RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Only thing going in our favor from this incident is that he was not, from what I have been told, an AMA member.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The video did seem to indicate the plane was much more than a few hunderd feet above the Brooklyn Bridge and even less above the Statue of Liberty. Full scale planes should not be that close. So if the model did break FAA regs it was not appear to be in airspace a full scale airplane should be. That said if it was against FAA regs, then writing more would not have caught him. Better awarness among the NY police Dept and US Park Rangers would. So perhaps the FAA just needs to talk to those people and keep them better informed.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

That has never stopped any government agency from writing new law.

As far as this incident goes, I assume that he likely transited airspace where it may have been possible to encounter F/S traffic and given his lack of "see & avoid" ability due to operating beyond Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) then I suspect this is very much a concern for the FAA.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

In the sense that the AMA can say that he is not one of "us" that is true. But with regard to demonstrating what is possible it does not matter if he was an AMA member or not. And I submit that him being a foreign national in fact makes it worse.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

<div style="border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; overflow: hidden; border-left: medium none; color: #000000; border-bottom: medium none; background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none">He has done this many times he has similar videos of other sites where he did the same thing. One of the videos show several people with him. I assume at least one is a spotter. We cannot see what he did that was not on the video, but noticed that his video stopped short of the helicopter pad on the East River near Wall Street. Full scale aircraft is restricted on the east river. I do not see where he was inany airpace any full scale aircraftmay be. Possibly helicopters but even they have restrictions.
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RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Word is that he is a foreigner (Austrian ?). If there is a counterpart organization of the AMA in his country, the FAA and AMA should attempt to reach them and launch a serious dialogue about his violations.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The main thing what i have heard is that the people flying in Europe fly their airplanes far height as compared to that in the US or any other country. The plane look small in the air. I think you need to maintain a certain decent distance to make the plane look better to the Judges.. Going way up at a great height & making the plane looks small make it look bad.. this is my thought which i shared with you.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

And for those who want to practice for contests in Europe where you say they fly much higher?  Are we going to be like the old Soviet Union was, who could not compete because they had few sites where they could legally fly?

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

[quote]ORIGINAL: stuntflyr


Downright nasty winds out there today Chris, I think over 1400 flights cancelled at ORD. I can't disagree with you too much on any of the above; for me I keep reading and discern the language that is mandatory versus permissive. My gut feeling is that it will be more "easily adapted" than not. Even if it imposes a bit too much for our liking at first, it's not like any rule or reg was not modifiedafter its implementation provided measurable results. The Sport Pilot rules as well as Part 103 are a few examples. Hey, as for the 399' loops, even baro altimeters can be off by 75', so if you hit 474' it would be within the tolerance! Not sure if I should put a Rossi or the Kraft in the Tiger Tail, because I'm looking for 600' loops! Later Chris.

Mark

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

I've said this before, I think that overall the majority of people in this hobby will be largely unaffected. But a small minority will be very badly affected. Sadly everything I like to do is in that small minority. Your average sport RC guy who makes up the bilk of this hobby will likely not notice a huge impact.

IMAC, pattern, pylon racing and soaring I think are in some real jeopardy unless the FAA moves in a direction different from what it appears they are moving right now. I think best case we can hope for is a more flexible altitude cap far away from anything (airports and population areas) and perhaps even then only with an event specific waiver.

Again, find your field here:

http://www.runwayfinder.com

Then start looking for places away from the yellow and any airport or other high traffic airspace.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Oh, I see. You thought I was deriding C/L flying. Far from it, I still compete in Stunt about 4 times a year in California, building a Nats ship in Mo. The good thing is that the FAA kinda wants to ignore C/L. they seem to think the type isn't a threat.
Chris...

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

As far as altitude FAA planes cannot fly less than a thousand feet in the yellow areas (and a good part of the non yellow areas). Except when near an airport on landingand takeoff. So would the FAA allow us to fly to 900 feet in those areas? I know noise would be a problem for some fields though.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The populated area exclusion is not related to altitude. Look at AC 91-57 which is the foundation document for much of what the FAA is thinking about right now. It speaks to operating "away from populated areas". I have read on other forums that the actual sUAS operators will be excluded from such areas as well. It's interesting to look at a sectional chart. In the LA area the Sepulveda Basin field is actually in a non-yellow area so would be fine. That is if it wasn't just a hair over a mile from Van Nuys airport!!

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Our club is just outside of a yellow area, but there are neighbor hoods on three sides, so planes shouldn't be below 1000 feet.  Shouldn't the club be allowed at least 900 feet not 400 feet?

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Our club flies off an active full-scale runway at a WWII-era training field - think THAT will be a problem soon???

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Clearly answered in Post #63. Please read the first sentence again. I am not clear what is confusing about what I wrote.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Chris,
That's exactly what I thought. Glad to see you are a Ukie stunt pilot !

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

I just can't understand why there is such a confusion between the SUAS and R/C models. They are operated in completely different manners. SUAS's are almost all autonomous for their mission, not manually flown except for perhaps the launch and recovery. Disregarding FPV models, why can't the FAA see and understand the basic difference in operation?

I was involved in a demonstration to the rules proposal group at our club field in Lancaster. It became obvious very quickly that the vast majority of them had no idea about the depth of the R/C aircraft hobby. If this is not handled properly by the FAA and the AMA it will be for the most part, the end of the hobby. We are in for a long, hard fight.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The coming SFAR Part 107 does not allow for autonomous flight or operations BLOS. FPV operations will require a dedicated spotter. The concern is the proliferation of smaller UAS taht in many cases are indistinguishable from our models.

That seems to be the core of the issue. It is increasingly apparent that the FAA wants to fit model aircraft into a smaller and smaller box to make it easier for them to tell what's a model and what is not. For instance, a commercial sUAS operator who has to comply with some fairly onerous requirements may rightly ask why it is that an unregulated and relatively untrained RC hobby guy can fly a 50 pound jet at 200 mph while he needs to comply with all these regulations to fly a 4 pound camera ship at 15 mph. I have heard it mentioned that the jet demo in particular at your field got their attention, and not in a good way.

As far a the death of the hobby. I am not sure about that. Certainly if the worse case scenario is applied to us then things like pattern, IMAC, soaring, pylon racing, and turbines are dead meat. But that still leaves a lot of guys able to have fun with their planes. Frankly, I do not think the FAA really cares deep down how badly they impact our hobby.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

what is a typical ceiling for an average flyer??I mean what height do rc flers truly fly and keep an eye on the plane.sure glider pilots chase thermals and you expect them to be much higher than glow planes.but for most of us what is the practical working height of an rc plane.I am older so I dont get too high except for spins and blenders.and foamy pilots are typically very low .jets on the other hand need lots of space and height . can we actually make a flying height that is really enforceable.???how does any person measure a planes height. sounds ok but in reality I think its a very difficult thing to realistically quantify. I feel each club needs to decide when someone is too high or flying dangerously.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

Bingo.

The concept is largely unenforceable. The FAA Altitude Police? Get serious.
I predict that if this kind of regulation comes to pass, it will be largely ignored unless someone presents a problem - like flying in full scale airspace near an airport, etc.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The problem is that our club field is in compliance, no problem with populated areas. Outside of the yellow areas, but too many structures for planes to be 500 feet over. Why don't you get the fact that populated areas is subjective.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

That's not the definition at all. In fact I bet most are not autonomous at all.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

The FAA defines a "densely populated area" as those areas depicted by yellow on aviation sectional charts. So it is not subjective at all.

RE: FAA ceiling on R/C
 

I don't know of a single commercial SUAS that does not get flown for most of it's mission autonomously. I'd like to see some that are manually flown during it's entire flight.