PLANE JIM

My Feedback: (109)

Mike-you will also need to make sure we have a bottle of HO as well

Robotech

My Feedback: (9)

Our club has no specific rules for visiting or new pilots. We are on city property and other than having current AMA coverage there are no other requirements. If one of these show up we give them a friendly greeting and ask the pertinent questions but it's usually obvious if someone needs help and we are always eager to assist. Then there are those who show up with a chip on their shoulder or I don't need your help attitude. In those cases we protect our planes under the pavillion, grab the video cameras and watch from inside the building.

Our training regimen is simple and actually a little lax. We buddy box newbies until they are safely taking off, flying a smooth circuit and landing and then, when they feel comfortable, we turn them loose. The first half dozen solos are usually with an experienced pilot at their side for support.

When I was being trained my regular instructor was absent one evening and another filled in. He watched me take off and do several touch and goes then said " aw, you're fine " and unplugged his controller and walked away. Yikes. I don't think I could have spit if I had wanted to! [X(]

chashint

I think these posts express my views on this subject very well 5/7/8/13/17/24/27.
Why do you want something like this to become official rules ???
Most often when someone starts pushing something like this there is a reason other than "safety" behind it.
If you are having a problem with an individual then address the problem with the individual or individuals.

It is most often the people with the greatest skills that are actually the most dangerous to be around.
The guy hovering the giant plane right in the middle of the runway scares me a lot more than the guy that can only fly the left pattern, at least if the left pattern guy gets in trouble he might have time to warn everyone else, where the hot shot hovering guy will have no time to even get himself out of the way.

If you just have to have something official I agree with the post carrellh made, make it apply to everyone and pray that by some fluke you don't screw up when its your turn.

Rcpilot

My Feedback: (78)

I don't agree with that.

Take into consideration that those guys who hover down low have practiced it thousands of times. Not just any guy can pick up a TX and hover 5' over the runway. It takes an extreme amount of skill. I do not possess those skills, but I admire and respect those guys who do.

Almost every guy who CAN hover 5' off the runway knows exactly what to do and where to point it when he is in trouble. I've seen a LOT of guys doing this type of flying and NEVER seen one of them put it into the pits or another pilot station. The beauty of hovering 5' above the ground, is that if it crashes, it doesn't have much time to go anywhere. The ground usually jumps up and grabs it before it can go anywhere.

The circle jerk flyers who run around in lazy circles scare the pants off me. Our CLUB SAFETY OFFICER put the spinner of his plane smack into the flag pole just a few months ago. Yeah!! The guy ran his plane dead center into the FLAGPOLE in the PITS!! [X(] I wasn't there, but I've heard all the stories. It must have been quite a scare, because people are still rolling their eyes and talking about it today.

Like it or not. 3D guys are some of the absolute best pilots out there. I'm much calmer standing on the flight line with 3 or 4 guys hucking the snot out of some big gassers--than I am standing in a pilot box with a bunch of old men flying trainers and sport 60 planes.

Not saying you are wrong to feel that way. I'm just saying I feel completely opposite. I'd MUCH rather be around 3D pilots, than circle jerk flyers.

BillyGoat

If a pilot is going to be tested to “minimum standards� take-Off and Landing, flying a left and right pattern, figure eights; then for the sake of safety shouldn’t subsequent flying be limited to what the pilot has been tested? This is what the FAA does.

This pilot testing for R/C is a bunch of bunk. So if a pilot demonstrates proficiency of minimum skills, he can go TRY knife edge flight two feet off the deck down the center line of the runway? It just doesn’t make sense.

Thinking back 20 some odd years of all the crashes I’ve witnessed that could be considered close calls of personal safety; like crashing in the parking lot, hitting the pavilion, etc. All were caused by pilots that would easily pass a minimum standards test.

Red Scholefield

My Feedback: (9)

Glad to see there is no age bias being shown here.[:'(]

RCVFR

My Feedback: (7)

The important thing is to locate and stand next to a snot hucker for best safety. These are flyers who never have equipment that fails, a switch or any thing else that can go bad, because once a snot hucker gets on it, nothing can possibly go wrong...go wrong... go wrong....... [sm=72_72.gif]

Live Wire

Old!!!!!!!!!!!

outdoorhunting

I think this thread is going nowhere!! It sounds like to me the " Politicaly Correct" people are invading our hobby too.!! Some of the threads have said to check out a new pilot to thier club. I agree with that. But,--- you CAN'T cover all the bases !!!! Those people are sucking the fun out of it !!!!!! They say go through all the checks,-- but,--- they feel the pilot still might not be qualified. This hobby is SUPPOSED TO BE FUN !!!!!!!! I'm done with this thread ,, See ya !!!

Rcpilot

My Feedback: (78)

There IS an age bias. Old men flying in circles SCARE me.

Red Scholefield

My Feedback: (9)

Better learn to live with it if you plan on staying in the hobby as long as a lot of the old men that brought it to where it is today. With luck you will be one of them someday. [>:]

Montague

What works for you is going to depend a lot on where you fly and who you fly with.

My club has between 150-200 members depending on the year. On a busy weekend in the summer, you can get 30+ pilots. The field is also located close to a major highway, and the gate is off of a busy local road, so we get spectators every day, and tons on weekends. It's not uncommon for familes to show up with lunch and sit and watch the airplanes for a while when the weather is nice.

That's a very differnet situation than a small 20-30 person club out in the boonies where everyone knows everyone and you don't get the random public hanging out watching.

Anyway, at my club, we don't have "test" exactly, as I think it's often possible to pass a test on a good day, but not really be in control of the plane. So, instead of focusing on a test or a checklist, we go more on feel. Convince us that you're in control of what you're flying, and you're good to go. I don't care if you've landed 5 times in each direction, if it looks to me like your landings are on the ragged edge of going into the pits, and all your departures are leaping off the ground into a nearly-vertical, almost stalled condition (with a trainer, mind you, not a 3D plane meant for that kind of thing), then you probably aren't safe enough to handle our field on a busy day.

We also don't care how often someone crashes. We care a LOT about where they crash and why they crash and what they were doing when they crash. If you're crashing because you're pushing your skills, but doing it out in the over fly area, it's not a problem.

Over fly the parking lot, and we're going to have a discussion. On the other hand, everyone botches once in a while, so we don't get up tight about one bad crash, but if it's a pattern, well, you get the idea.

Montague

Fwiw, I don't think age has anything to do with it, but I do think that a plane 100 ft up is more of a hazard than one that is 10 ft up if they are both over the same spot. With a few obvious exceptions, like actually IN the pits. A mechanical failure low to the ground, and the plane crashes fairly close to where the failure happens. A failure up high gives the parts more time and a better angle to travel into the pits or beyond.

Of course, you can still be quite dangerious low down, it's no excuse for some of the stuff I've seen.

Lucky Dog

My Feedback: (1)

I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to post their comments, suggestions and feedback. It has gotten me re-thinking (to a degree) how much (or little) should be required with our proposed program or policies. I still firmly believe that a pared down version of what I'd proposed in my original post might be best for our group. We do have the luxury of (pretty much) complete control as to who has access to our flying site, and are and will likely remain a tight knit group. A win win situation in most aspects.

If you have further "constructive" comments, please feel free to jump in still. This has been educational and informative, in a number of ways.

Cheers!

JollyPopper

My Feedback: (6)

One of the major concerns of our hobby is that it isn't growing as we would like it to. Making it more complicated to enter the hobby may not be the way we want to go.

Just a thought-----

Montague

Yes, but allowing anyone to fly in a way that scares people away from the field doesn't grow the hobby either. YMMV, but we have more issues with "I won't fly when that guy is flying, he's a danger to everyone" than with people complaning that being checked out before operating a guided missle easily able to kill somene. Frankly, if you show up at my field and complain that you shouldn't have to be checked out at least once, you're not going to fly at our field, it's far too easy to hurt someone or damage something by crashing into a road or the parking lot or something.

Now, when someone new shows up who says they've been flying, we brief them on the field specific safety issues, and ask them to demonstrate their ability by flying. If they do ok, they can go fly on their own. If they don't, we offer suggestions and tell them they need to work with an instructor until they are ok. In the past, we've had some guys who were flying in parks come join us, and their biggest problem was usually finding the runway on landing, since they were used to landing pretty much anywhere in any direction. But that just takes a small handful of flights with an instructor to get used to.

Anyway, providing a safe(er) place to fly will attract more members than an "anything goes, watch out for crashing aircraft" envrionment.

Lucky Dog

My Feedback: (1)

Is that like a can a "Prop Wash" or a roll of "Flight Line"?

Live Wire

RC
Come on down And I will fly circles with you. Just one old fart that can fly. And where did your dad find you under a rust in the chicken house Whops just seen you are a MOD

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Minimum skills?

-Gets the plane off the ground
-flies around the field and nobody has to duck or hide behind something
-gets the plane back on the ground...........

and can immediately repeat the above, using the same plane.

chashint

You are entitled to your opinion too, but it does not influence mine.
Some of my crashes have been due to lack of skills but some of them have been due to equipment failure and one was due to RF interference.
It does not matter how many times someone has practiced doing their trick, a hovering plane close to people is dangerous, its as simple as that.
If you cannot acknowledge that then there is little benefit in having anymore conversation with you about it.
Stuff happens all the time that can spell disaster and as far as the plane simply crashing right at the spot, maybe ... maybe not. Just because you have not seen it does not mean anything to me, I have seen the 3D guys lose it and buzz the pits during recovery, it happens and that is when they still more or less are in control of it, kinda just like the guy hitting the flagpole.
Knowing exactly what to do sounds good on paper, but tell that to the guy getting stung in the eye by a bee, or to the guy that is suddenly getting shot down by someone else's transmitter, or to the guy that touches the rudder on the ground (on accident of course since the AMA banned that little trick) and it breaks. There is simply no margin of error allowed when the plane is in close, if it gets out of control, the closer it is to people the less opportunity there is for a warning.

I am old enough to know better but, I have to ask, why you want to call anyone 'circle jerk' flyers ??
That is very disrespectful and completely uncalled for.
It really makes just about everything else you have to say appear to be very irrelevant.

skylark-flier

Red, I've got a question, and I'm being serious here. Maybe I've missed something but I've been flying planes for more than 53 years (CL since 1955, RC since 1972) and I've never heard of a "A" certificate. Please fill me in on this.

Also guys, I'm one of those old farts and I'm presently flying (RC) an original Goldberg Sr. Falcon that I built in 1974 (has had NO crashes worth talking about), a Scale Lines Great Lakes 2T-1A biplane that was originally built in about 1961 and I'm still enjoying to the max, and a Great Planes J-3 Cub-40 (kit) that's about 7 years old now. I don't have a bunch of $$$ so I tend to fly rather conservatively (except for the Falcon, which is more fun than sex - at least at my age), saves the planes. I've seen the 3-D types doing their thing - even after all this time there's no way I'd try to do any of it, but I'm still what I consider a good flier (not even one accident/incident in over 20 years).

My 2-cents; all new club members in our club AND visitors are "assisted" by an instructor (he does the minimum necessary to make sure they're OK) for their first couple flights - whatever they need. Once we're reasonably sure they know what they're doing, a take-off and landing or 2, field patterns (L & R), a T&G (missed-approach style) or 2 to be sure they can control the plane and put it somewhere reasonable, they're on their own.

While many of the ideas I've read here are very good, some VERY VERY good, I highly discourage the tendency to become like the government. Flying is a hobby, a sport, and it's supposed to be FUN as well as safe. AMA has some very good regulations concerning safety, and I wouldn't think of going much beyond them. They were thought-out many years ago, they've been re-thought and re-hashed uncounted times since, and they serve us all very well.

Now, while I've kinda minimized what I think should be required, our club (and several others that I've been a member of over the years) DOES have one hard and fast rule. If a student pilot is flying, HE/SHE IS THE ONLY ONE FLYING. Yeah, it slows down the day a bit, but many times we've found it's the safest way to go - no distractions for the guy who is already sweating bullets with his new plane that might have cost him a week's pay.

Last weekend was a perfect example for us. Last Saturday we had four brand-new fliers, 4 brand-new planes. Once the planes were checked out, instructors took them off, trimmed them and brought them back - one at a time (30 minutes). New fliers each got a flight with their instructor (1 hour total) and we had a bit of a discussion of how each did (about 20 minutes). They each got a 2nd & 3rd flight (another 90 minutes), and 3 got a 4th. On Sunday all 3 solo'd right at the beginning of the day, #4 got his 4th flight and he solo'd too. The planes involved were 2 Telemaster-40's, a Nexstar and a SIG Kadet.

NOT ONE INCIDENT OF ANY KIND!!!!!!!

It's not the regulations, it's the attitude your instructors & club instills that makes the biggest difference. Teach newbies reasonably, you get reasonable pilots. Give visitors a welcoming smile and make sure (unobtrusively) they know what they're doing, and have fun.

After all, that's the point of the sport.

Dave

Lucky Dog

My Feedback: (1)

Red's referring to the BMFA (British Model Flying Association) requirements in England. BMFA is their version of the AMA.


I with you Charlie.

Roby

post number 44 nails it about minimum requirements.


Roby

outdoorhunting

It looks like COMMON SENSE is winning this. We need more of it.!! Everywhere !!! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.!!!

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

No minimums.
If they dont know how, Im willing to teach them.

Instead of telling them to go home because they dont fit your ideals of a perfect pilot, teach them.