Model airplane club's crashes pose safety threat, Pa. court agrees
 

Interesting that size and speed of the jets are starting to make news...

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/12...art_river_home

Overflying someone elses property could be a safety issue. The property that the club was renting space on is 48 acres. Is that too small?

I noted that the club president's "recollection" on the number of crashes off property didn't appear to carry much weight. Over a year ago I tried to convince AMA EVP to start collecting non-injury mishap data to defend against just such allegations - he slammed the door on the idea pretty hard.

Now there's a successful state court case shutting down a field, not because of an injury, just the mere threat of one.

Gee, maybe someone should ask the judge if she has a car. By driving one, it makes it possible that she might run off the road and hit someone else and therefore be a danger to people that live along side the roads.

48 acres is not even close to what is needed for large fast models to remain in for overflight purpose. a full section, laid out properly would be closer to what they need to avoid overflying other folks property.

I get your point. However, the risk of that happening with cars is mitigated through a system of licensing, operational controls (traffic laws), engineering controls (road design, guard rails, car design, seat belts, etc.), and enforcement (police).

So you believe that a club should have 1 full square mile of land to operate? That's 640 acres = 1 section. So if the runway was at the bottom of the square the distance in front would be 1-mile and the lateral boundaries would be 1/2-mile (2,640 ft) in either direction?

My flying site has right around 100 acres of land.We have a lateral limit 1,200 feet to one side, about 1,700 feet in the other lateral direction and around 1,700 feet in front of us. We fly a lot of larger planes (up 50 50% seen regularly), no jets due to fire hazard, but I cannot ever recall anyone crashing outside our field area. A full square mile would be an enormous amount of land, and in many places be prohibitively expensive.

:cool: I believe a club should have whatever amount of land is needed to prevent repeated crashes on Neighbor's properties . I don't think there is a set "X number of acres required" since the circumstances of the different clubs are different enough to preclude a one size fits all solution . I will say that a "once in a blue moon" incident , due to for instance radio link failure , does not indicate any kinds of safety deficiency but that repeated crashes onto Neighbor's property as seems to be the case here most certainly does indicate a failure of good safety practice in one way or another . The club I fly at has been in operation since the 1970s , is surrounded by some pretty dense forest on all sides , and I do not know of a single incidence of one of our aircraft ending up on a Neighbor's property beyond the woods (because the trees do a REAL good job of catching errant aircraft ;) )

Kinda like the old real estate saying , the three most important things are location , location , and location :D

The club could ban jets. Perhaps with 10 pound aircraft flying only 100mph they would stay on their own land and have much fewer crashes on neighboring property.

Not slamming you or the judge in this case Franklin. The way I see it, isn't that what the so called "safety code" is supposed to do, prevent the same kind of stuff, with R/C aircraft, as everything you listed for cars? We all know how effective our traffic laws are, only as much as the people driving want to follow them and, unfortunately, how poorly our local LEOs do in catching many of the idiots that break the laws due to lack of numbers or other assigned priorities

Interesting read. Just another problem that clubs will have to deal with. Like we don't have enough already.


Mike

just from my own personal experience flying, and attending jet events, they sometimes come down on the wrong side of the flight line, so,
that run way should be in the center of that section, so that the middle of the runway, laterally and depth wise is 1/2 mile from any edge. and at 150 or greater mph, it may not be enough to insure all crashes occur within the boundary.
this also assumes that they are trying to enforce a 400 ft or so ceiling. the higher they are when problems occur the further they are capable of going.

True but you still have to take a test the first time you get a drivers license. In many states you also have to take drivers ed.

Here's something I received on another forum from someone who'd been to this field...

"A couple of summers ago I took my young grandson to a publicized jet rally at this field. It was Sunday morning, and a show team was there from a big distributor, flying a pair of A-10's. The song they chose to fly to was "Highway to Hell", and it was played LOUD! The club sits up on a hill and the music drifted into the valleys, probably carrying for some distance. I thought it was a poor choice of music because here in rural Berks County, where I grew up, most still believe in keeping the Sabbath holy, and those less fervent still respect the beliefs of their neighbors."

One would hope that a "show team" from a "big distributor" would be setting the example instead of blaring "Highway to Hell" in the middle of Amish country. But it appears that was too much to expect in this case.

Fair enough. But at least there's folks out there actually enforcing rules.

Man, that's got to be a hell of a club to already be paying $10,000 per year in lease fees to the landowner, plus offering an additional $5,000 in donations to the township and $10,000 to the local fire department (per the first comment). $25k in revenue for the club annually, and that's before you even talk about actually operating the club and maintaining the field.

I was thinking the same thing. Those guys have deep pockets.

Mike

What they should have done is go to neighbors and buy air easements.

You are 100% correct.

Mike

This is what happens when you vote for more government.

No actually this is what happens when you ( or your club) don't take action to protect what you have.with self regulation. Once the "goverment" is involved it's to late.

Correct, they took for granted the other land owners, being ok with all the plane crashes; sometimes saying sorry is not enough. Apparently they didn't make enough amends with them. Most clubs I know try to be descrete good neighbors to surround properties. Sound like this one might have been overly rambunctios on occassion.

Our club "insures" two fields for club use. One is a REALLY nice private field that the owner built for personal use but allows club members to use. The down side is the houses are really.close. While we have been "visited" by LOE once or twice with claims that the aircraft " are disturbing the livestock" ( what ever that means}. We have a good relationship with our neighbors and try to keep it that way to keep the heat off the owner. The other club field is out far enough away from everyone and everything that if you want to hit something or bother someone you'd have to bring it with you..

Mike

I disagree, but only if the 48 acres is of the right shape. Plenty of room if square or rectangular along the length of the runway. Jets just have to limit there speed and be careful of flying outside the boundary.

I might have to disagree with that assessment. If the plane being flown is large enough and with high enough wing loading to require a higher than normal approach speed, the layout of the property may not matter. Additionally, a fairly new pilot flying said high performance plane may need a longer approach and flying over someone else' property may be the only way said pilot can safely land said plane. This is one instance where one size DOES NOT fit all