ok, this is the kind of progress I was expecting, but I didnt want to be overly crittical from the start.
So, will it be every few months you make a call, or how does this work?

Maybe he'd get better results trying for FreeFlight in the park, and work up to E-Flight

Hmmm...that might be more like treeflight[X(]

OK, back to the story. Was contacted by NYCAviation.com this past weekend. They are going to do a monthly editorial on the progress of the field to help us acquire more assistance and more pilots.

Actually, the ban is over fifty years old, comes from the FF days...too many people getting whacked in the head by three pound Brown Junior powered FF models.
I've been kicked out of Central Park for flying FF there. They are actually very strict...if they see you, they will stop you, has happened to me every time, maybe five times, I have attempted to fly in Central Park.

How about an update STL? How do you do it?

So do we have to go to NYCAviation.com to see the monthy progress? I'm looking at post #26, and thinking I was onto something.

New fields don't happen overnight. It will take some time, I am sure, to get any positive results. Sometimes, with the "Now generation" influence, we seem to forget the reality of having to work for things.

Let it play out, then we can all poke fun or say job well done.



A monthly update would be nice though.

I don't think it's really a serious attempt to get a field, it's just an attempt to get attention.

Anyway...

Did you know Central Park has a really terriffic pond made just for model boats? With a boathouse to store them and all? Even a rental kiosk where you get rent an RC sailboat. It's really fantastic.

That's what I thought last month.
So we are just waiting for Progress Reports, not the finished field.

Why not take a look at the New SF Bay Club thread, they seemed to make calls, talk to property agents, talk to municipality, heck, they even were dealing with old military land.

Yet they posted progress. Even when that progress was being postponed, redirected, or catch22'ed.

Maybe we should get BigDano to get the NYC field up in a few weeks like in California... they both have way too many laws.

Not everyone is impatient, some folks buy balsa sticks & a roll of covering.



ET-
RC boats eh?
I'm thinking SpruceGoose!
Give that a shot. Show up with a SeaMonster60 or Duck or whatever float plane. Just taxi it around for laughs.

No gas powered anything allowed, but you MIGHT get away with a small electric seaplane. The pond is hemmed in by trees on all sides, though, and it's not that big for flying. You might run into problems with the Hawk Watchers, though(it;s a long story!) and the waterfowl...

Weren't you paying attention in the FAA Regs threads,
the birds dont get Right of Way under part91 !

HAW!!
I shouldnt have, but I did anyway.
I was guessing there was some No Gas/No Power hooey going on in the park. Thanx for the verification.

Could be, time will tell.

Haven't seen that thread. Sounds good though.

I'm thinking Hydro-Foam......

It will be interesting to to see if it works... Even more interesting would be if you could fly there WITHOUT ama insurance!!!!

A few lines away from the one you're looking at, but here's the URL

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3890135/tm.htm

Thanx for taking care of the link Abel, saved me a copy&paste.

IIR, the guys in there actually had their wife call the mayors office on her own.... or something along those lines... been a while since I read it. It is an ispiration to getting it done, even if I am opposed to the site they clubbed up (We used to fly there free, now you cant without paying us... clubbing up a free site)

Yup, and it's a good read, the best I've seen on RCU. Capsule summary: DETERMINATION
Wes De Cou had a good account of it in his Sept 06 column. It should have been the feature article in MA - maybe it will be.

Abel

Electric boats are fine, just no gas.
The hawks are living atop a building on CPW, there are usually five fans stationed around the boat pond with telescopes, watching the hawks all day. It's a big deal, and beleive me, anything that might in any way disturb the hawks, well...you would lose that argument!
Whatever FAA Part 91 says, beleive you me, these particular hawks have EVERY right of way to do whatever they want, or you will end up villified by Greenpeace and every major newspaper!
Whether or not they are affected by model airplanes, who knows, but certainly it's something to factor in to any model flying...what will the birdwatchers say? By the way, the birdwatching crowd is often very, very, wealthy, and very, very, well connected. Unlike the model airplane crowd!

If it wasnt NYC I would say they should just find some other hawks to watch.... but when you get rid of all but a few birds in like 20miles (no, I dont count Skyrats or gulls) you get zealous nature freaks.

I'm guessing we cant get RC Planes on the threatened list?
"Hey, models used to fly all over here, they are indiginous to the park, and need to be protected & nurished back to population levels pripr to the acts of Man (making them illegal)"

Well I have not been working as hard as I thought on the field, but I did one just as good, if not better to get more people/kids into aeromodeling. We've have just launched the first of 3 new The Hobby Quest districts in NYC. I'm also working with the EAA and the FAA to have our EAA's AeroScholars program integrated as part of the NYC core school curriculum which is about 50% done. That means that aviation classes will hopefully be available as a accredited core curriculum course for high school students after a successful launch recently into the North Carolina's school core curriculum. Unfortunately working hard on these new regions in NYC have been taking a lot of time, but these are all just stepping stones to getting our feet closer into the political doorway. But keep in mind, the project is still in motion and we still will be working hard to getting this thing going no matter what it takes.

Boy, you never stop with the shameless self-promotion of your for-profit program you are trying to sell to schools, do you?

In other words, nothing has been done.

The AMA Delta Dart program is better than "Hobby Quest" anyway.

Isin't there a limit on how many posts one person can do in one month with one commercial product, which is what Hobby Quest is?

Hey ET-

Not bad! Your most recent string of posts paints a pretty clear picture of the situation and the challenge it represents to finding accommodation for for model airplane special interests.

Abel

I was actually IN Central Park all afternoon today with my daughter. We went to the Beledere Castle overlooking the Great Lawn and all that...great stuff. I hate to say it, but it would seem to me that the City is basically right, in that there really isin't the room for model airplane flying...there are just too many people, too many other activities, too many other people(soccer and such) that want the fields...and no real way to control access so that model flying could be done safely. A one pound foamie beaning someone in the head would be bad...and there is no real place where someone could rope off an area so that people would not just lay down a picnic basket on your runway while you were aloft.
I don't see how or where a section could be cordoned off for model flying, and I don't think it's wise to fly without an area being cordoned off.
I remember about a decade ago meeting this Polish guy who was flying a pair of competition HLG gliders right in the middle of the Great Lawn in the summer. He was really good, he would toss them, they would circle around for about 45 seconds, and he would be running through great crowds of sunbathers and kids, stepping on people, chasing his gliders. It was funny, but really stupid, too.
When my daughter and I chase around a North Pacific glider or something, it's always like that, too. Too many people around.