Here's a link to contact your "public servants" in DC to vent your frustration.

http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/

Mike

I have to agree with you there.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I've been in the hobby since I was 14. I'm now 69. I've put a freeze on all r/c related buying, building and repairing until this unfolds completely or I decide what I want to do. This whole thing is so bizarre.

In my entire 55 years in this hobby I've never heard of an incident involving an r/c airplane and a full scale aircraft where the r/c airplane was at fault.

A few of my friends have decided to just fly small foamies, but I find that demeaning and insulting.

Nice, as if there is something insulting or demeaning about flying a foamy. Wow, talk about bizarre.

It's a registration, not a request for a firstborn. That people would leave the hobby over it is unreal.

I did not intend to infer that flying foamies per se is demeaning; I fly them too. However, I will not consent to be relegated to flying only them and I am vehemently opposed to having to register to participate in a hobby I've enjoyed for 50+ years without incident.

As stated by hairy46, this is the tip of the iceberg. It is not just registration. It is an unjustified and illegal power grab by the FAA. I know you are well aware of the issues involved as I've seen in your many posts on the subject.

I am aware, mostly of my own choices. I won't chose to abandon the hobby I enjoy so much because I have to register as a pilot. I've never had an at fault motor vehicle accident and I don't feel the need to register and pay taxes on my car (every year I might add, thanks CT) and insure it, but I don't feel like walking so..... I am also not going to cherry pick the rules and laws that I will abide by, it's not a cafeteria setting where I take what I like and leave the rest alone. And to be clear, I'm not inferring you are or will, just drawing some comparisons. I am shocked at the Anti AMA and FAA rhetoric and downright tin hat level conspiracy theories that have popped up. Money grab for FAA? Power, over what, foamies? FAA agents coming to ramp check my Multiplex Mentor? Tip of the iceberg there is far worse coming down the pike, just wait and see stuff too. And I'll give in for one second and say o/k, 3 years down the road the fee goes up...o/k, and? Should I stop doing what I enjoy because of what might happen years from now, based on what others are sure is going to happen, but have no evidence of this? Madness I would say. Even if the FAA did want all of this control, wouldn't packing it all in and leaving be giving in to their control?

I don't get it, I'm going to comply and keep flying, that's the best revenge. :)

Love the pics in your gallery btw, those triplets are mightyfine!

Honestly I don't fly foamies won't fly them because they just do not do it for me, most of us know that this is a power grab and it's just a short time before it escalates! Head in the sand won't help on this one, the drone folks are going to keep doing what they are doing and we will keep getting punished for it.

Hairy, years from now when your common sense predictions come true, these folks you are attempting to reach will claim that NOBODY could have predicted a day would come when you needed to take 8 hours [let's say $160 worth] of mandatory education classes every year so that you could pass your mandatory FAA administered Model Plane Pilot Licensing Exam that costs an additional $200 or so..

I have to agree with you you guys. Anyone who thinks this is going to get better is a fool. Enjoy the hobby while you can.

Mike

True story... within the last two weeks i was told by a full scale pilot that flies " or did" a G5 for a living, what happened in the skies near Rochester,ny ... the primary runway for Rochester international runs north south so when landing to the south the airlines use a pattern that takes them to the east of the city and over lake Ontario . A delta airlines was in the pattern at 2,500 ,i assume on it downwind leg , when either the airliner passed or the drone flew past the cockpit. The state police showed up at the local hobby shops looking for the owner . This is mostly why we have the law breathing down our necks. I thought that AMA should have pushed for an agreement with FAA to have it unlawful to fly any R/C aircraft outside a AMA chartered club. Instead everyone gets thrown in the same basket as far as regulation goes.

Arghhhhh....THE END IS NEAR....ohh the humanity....hide your kits, hide your balsa, they are coming to take us away. The dreaded arfs and foamies have won!

Some will continue on enjoying the hobby while others pine away for the good old days, fondling their precious balsa kits, all the while projecting every calamity possible that might happen in the future. Even when tragedy fails to rear it's ugly head, the doomsday predictors will find a way to take any bump in the road as a further sign of impending doom. It's juuuust around the corner. That day will never come, but that won't stop them from secretly wanting it soooo bad, just so they can pull themselves away from the balsa to say...see, I told you so!

Meanwhile, the hobby continues forward adapting to the times and change, while those incapable of it continue their march to obsolescence.

;) Yep , foamies are just like mopeds & fat chicks , fun to ride when ya friends ain't watchin .......

:cool: Kidding ! just figured you could use a good laugh this early in the AM .

MY favorite use for foamies used to be night flying . I'd string more lights on em than the average Christmas tree has , and all who saw the night flying demonstrations were suitably impressed . Including the Police , who liked to watch in between chasin all the drug dealers away . Sadly , because of this rampant drug dealing , the local town council made the park I used to fly at night "sunup to sundown" admission only , and so ended the night flying . The Police themselves told me they had far better things to do than to chase an old guy with his toy planes out of the park , but I didn't feel right disobeying the town council's ruling . The local cops are a bunch of great guys and I wouldn't have wanted to bring them trouble for "selective enforcement" , allowing me to stay while chasing out the drug dealers .

So now , when I get a hankering for some night flying , I take my little "Night Vapor" out into my own backyard and give the neighbors a little mini airshow .

I'm going to wait out AMA to see what's coming. Gary Fitch is a good friend of mine. i case you didn't know ,he's the Executive vice president of AMA. I have talked to him in length about this FAA situation and i can tell all you guys, you have no idea how much time ,effort and money has been spent on trying to keep the government out of our lives. He as well as others have spend thousands of dollars of their own money for this hobby. so please don't shoot the messenger they are modelers too. WB_1

Bwahaha...we all those fine ladies "well nourished" around here! Seconds anyone? :)

Same song and dance.

Mike

Listen, Gary and the rest of them are all good people. They are just like every other modeler out there who have invested time and effort and energy into the hobby. Funds too, both in terms of gear, and by way of donations to the AMA. The cynicism and vitriol that some spew out in their direction isn't personal, it's more a commentary on those complaining. It doesn't matter who is in those positions, these same people will complain no matter what, all from the safety of a keyboard. That's just the way it is when you take on a leadership role, there will always be those that attack, second guess, and complain. All the while making excuses why they can't get more involved. Don't get me wrong, bring up opportunities or suggesting change is good, but lets face it, that's a rarity.

Exactly my point, don't you and the others ever get tired of singing it? Between that and the constant drumbeat of doom....it's got to be tiring?

Things are changing and will continue to change and a lot faster than we can keep up with. We kinda knew all this coming and could not stop it or even protect what we had. With more changes coming like Amazon and the big box stores lobbying for airspace things will continue to "challenge" our use of that airspace..I understand you see everything is just fine and dandy and that's great. I see a different view of all this and things will continue to change unfortunately at our expense. I don't see how we can survive as a hobby as we know it now.. You call it doom and gloom I call it being realistic.

Mike

Yes, that's exactly what I have said all along...everything is fine and dandy. Perfect even. :)

I tried to reason with you with a explanation and that didn't work. Let me try this.


Mike

Or this?
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2137204

There is a far cry from continuing to enjoy the hobby and make the most of it, and that which you so poorly tried to convey in the pic above. Going about life, flying, enjoying the hobby and following the rules is what I'll do. If you want to distill that down to that pic, have at it. It misses the mark by a mile and is disingenuous, but I presume you know that already. You tried it before and it failed then too....

The issue of registration pales to insignificance if you live within 30 miles of Washington, DC. The FAA has recently promulgated a "No Drone Zone" within 30 miles of the capital. Although the document uses both "drone" and "unmanned" in the text, a call to an individual working within the UAS organization, confirms that UAS INCLUDES model aircraft. Complain about registering all you wish but complain more that flying is prohibited because of your zip code. Losing a long-held flying site is much worse then the piss-ant issue of registering.

I would rather we look at the FAA as an ally and instead focus our attention to the Homeland Security folks, who I believe, are really driving this train. The docs may come from the FAA, but I bet they are simply parroting what the DHS wogs are tellig them to say. Just a thought.

Well if the FAA is going to call our RC planes "drones" and relate them to full size aviation, should we not then be allowed to use airport facilities, just the like the full size planes? Since most of these are supplemented with taxes, who will be the first to file a suit for rights to fly at the airport? I have already lost my ability to fly at one of the local airports because the FAA official told the FBO that no RC activities could take place on the site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZwmGVtmgjM