With the new regs I understand I must now insure that water is available prior to flying turbine powered models. My question is this rule has no quantity stated. I'm thinking a coffe cup of water satisfies the rule. Now really, what is to be expected from this ruling to not have insurance void should you burn down a field. I would like to see two answers, one, by the letter of the law, and two, a reasonable supply attempt to actually do something.

Most of us carry an Indian Fire Pump. Carries 5 gallons. Available from the Ben Meadows company for around 125 bucks. There were two fires I know of last year that were controlled with this equipment.

Keeping a plastic 5 gallon can of supplemental water would be a good idea too -- you could use it to refill the backpack if needed.

I bought one for $109.00.

http://www.fire-end.com/indian.htm

Yeah, welcome to the AMA world, where nothing is quite defined, and different rules are picked out of a hat.

Actually, the rule says that "water based fire fighting equipment shall be present on the field." I doubt that a coffee cup of water would be seen by anyone as "water based fire fighting equipment." As far as the gripe that the rules are not specific on what constitutes "water based fire fighting equipment" I'm glad they left it to our discretion as to what is reasonable fire fighting equipment instead of laying out exactly what we need. That way, we're left to our own intelligence to figure out what is best to counteract the risk that is involved - a rare thing in our overly risk adverse society. Would it be better if it said that "water based fire fighting equipment consisting of an International 530E engine capable of carrying 1000 gallons of water and pumping a minimum of 50 GPM shall be based at the field..." Just buy the Indian Fire Pump, keep it filled and bring it with you to the field, its as simple as that. A small price to pay to keep from burning down somebody's property, or worse yet, having someone get hurt by a turbine-started fire, and heck, bringing it out reinforces the idea that these are serious model airplanes that are a blast to fly, but need to be operated with a bit of care - not a bad thing in my mind.

Bob

Well said, Bob.

Don`t forget a shovel, its more important than the water imo.
V..

hey vin
what happens in phx,az if someone crashes into a cactus are they protected by law
vinny