I haven't read all the posts, so it may have been said already, but if you don't impose rules on yourself, then somebody (mostly the government) will step in and impose them on you, and the result isn't always (or often) what you would wish.

Regrettably, or maybe not so, that's what life is about; people imposing their wills and values on others. Toe the line, or some AH will step in and force you to do so.

Having said that, I'm not for the drill sergeant approach, but as with any activity there must be a degree of self control/discipline. Nor am I for there being somebody at the field wielding the big stick, but surely every club/organization has a safety officer who can step in if things get a little out of hand. It's difficult to argue with that approach. The alternative is if a few flyers on the day see things they're not happy with, then they approach the offender/s with a low key counselling session. There are a number of ways to skin a cat, and for a club executive, it may be a fine line between 'assisting' and frightening off a new, if a little recalcitrant, member.

I hear what you say Eagle Al, and whilst I don't have an illustrious military flying background to fall back on, I do have 30 years flying experience, over 20 of that on commercial jets, and am a firm believer in the above philosophy; discipline yourself or somebody else will. If you operate outside the rules in civil aviation retribution is swift and hard, at least in this country.

As for teaching yourself to fly full scale, I don't agree. There would be very few, if any, places in the world where the instructor would take off and land only. Like so many things in life, flying is based on the "monkey see, monkey do" philosophy. You see it demonstrated and then try it for yourself; advanced aerobatics may be an exception, but there are a number of dual seat aerobatic aircraft so that the principle may be valid there also.

EA what is/was seen as the "right stuff" in military aviation is MOST DEFINITELY not the "right (or desired) stuff" in civil aviation, and I contend that the attitudes one should engender in model flying in a club or group environment are closer to those one would aspire to in civil aviation.

I agree with Broken's post above. This is essentially for newcomers to the hobby, whose enthusiasm may outweigh their ability and skill, and one would hope that those longer term participants are more than capable of regulating themselves without recourse to 'counselling' sessions by the club executive. Incidentally, I am not part of any club executive.

I don't see much, or even anything, wrong with Fastsky's club's requirements; it seems to me to be no more than formalising normal standards with documentation so there can be no conflict in the future about requirements, stated or otherwise. An organization has the right to determine a member's level of ability before letting them loose.

A similar thread ran a while on these forums some time back, maybe a year or more, regarding drinking alcohol whilst at the field. A club most definitely has the right to stop such activity...after all it's their insurance and reputation. Imagine yourself as the club president being called to give evidence where an out of control model, flown by an out of control (on alcohol) flyer, struck and killed a child. May be difficult to explain why, as club president, you didn't control such activities. That's not much different from letting just anybody loose with little or no experience to do a similar thing but not alcohol affected.

I also can't help but think there may be a little 'trolling' going on in a couple of the above posts.