Altitude over flying fields
 

It's interesting how many discussions about encounters between models and full scale ac over club fields talk about 400'. Yeah, one reason is that's the measurement applied to models, but it's clear a whole lot of modelers aren't familiar with the specified altitudes for full scale.

Take a look at the FAR that lays out the law for general aviation:

Quote:

---

Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 91prescribes the rules governing the operation of aircraft.

---

Your club field will probably have an "assembly of persons" on it, don't you think.

Of course it's always important to have a spotter watching for local traffic over your field, but truth is, it'd be a good idea to note any tail numbers you can read that appear under their required minimum altitude. And it'd be good to remember as well that any discussion about problems at your club field should be with an understanding that a full scale at 500 in YOUR gathering's airspace is definitely not innocent.

I fly at 3 different club fields in the area and a number of GA pilots do too. I know most of them, and awhile back thought I'd ask them what their minimums were. Only one (1) of them knew about the "open air assembly", and a couple of them make it a habit of "saying hello" at the club field that's out from town. And that field happens to have a 250' ridge immediately behind it. (absolutely within 2,000k of our runway)

QUOTE=da Rock:
And it'd be good to remember as well that any discussion about problems at your club field should be with an understanding that a full scale at 500 in YOUR gathering's airspace is definitely not innocent.

da Rock,

Innocent or not it is irrelevant. RC is to give way to full scale in ALL circumstances. Most of us don't fly at full scale fields, so interaction with full scale is rare. Nonetheless, when full scale is encountered, it is our job to get well out of the way. If the full scale is in violation of the FARs, that is between the pilot and the FAA.

Fly safe,

Bedford

When full scale is in violation, it's between them and the FAA. Exactly the case when models are in violation, it's between them and the FAA. Your point?

One of my points is the present full scale flight rules require they not be over our fields for us to have to dodge them. And another point not spelled out is their rules seem to be unknown to an awful lot of GA pilots and apparently are seldom enforced. I was flying this morning and a full scale came down to see who was at the field. He was way under the 1200' spelled out in his training. Take that incident and expand it. The GA pilot broke an unequivocally clear rule that's been in place for decades. He certainly didn't fear enforcement. For good reason. Actually for good reasons (plural). And consider how it would have to be enforced. Somebody on the ground would have to report him. To whom. etc etc Why should we fear the FAA more than that GA pilot does. He doesn't.

Everyone on the ground in fact did exactly what you suggest is "their job". As for innocence be irrelevant, not by a long shot. The 91.119(b) rule is sensible. It's clear as well. The GA's action is dangerous, and happens more than you seem to experience. You seem to believe that only collisions are relevant situations. And then pass judgment against models because they were supposed to get out of the way. A Cessna that was supposed to be over 1000' yet encountered a model that was supposed to be <400'....... sounds like equal guilt, don't you think?

So a full scale is flying along, using section (C) of the FAR paragraph quoted above. A clearing ahead shows a few cars and maybe a shed or covered structure. How close does the pilot have to be to identify that there are people out in the open? How long will it take him to react to climb to the 1000ft indicated on section (B) of the quoted FAR?

I think you may be splitting hair with this argument. The 400 ft for RC is directly tied to the 500 ft in section (C) of the above FAR. SIMPLE.

Rafael

Sounds like your model club has a pretty lousy flying site.

So your GA pilot's excuse for buzzing the crowd was he was so low and going so fast he didn't see them until it was too late to get back to legal altitude.

Quibble and try to split hairs to your heart's content, but if your sUAS is in a collision with a manned aircraft, we're all screwed. The press will scream like mashed cats and everyone who was on our side in the FAA will run for cover amidst shouts of 'Ah-ha! See we told you so!'. Please, I'd like to keep flying my planes a few more years. Take up model boats or trains till you get your altitude attitude fixed.

I have to agree with da Rock on this one. IF there is a near miss that is below 1000 ft but over 400, both pilots are at fault. If a full scale pilot buzzes a field at under 400 ft, he is in violation of several regulations and needs to be grounded, plain and simple. At the one field, with a 250 ft ridge being adjacent, there is no question that the full sized pilot is in the wrong, REGARDLESS OF ANYONE BEING AT THE FIELD OR FLYING R/C. It's easy for a full sized pilot to call foul on an R/C but, at the same time, when will you see a full scale pilot admit that he/she was in the wrong? What's even harder is for some one on the ground to call them out due to lack of accurate height finding equipment.

I was taught to be at least 1000 feet unless doing emergency landing practice. And one reason is the scenario you brought up. Not to mention it would be difficult to do an emergency landing from 500 feet.

Not splitting any hairs at all.

For years and years it's been against "the law" for full scale airplanes to fly over "outdoor gatherings" at altitudes below 1000'. It's just another FAA rule that they are supposed to enforce.

Ever hear of anyone being fined piles of money or going to jail? Or for that matter, losing their license or having it suspended? Whereas have you ever witnessed an idiot waving as he sailed over your runway at the folks gathered there? I've lost count of those incidents. And yet FAR 91.119 is no less important than any others the FAA is supposed to enforce.

A number of lessons to note here...... How effectively the FAA enforces, and how skewed your perspective of the situation.

Actually I have, when I lived in Myrtle Beach there were a lot of issues with some of the banner tow operators. Some of them were cited for flying too low over boats and assemblies. Seems they did not want to be 1000 feet over or 2000 feet from the beach. Lots of residents complained about the banner tow planes flying too low over their houses as well, Seems they did not wait till they got to altitude before turning into land. Thing is that at first the FAA did nothing but argue with local authority about jurisdiction as the local police were charging them with disturbing the peace, reckless endangerment, etc. IMO the FAA and IRA need to go.

We are fortunate to "own" our field but it is located in a rural farming area where crop dusters are obviously below 1000 feet (way below 1000 feet). They are very good about skirting our field boundaries but it is a simple matter to just land for the few minutes they are doing their thing. Besides, it's fun to watch these folks.

Sounds like the FAA at it's best.


The banner operators got fined piles of money? Went to jail? Were told to stop doing it? Or just told to follow the rules?

Crop dusters are a different animal entirely. They are low to do a job, not just buzz your field. Do they contact anyone or fly over to let you know they are there before going in on their "bombing" run?

You obviously haven't been flying in a real GA airplane in a while. You are talking about people in the open, with or without cars / structures visible. And I'm talking about 90 to 120 kts. the average speed of a Cessna. Not your or my flying field specifically.

one thing is what you are taught, another completely different thing is what is legal. Is right there in black and white on section (c) of the above quoted FAR. And since you know the subject, you are also aware that a pilot _can_ legally fly MUCH lower than 500 ft. depending on the type of airspace. Is it smart? well, that is where personal minimums come to play.

You guys keep using the term "buzzing the field". If _that_ is the case, you _MAY_ have a point. The fact that the OP insinuated that local pilots come to _visit_ the rc field could be taken as a possible infraction. Otherwise a non-local pilot would have no clue about activities not marked on the aviation charts. That is where the above mentioned personal minimums come into play.

Good luck.

Rafael

Your post kind of sounds like the Seattle area freeways. Speed limit is 60 MPH but many of the kids(hate to use that term but the way they ride shows that they are) on the rice rockets fly down the freeway, through rush hour traffic at better than 90 MPH, weaving between slower moving cars. Is it smart? well, that is where personal minimums come to play. How much room do they need to cut between cars? See the resemblance?

No I don't. Because if you had read that correctly, it actually says that legal is much more lenient than what is smart. Completely backwards to your example, where they are undoubtedly breaking the law.

Rafael

They suspended some pilot's license tined a couple of operators and pulled the operators license, mostly for poor maintenance, as I recall. One or two were OK but one had one of its aircraft have an engine failure and made an emergency landing at the Air Force base and were examined again, I think I heard they did everything proper but that was hearsay.

They are supposed to be operating under a waiver. They are under the same rules when traveling from the airport to the field and from field to field, but a lot of them fly too low when going to and from the fields.

That is completely incorrect. You cannot safely land an airplane when right above trees for example, and the rules say you can fly no lower than an altitude to safely land the plane. The fact that you do this and don't get written up does not mean it is legal.

When they crash because they were flying to low to safely land, then the FAA will write them up then. Hope they are alive to pay the fine.

My point was just because you can doesn't mean you should. Flying below 1000 ft is asking for trouble. Can we say "engine failure"? What's the glide ratio of a C150? How about a C172 or C182?
The 150, 152 and 172 all have a glide ratio of 9:1 at best. Lose an engine at 500 feet and you've got, at most, 4500 until you hit the ground, much less until you hit a tree, hill or ridge.
A 182 brings it up to 11:1 meaning you might get 5500 feet. Still not good if you have any kind of obstacles in your way
Now, lets "buzz" an R/C field at 75 ft. The 150, 152 and 172 will give you 675 ft. of maximum gliding distance. Now, lets see how long you would be airborne. At 65kts, you're traveling at 109.7 FPS. That gives you just 6.1 seconds, at most, to get the plane on the ground before it does it for you. If you're lucky enough to be in a 182, you'll have a whopping 7.5 seconds, at most, to land before gravity takes over. What I found interesting is that the Cessna's all had a better glide ratio than the Piper Cub

Which is exactly why it is illegal.

FAR 91.119 (a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

Since we now have to register with the FAA, maybe they should show RC flying field locations on VFR Sectional Charts.

They won't do that. Even most full-scale airports aren't shown on the sectional charts. In the county I live in, there are 13 airports listed on the FAA's web site, and only two of them (one of which has no traffic at all and is probably unfit to fly into or out of) is shown on the sectional. (All 13 of them get a five-mile circle around them on the FAA's "know before you fly" web site, however, they think that if we're flying inside one of those circles we should notify the airport.)

What I like to fantasize about is this: Now that all of our models over .55 pounds are aircraft, shouldn't we have to report all of our accidents other than the really minor ones? There are, after all, laws requiring that most accidents be reported.

That would be a great way to over burden the FAA's workload!

What you saw is certainly educational.

The FAA didn't shut down the airport they flew from did they? Only suspended a pilot. And only got the operator of the banner towing for something entirely different. Something they should have caught before from the sound of it. Something they were supposed to be enforcing all along but apparently hadn't.

It appears it took a clamoring crowd of people a lot of complaining to get the FAA off their lawn chairs to get that done.

They really aren't what you'd call a crack enforcement agency. In fact, they're not even a very active bunch. Are we really in imminent danger of losing our fields? and "licenses"? and going to jail or facing huge fines? Is the sky really falling?

The FAR says that you need to be able to land with undue hazard to people or property. you quoted it yourself. Nothing that I have said is "completely incorrect" as you mention. you seem to be confusing personal limits with legal, which is actually incorrect.

All of you are completely ignoring section (c) of the quoted FAR? you know, the legal part.....
'cause its there in black and white.

Rafael

I have been full-scale pilot for 30+ years but am new to the RC world (also a first time poster). I certainly look forward to learning a lot from this forum!


I think there may be a slight misunderstanding of FAR 91.119, regarding what constitutes an "open air assembly of persons". Nowhere does the FAA actually define this term, and I don't think anyone can claim to really claim to know what it means (unless of course they are charged with a violation). In my experience most most pilots and flight instructors assume it means large organized events involving hundreds or thousands of people, not a few dozen people at a flying field. I am not aware of any FAA enforcement action that has suggested otherwise.


Given this uncertainty it is incorrect to assume that a pilot who overflies an active RC field at 500 feet is automatically breaking the rules. If they fly over at LESS than 500 feet then yes, they are definitely in violation. If they are intentionally buzzing an RC field then FAR 91.13 comes into play (prohibiting “careless and reckless” operations). I would certainly encourage you to report such behavior if you can get a tail number. The FAA can and routinely does go after such pilots, who give us all a bad name.


Finally I would note that a fairly large proportion of full scale pilots are also RC pilots; we all share a passion for flying. The likelihood of a conflict between a full scale aircraft at flying at 500 feet and an RC aircraft at 400 feet seems pretty close to zero, so is there really a problem here?

.
The first paragraph overules all others. You cannot contentiously fly below 500 feet over all terrain, unless over a very large unpopulated area and follow that rule. Even flying over the ocean you have to continuously dodge boats,.Been there done that. These pilots are reckless and the FAA does nothing. Look at all of the recent helicopter crash's which were partially caused because they were flying to low to put them in autogryo mode.

The FAA and IRA must go.

When I recieved my ticket I was told an assembly is only several people. Later somewhere I read it was at least two people. I did not know of any pilots that believe it has to be a stadium full of people. Open means it has to be outdoors.

Badger Flyer there's a problem using absolutes. Several years ago I attended a STEM related model airplane race hosted by a nationally known university with a large, competent or so I thought, aviation department.

The lunchtime 'entertainment' was four full scale aircraft, 2 Cubs, a C-152 and an ultra light of some sort doing low passes down the MODEL runway at less than 50 feet and less than 200 feet from the HUGE line of spectators, and less than 100 feet from over 100 contestants. All this on a day when the winds were gusting to 27 knots

When I pointed out that I was a non-regulatory FAA employee and that I was shocked that the university aviation department could find four idiot pilot so pull off that stunt, the department chairman said 'everything is just fine.'

Then they were dumb enough to post incriminating pictures on the web the next day. Needless to say the local FSDO had a very long grounded chat with the department head and the four pilots.

Very often the show-off gene is stronger than the I'll be breaking the law and endangering people genes.

Have any of you ever seen the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds perform? Here in Seattle, the "Blues" perform their aerobatic show every August. The "flightline" is required to be clear of people and boats(show is over Lake Washington) or they won't even take off. There are a few times when their aircraft get below 500 ft while over the crowd, one being when the plane's pilot does a "stealth run" over the park at over twice the height of the trees. In doing so, the pilot does nothing but fly straight and level at roughly 300 kts, pulling up AFTER getting back over the lake. The others are when their patterns take them down to low level at the end of a maneuver. The major difference here is that the entire area is a "No Fly Zone" from early morning until late afternoon as mandated by the FAA specifically for the airshow. Just to be clear on this, the"Blues" are the headliner but there are aerobatic displays by civilians as well as demos by the various branches of the military and Coast Guard through out the day.

The legal part? Every word in 91.119 is legal, c being no more or less legal than a or b.

As for ignoring c, it actually has little to do with flight over occupied model flying fields, and it's certainly not "the legal part".

91.119 says:

"no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:"

And gives THREE rules to follow.

I would certainly agree that some people will break the rules, and I’ve seen it happen as well. I think the behavior you’re describing is quite clearly in violation of 91.119 and possibly 91.13, unless the organizers had obtained an airshow waiver (probably not?). Naturally the guilty parties are not going to own up to it, but that doesn’t mean that the FAA would not pursue an enforcement action if they become aware of the situation. Unfortunately they often become aware only after there has been a problem.


This is a very different situation than a pilot legally flying along over the open countryside at 500 feet, enjoying the view. There is nothing inherently irresponsible in doing so. In my area the landscape is dominated by farm fields and being able to land safely usually isn’t much of an issue. The main safety risks at 500 feet are birds, towers, crop dusters, and sometimes powered parachutes/ultralights.


On the other side, I’m curious to know how practical the 400 altitude limit is in real life? Is there a feeling that this limit is overly restrictive? Is it always complied with? Given the performance of some modern RC models I can imagine a reasonable case for expanding the limits, for example by raising the maximum altitude over designated flying fields that are marked on sectional charts.

I don’t doubt that someone said this, but I think it had to be an expression of their own opinion rather than the law. The FAA has not published any official definition of what it means. The closest thing I’ve seen is post 9/11 Notice to Airman concerning flight restrictions around major sporting events. That NOTAM applies only to stadiums with a seating capacity of 30,000 or more.


In contrast there has been a large amount of discussion of “congested areas”, and the FAA has made it clear that this includes small towns and subdivisions.

It actually isn't a limit, just a guideline and isn't applicable to AMA members.

It isn't restrictive at all. In an hour, I'll be out at one of the 3 AMA registered club fields around here flying my Extra 330 and a 2meter glider. The Extra will be doing competition maneuvers and probably top out around 450'. The maneuver floor is maybe 150' I'd guess. Don't have an altimeter in the Extra. The glider will top out wherever the lift and visibility decide. Both planes have my AMA number on them and my membership has been since the 50s. Oh yeah, the vario/altimeter that's temporarily in my glider usually shows 350-450' at the TOC when I start hunting thermals. It's pretty near the usual launch zoom when flying pure gliders off my highstart.

However, this year the 2m hasn't gone higher than about 600' and today's forecast doesn't suggest any conditions that promise beating that. The field where I'm going today is in an area where a fairly large flight school brings students. We often hear their engines chopped to idle and watch them experience or practice stalls. That field happens to back on a ridgeline that's 250 or so above our runway. And just north of us is a 2,400 "hazard to navigation". (we're at 860') It is quite a pleasant view that way. Maybe that's why the school comes this way to "work". BTW, I'm not suggesting the altitude hazards around our field have any applicability to our models.

This is real life, and that 400 certainly is not restrictive, as it really doesn't apply except as a guideline that is invalidated by a number of things.

The Thunderbirds, Blue Angels, and every other aerobatic pilot is operating under an FAA waiver.

This is very helpful, thanks!