n57tc

This is another good reason to keep Gitmo open. This nutcase should never be allowed to see daylight again.

cbh82v

My Feedback: (2)

I really don't think this will affect those of us that fly at an AMA field and are into standard RC flying.  But if your into free flight, Camera POV, GPS, telemetry, or flying you model downtown, then I would worry.  I think that the FAA regulations to limit this type of flying were already in motion before this incident. 

What upsets me is that these extremists seem to have an attraction to aviation.  There has to be plenty of other ways to be a terrorist.  LEAVE AVIATION ALONE!!!

 

MANFRED

My Feedback: (27)

Forced to chime in... I like the rest of you was at first mostly concerned with my own interest, namely, thousands of dollars of RC equipment and a potential Government ban on using it in public. But, on further thought I realized there is a true potential for some neferious zealot to actually gain the knowledge to build and fly and arm an RC aircraft and fly it into some heavily crowded event and cause damage. This is the reality and with the FBI and all other Gov agencies working to prevent anything like this ever happening, I feel it is wholly our responsibility to help them with our extreme knowledge of the aircraft and their potential. The best way we can achieve this would be thru vigilence. When we witness something out of the ordinary, like someone flying wildcat in a field or parking lot, observe them or ask them what they are doing (friendly manner). If you have a newbie at your field who wants to learn to fly overnight and wants to fly the biggest plane around or ask about payloads or GPS drop a call to the FBI. The more we help police this thing the more apt they will be to help protect our hobby and the knowledge we posses about these flying wonders. I for one try to keep fully aware of my surroundings and have a suspicious nature anyways. Once while driving on a crowded slow moving freeway, I saw an rc plane flying erratically over the road, I pulled off and found the pilots in a parking lot and asked them what they were doing. Turned out to be a rookie and he couldnt land the thing. I offered to help and brought it down then had a long talk to him about flying so close to people and told him about our club. He never showed up there and perhaps nowadays I would have taken his License plates down.
Point is HEADS UP guys! ALso Educate the public at all opportunities.

scottrc

It is and has been possible for years to build a guided missle with off the shelf materials and electronics. What is not possible for the ones who want to do this to cause harm is the years of experience aquired through professional training and field practice. Guys who build amature rockets that reach low earth orbit and turbine jets that are close to breaking the sound barrier do it because they are driven to succeed in personal accomplishment and not for some religous or political cause which is why those who try to use advanced level amature aerial devices for the latter will always be set up for failure.

This guy had a degree in physics but chose a poor delivery platform because he had no experience in miniture aircraft performance past what he probably saw in the media.

larry@coyotenet

My Feedback: (21)

Guy's get your heads out of the sand! We all know what is possible. Because the news media puts up the first picture that they can find is no reason to ignore the facts.
Our club officers have just finished a long series of discussion with one of our members who is a FPV flier. Exactly the type of possibility mentioned in the article was discussed with him. Like many of you he poo pooed the idea. If I were a federal agent I would be very seriously looking into what is going on in the FPV community. A plane carrying a couple pounds of C-4 isn't much of a threat to the Pentagon building but targets abound. We ended up telling him that we would not allow him to fly out of sight of our field using FPV. This is exactly the reason the AMA introduced provisional rules regarding FPV. Don't think we haven't been on the radar of the HSA for a while.
Larry

warbird72

My Feedback: (79)

Yeah like said before. All they needed was an excuse.. Now were all in trouble.. 38 yrs old and 30 of them building and flying model planes. It's my life and many of others.. But it is no good if you cant go fly your plane w/o the black suv's showing up to take your equipment. This guy knew what he was doing!! He needs a good butt kicking..

mrbigg

My Feedback: (21)

Nitro777

Funny how all this happens a few days after the words budget cut are presented to the FBI and CIA.  Maybe they are setting this crap up to flex their muscles and show that they are worth the millions that they are going to loose.

Mr67Stang

The R/C models seam to be in the spotlight in this story even if they are not the best delivery system for such an attack. The fact is it was this mans attempt to buy C-4 that put him in the sights of the feds. If the Feds started watching everyone that buys an R/C model then they will catch no one at all. They are looking in the right places, it's the media that wants to spotlight our hobby so just wait a day or so and there will be a new story and joe public will forget all this BS. If that "school bus" sized satalight had fallen in a populated area, you never would have heard the story of a Jehatard plotting with planes.

digital_trucker

So, let me make sure I have this all straight:

The FBI trolls around and finds a screwball with obviously minimal intelligence (and gullible).
The FBI gives him a toy and some boom stuff and says "With THIS, you can turn the hardened bunker that is the Pentagon into a smoking hole in the ground; loolooloolooloo!"
The FBI then waits while he figures out how to install tab A into slot B and subsequently heroically 'thwarts the plot'.

Ummmmm.....yeah

DISCUS54

My Feedback: (211)

Let's keep the turbines....

and get rid of the idiots.

Get it?

Idiots?

topspin

Once again the news media got it totally wrong. The plane they showed was a ducted fan foamie. No ducted fan airplane is going to lift machine guns and explosives (they barely lift themselves) but now, whever the public sees a ducted fan aircraft they will squeal terrorist.

I understand there are maniacs among us who would do this sort of thing but if the news media is going to report they should at least show the right stuff. They talked about models half the size of a compact car and showed a 1.2 meter model, stupid.

In the FWIW department, to date there have been literally thousands of car and truck bombs detonated all over the world yet no one has moved to ban cars and trucks. Agree with DISCUS54, keep the turbines (not turbans) and get rid of the idiots.

CanDo

I have to agree with Manfred. You can do your hobby a great service by keeping your eyes and ears open, especially if someone is asking about payloads and larger RC planes. The news (Fox, CNN, etc) has blown this story out of proportion and misinformed folks. The good news is the Feds were on their game. We can help them (and us) by being observant, and informing the public about our hobby.

Tjettzky

A few worthless points from my head. Ignore them as you please:

A) It's possible that a Non-RCing American might look at this story and say, "Gosh, Remote Controlled airplanes? They exist? They sound cool, I might like to try that." and we might get more people in the hobby.

B) If you hear people talking about this and perhaps getting some facts incorrect (which is rather likely), what a wonderful opportunity it would be for you to jump in the conversation, clear up any misunderstandings that person and their audience might have and say something along the lines of "Hey, I'm a pilot. I would love to take you and anyone else out to the field and show you what RC flying and all the different aspects of our hobby is all about. I'll even help you fly one so you can enjoy it for yourself..." and we might get some more people in the hobby.

C) Call me crazy, but by the time the AMA does get a nice presentation together and manages to convince a News Channel to sit down with them and/or allow them to present their statement, a lot of people will have stopped caring about this story and anything presented will go in one ear and out the other.

D) People flying in parking lots are not potential terrorists, they are called R/C Hobbyists. Maybe they aren't as good as you are (hence the erradic patterns) and they may not be in your club, but that doesn't make them evil.

BirdofpraY

My Feedback: (31)

here is the great reporter that reported this crap. http://www.paulcruickshank.com/home hes got a lot to learn in getting hi facts streight.

Upnet

My Feedback: (8)

The Fed's deliver 25 lbs of C-4 ....3 grenades.....6 Full Auto Ak's. Were the firing pins disabled? Were the grenades....and the C-4 inert?

8178

My Feedback: (17)

AMAs statement http://www.modelaircraft.org/news/RCPlot.aspx

racermike

Hopefully this is handled with the same common sense that was used when the model rocket guys got there " terror scare" about 20 years ago. That incident was just an innocent tech article in a magazine.  Someone wrote an article showing how to use sunlight to steer a rocket , the intention being to land predictably and increase the chances of recovery. They showed everything from how to make the circuit board to how to set the relative angle to the sun for a controlled recovery. Then someone spoke up and mentioned that by exchanging the white light sensor with an I.R. sensor you have a heat seeker ! This came to light after the article was published and needless to say there was quite a lot of " poop in the turbines" after that. But after all that the rocket guys are not only still flying but going higher than ever. LETS HOPE!

markhamregular

As a result of that imbecile,  AMA just released a small paragraph to ask members to be on alert for any suspicious activity at flying sites, hobby shops, and events.

Are they serious? I think this story is only good for late night shows.

Remby

My Feedback: (3)

Maybe could build, mabye could learn to get everything to work, but learning to fly it to do the attack is somthing else.

Even full scale pilots can somtimes be bad RC pilots, I've seen it.

Just not smart to attempt this, too many things to overcome.

Why provide the C4 to this dude, that is nuts!

Sport_Pilot

Why does anyone believe anything the Media says? This ishow Obama got into office. The media is the last thing you should trust. This was not about toy RC planes at all. This man was to use a gps guided UAV, not an R/C model airplane.

mave311

My Feedback: (13)

he also had a turbine f-4 phantom....

Silent-AV8R

Reportedly they were. The "C4" was mostly clay and a tiny amount of actual explosive, just enough to fool the guy. Like 1 ounce of real heroin in with 25 pounds of powdered sugar.

Silent-AV8R

Give it a rest. I could also counter that it is how we let GWB get us into TWO senseless wars.

armody

My Feedback: (10)

I strongly Condemn that enemy of state and humanity and this great hobby[:@][:@]. I hope that person would never see the sky outside the slammer wall.

Mody