community is sufficiently aware of how much DB and others would like to find an excuse to clamp down on us even more, such that we consider at least 3 aspects in the equation - (1) Reducing risk for safety reasons ; (2) Reducing risk for financial reasons ; (3) Reducing risk for political reasons.
Furthermore, IMO it matters less to me what a given individual's reason is for playing safe than it matters that he DOES play safe for some reason or other, by seeking out qualified help wherever he can find it.
What justification is there for Giant Scale or others to want maidens at events, other than money? Why not do them at a local site, away from crowds?
Same as above - the nucleus of talent available to assist the individual in having a successful and SAFE maiden flight. Any idea how many clubs don't have giant-scale experts that are truly capable ? I know there are plenty. The talent in these other disciplines may not be nearly as disperesed as is the case for turbines, but nevertheless I know of plenty people who have travelled hundreds of miles for such assistance. (Including coming to my old club during giant-scale events in order to enlist the assistance of 2 of Northern California's best heavy warbird pilots who typically did 2 or 3 maidens per day, after the event closed.)
Perhaps you'd rather see Joe Blow take off his first 200cc powered 55lb giant scale, out of trim warbird without suitable help, and stuff the aircraft into the pits, the nearby busy freeway, or take out the local birdwatchers or bikers (yes - there are "innocent bystanders everywhere - not only at events), but I'd rather see him go to an event, have 2 or 3 experts look his model over for anything that he missed, then wait until the event is done for the day and the crowds disperse, then have expert hands handle that first flight.
If pilots need experts to set up their aircraft, do the really belong in an event where there is a crowd?
I don't think you can make much of a case for allowing participants (not involved in the maiden flight) into a jet fly (or any other event for that matter), and spectators, along with thier vehicles, etc., onto the premesis and then do maidens. If safety were the prime concern, non-participants would not be allowed on premisis until the maidens are done. People should be at a higher premium than setting a fire on a ranking of safety concerns, at least in my opinion.
Perhaps you should try re-reading my prior posts, as it seems you have this one backwards.
I happen to be the one who has been advocating that it is safer to have the maiden occur out-of-hours
when the crowds have either not turned up in force yet, or have largely dispersed for the day, rather than allowing a maiden to occur in front of large crowds just because the CD has temporarily stepped off-site - which (judging from your posts) is what the AMA position amounts to.
Gordon