I agree . they are claiming that federal law now declares that non LOS operation is by definition not a model aircraft.

Hi Beave,

I hear you, I have heard different things over the years. i remember mention of the so called "Phil Kraft decision" wherein it was questioned whether a manufacturer was_ever_covered personally byt he AMA, not just at demos but at any time. I must say if what you say is true then I wonder why such a simple rule is not called out, these demo flights occur all of the time.

The related question is whether the sponsoring company has general business insurance for said pilots, then the issue of personally liability is somewhat muted.

A bigger question in my mind is the first dollar land owner coverage., do sponsored flying affect that? And am I sponsored when I fly any time, just when it is announced at an event, when I post about it on the internet and then fly later??? Big can of worms, just go to any heli event at the AMA site in Muncie, 50% of the pilots are sponsored!


Back to today's FAA ruling, this is great news I believe. no mention of turbines, no mention of altitude. I was worried about this distance to an airport thing, but the AMA has seen that one coming for a long time and has form letters prepared for any clubs that need to formalize their agreements. kind of scary but could have been (much) worse.

For FPV, the goggle FPV guys just took one right to the heart, I figured this would happen as I just bought my first set of goggles!! My fault.

The AMA has been trying to cozy up to the FPV guys for a couple of years, will be interesting to see what the AMA's take is. Right now if you operate FPV per AMA rules, you will be in violation of this FAA finding, pure and simple.

Hi Jim,
Here is the link for public response: http://www.faa.gov/contact/safety_hotline/

In fact, you are correct, recreational use of a model aircraft that is not within the pilots line of sight has always been prohibited. However, there is work on the table to create a separate category of aircraft for 'drones' as they will be used in commercial and probably private sectors. That said, the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) regulations are currently in process through issuing permits to six UAS study environments http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/infographic/.

Since incidents have already been documented in the Federal an. d State registers, the FAA has no choice but to step up their attempt to educate the RC industry. I was flying ultralight aircraft in 1983 when the same situation happened. It was two years before we had an legal FAR 103 permitting us to fly. Many of us went ahead with pilot training and registration of our aircraft as experimental to keep our wings (myself included).

In my opinion, based on what I have seen in Raleigh NC, this situation needs to be addressed now before there is a loss of life. I have heard local FPV pilots brag about their journeys to 3000 ft MSL recently. This occurred exactly within the RDU instrument approach key on our GA charts.

Unless flyers are willing to demonstrate knowledge of airspace regulations I imagine they will be prohibited from flying in controlled airspace.

After reviewing a few manufacturer You Tube releases on FPV safety this week I suggest all own their personal responsibility to understand the regulation of airspace for both civilian and private aviation. The manufacturer was somewhat embarrassing as he used inappropriate terminology and gave no advice other than "fly safe".

Like Precision Aerobatics noted on the shipping container for the new Katana I just purchased: "This is not a toy".

I hope all fly with this in consideration. One fatal event is all that will be necessary to place manufacturers
out of business.

Back in 2011 this basic issue was brought up to the AMA and answered on the forum on the AMA website (since taken down).

The quote was from Ilona Maine (she took over for Carl Mulroney when he retired and handles all insurance issues for the AMA)


She said:

This caused a pretty big dust up as it was pretty wishy washy. One of our District X AVPs then asked her a follow up and this is what she told him (made public by Bill)

I guess this is what they have juries for!

Yep...or simply get personal liability coverage and it's a no brainer.

B

Sounds to me like the AMA is leaving the door open in case they decide to back out of a claim. All this commercial non commercial stuff should be decided on
does a person have a business license or is one required to do what they do. A company that sells or builds model planes would need a business license and
equip they own would be considered commercial and anyone they pay to do something on behalf of said company would either be a employee or independent
contractor. If I as a individual builds or repairs a model and then test flies the model for someone that pays me for doing so I should not have to worry about
insurance or the FAA getting involved.

Just my .02

Regarding a manufacturer of a "model aircraft", the rule allows the manufacturer to fly under the rule if they are testing the prototypes of "hobby" related model aircraft.

Paul S

A couple pointers here but this is was coming.

A few full scale pilots here can truly understand the nature of this attention to RC by the FAA due to the exploding popularity of UAV's.

Our national airspace system is very complicated, specially at lower levels close to airports. In order to truly understand what all the intricacies of the NAS, training is needed. If someone opened an airfield within 5 miles of an airport, they should have their head checked and some that are may have a "Letter of Agreement" or LOA with that airport such as Deland which sits on an old airport runway that has an active runway within the same field.

Bevar, I know your a commercial pilot, even though I agree with you on the demo flying/Not announcing to fly for a brand argument is a good point, I don't think its an insurance issue that an RC pilot/UAV is flying for compensation as far as the FAA is concerned legally because regardless, they are flying for compensation. According to the document, the FAA holds that ANY flying of a UAV/RC Aircraft for other than hobby is commercial work, well you need a commercial ticket to fly anything other than as a hobbyist. Ie; aerial photography, surveillance, transportation, etc. That's my professional interpretation and that's what it clearly states on that small chart of examples. Would you not agree?

If it gets to that point then the AMA landowner insurance might be in jeopardy. Then it wont matter about any PUP or business insurance for the commercial (sponsored) flyer, you will need the landowners policy that 99.9% of the time is from the AMA, a HOBBIEST organization.

Sorry Matt, what I meant by that is not insurance related, its the ability "AT ALL" to fly a UAV/RC Airplane for compensation/Commercial. Insurance will always be available.

For many years clubs have been told by the AMA not to let non AMA members fly at their sites because of insurance concerns, Also many land owners that rent
to clubs have taken the same stance even if the person has their own insurance. If the FAA involvement in models causes to many things done in the past to be
a non hobby activity and alternate insurance is required I would think that could be a problem.

The AMA has released a statement on this new FAA "interpretation"
http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/F...retiveRule.pdf

The AMA statement is ill advised on so many levels:

If you are trying to get the FAA to delegate it's regulatory authority to you, it is not smart to piss them off. A non-emotional discussion of points that you disagree with would be a lot better approach.

As a hobbyist who is not interested in FPV, I found nothing negative, or even new, in the FAA interpretation. They could have taken a position on maximum altitude, allowable power plants or lower weight limits. They did not. Is the AMA taking a position in support of FPV and putting the rest of us in jeopardy?

The statement reads like a knee-jerk reaction by someone who is perhaps a little too close to the situation and should have been given more consideration before being issued.

Jim

I agree that the AMA statement is ill advised, but not because they are pissing the FAA off. They know it will be decided in the courts and therefore there is no need to be diplomatic. I consider it ill advised because they don't say much about why they don't like the FAA's interpretation. I suspect that there is some disagreement at AMA about the specific points but all agree it is a dissappointment.

I agree with both of these posts. I think the AMA has doubled down with FPV, trying to win those guys over and now the AMA have a fight on their hands.

This issue has really morphed over the last 8 years. I agree with Jim, the FAA could have mentioned weight limits, speed limits, altitude limits etc. All they have done is stopped people from wearing goggles to fly and now the AMA goes into a fit.

They have also stopped competition of pilots who are sponsered by manufactures, testing of models and flying tests of engines and motors by a factory paid RC pilot, and paid flight demonstrations. IMO banning or regulating these are not Constitutional as they are not interstate. rather they fly from point A and return to point A. As such the commerse is intrastate and the Constitution only allows regulation of Interstate commerse.

The 3 to 5 mile expansion regarding distance from an airport may be a bit of a surprise to everyone(may be part of the reason for the reaction). The 3 mile distance from an airport has been in the AMA safety code for as long as I can remember.

Today FPV next year strict 400 FT limit then no 30% size models. After that no turbines where does it stop.

GA needs to get busy and get ADS-B in and out going. Most pilots are waiting for the 2020 drop dead date or just buying ADS-B in for the weather information. If model aircraft had transponders and full flight information, we could operate in the NAS. Experimental and home-built aircraft electronics are leading the certified aircraft by a long distance. This can work. We can't wait for 5-6 more years to pass.

the 5 mile limit was not dreamt up by the FAA, it is in section 336 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. Federal law calls out 5 miles.

As best I can tell, this is ALL from the federal law, not the FAA. The main point of (major) contention is the requirement that the model aircraft be "flown within visual line of sight of the person operating the aircraft". The FAA claims this mean the person flying the plane must maintain control with their own eyes, the AMA says a spotter is OK.

The rest of it is cut and dried in my view

Interesting. But then AMA safety code effective Jan,1 2014 still calls out 3. (https://www.modelaircraft.org/files/105.PDF) but it also does say "accordance with this safety code and any additional rules specific to the flying site." which probably accomodates things of this nature.

The AMA provisions/rules for FPV are strictly prohibited by this FAA finding, in my judgement (use of a spotter for FPV). And, even though the FAA has asked for public comment, the effectivity of the FAA interpretation is immediate. The AMA will have to do something fast.

Matt is spot on with both his comments - the 5 mile limit comes from the new law (the FAA Reauthorization bill), and the major change in FPV is the fact that the FAA says that the actual pilot must be able to see the aircraft while the AMA Safety Code allows the spotter to watch the aircraft.

The FAA's major issue with any unmanned aircraft in the NAS (model aircraft or UAV), is maintaining separation from manned aircraft through "see and avoid." Quite frankly, its the FPV and multicopter folks who have posted some REALLY dumb videos on Youtube that have stirred the pot the most on this issue and IMHO are the main cause behind the FAA's wanting to jump in and regulate this. Personally I'd like to shoot the guy who posted the video from his quad copter looking DOWN on an airliner on approach. That guy, and others like him are IDIOTS who are risking a hobby that they quite frankly, don't have the skill or intelligence to legitimately participate in (but they do have the money to buy their way in...)

As I said before, I think that the FAA has overstepped their bounds and I agree with the AMA that these new "interpretations" are against the spirit and intent of the language in the bill. I am hopeful that the legal system will turn them back. On the other hand, it is easy to see that their main concern is safety and keeping model aircraft and other UAVs separated from manned aircraft. One can argue that their approach is high-handed and much more "bureaucratic" that is needs to be, but that's a hard thing to sell to a public who just doesn't want to think about the airliner they are on being brought down by a collision with an unmanned aircraft (much less an expensive toy airplane), and I can see their perspective.

As in many other aspects of life, a few irresponsible *****H%$#S have the ability to screw things up for the responsible majority...

Bob

Faa rule is 400 feet anywhere. Ama rule added a comma years ago to change the interpretation to 400 feet within 5 miles of an airport. Difficult to fly a turbine under 400 feet . It takes a deliberate attempt to do a loop under 400 feet. I know, I fly with telemetry.

400 ft... maybe on a foamie, according to telemetry I frequently hit 2000 ft.