Here's one MAJOR reason why joining the NAR and/or Tripoli has value

The FAA just released something that is making quite a stink in the RC hobby aircraft world:

Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft
Notice of Interpretation with Request for Comment

Their product is the Nth example of the sort of stupidity that can come from regulatory bean counters who don't understand your hobby.

Within their definition of a model aircraft and the safe operation thereof, the flying of any free flight model aircraft of any type would be in violation of their rules nationwide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_flight_(model_aircraft)

By their wording, it doesn't matter if it's a small sheet balsa model you bought for a dollar, it's included.

If your aircraft does fit within their definition of a model aircraft and if it's flown within five miles of an airport, you must inform the tower. It doesn't matter if your model aircraft is a tiny Estes Proto X Nano R/C Quadcopter you only fly five feet into the air in your back yard:



It's still required that you call the tower.

The AMA rules for remote on-board video (FPV) operation of an RC aircraft require a spotter by the pilot's side that has a buddy link to his transmitter to take over the aircraft if needed. The pilot can wear immersive video goggles and control the aircraft, the spotter keeps a line-of-sight watch on the aircraft and any airborne hazards and can take over in an instant if needed.

That isn't good enough for the FAA which wants to specifically ban the use of goggles, probably being totally ignorant of the AMA-approved and entirely sensible method.

And here's the ringer. The FAA does't actually have the authority to do any of this. From the AMA, the RC hobby organization that will be officially "commenting" on this with the FAA:

"In an effort to protect the aeromodeling community from overreaching and onerous regulation, Congress established the Special Rule for Model Aircraft which exempts this activity from regulation provided it is conducted in accordance with and within the safety programming of a community-based organization, AMA.

States AMA President Bob Brown, “The FAA interpretive rule effectively negates Congress’ intentions, and is contrary to the law. Section 336(a) of the Public Law states that, ‘the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft…’, this interpretive rule specifically addresses model aircraft, effectively establishes rules that model aircraft were not previously subject to and is in direct violation of the congressional mandate in the 2012 FAA reauthorization bill.”

Want to see hobby rocketry eventually burdened by "overreaching and onerous regulation"? Then don't join the NAR or Tripoli to ensure that you'll have no organized representation to oppose them.

You know we have already had experience with this very kind of thing and it took us TEN YEARS to get satisfaction from the courts. The AMA being much larger than NAR or TRA can make it go away a whole lot faster than we did. I'm sure there's many in congress that fly and you can bet this won't sit well with them.

I think the problem has become differentiating a model aircraft from a drone

More than likely the goal for restricting and limiting drones has had the unintended consequence of impacting the model RC world

Unfortunately, if you really think about it, what is the difference between a flying vehicle piloted remotely that is a drone and a flying vehicle piloted remotely that is a model aircraft?

Technically none, semantically a lot. Which sounds scarier on the news? I recently watched a 60 Minutes segment on the "drone issue" and the correspondent was talking with a person who brought up that drone is a loaded term and you could describe them as RC quad rotors. The correspondent said "I'm going to just call it a drone."

kj

That's a typical news reporter response. Call it whatever sounds more attention getting, without any clear understanding of what they are talking about. And, the average person watching who knows nothing at all about model aircraft believes it. Next, make a huge stink over a some sort of "incident involving a drone" and then the politicians will be slinging regulatory crap faster than it can stick to the closest wall...

jef955 said:

That's a typical news reporter response. Call it whatever sounds more attention getting, without any clear understanding of what they are talking about. And, the average person watching who knows nothing at all about model aircraft believes it. Next, make a huge stink over a some sort of "incident involving a drone" and then the politicians will be slinging regulatory crap faster than it can stick to the closest wall...

Click to expand...

Exactly. The media hype about civilian drones is a tempest in a teapot. To keep things in perspective, I ask people in various non-hobbyist forums making a big deal about hobbyist "drones" to consider how many times they've even seen an RC fixed wing plane or helicopter in flight without trying to do so and then to realize that those types of RC aircraft vastly outnumber the multirotor "drones" the hype is all about.

The main PR problem for multirotor (aka, quadcopters, hexacopters, etc.) "drones" come from the ability to fly them in limited spaces near people, areas which wouldn't be large enough to fly anything other than tiny fixed wing or helicopter RC aircraft. You then get an idiot who flies one down the crowded streets of of NYC from his hotel balcony. He crashed his $500 DJI Phantom 20 ft away (not exactly "nearly missing" the person as hyped in the press) from someone who picked it up and kept it as evidence.



One of those could seriously cut someone up if still running, especially if it hit them in the face.

Another incident that got a lot of attention within the FPV RC community was some complete moron who made a video from a quadcopter of commercial aircraft in a landing approach from not far off of their flight path and posted it to YouTube. When the idiot posted a link to it in a major RC forum, he was trounced upon and rightfully so.

There is also an unsubstantiated report from a pilot who claims that he narrowly missed a drone while cruising at altitude (forget exactly how high, but it was in controlled airspace FAR above the 400 ft legal limit for civilian RC drones).

Now, proper rules and guidelines could be created logically and enforced as much as possible, but bureaucracies, especially government bureaucracies abhor extra work and its far easier to just ban something that presents a problem. All it takes is a few total idiots and a problem that is statistically irrelevant compared to, for instance, the hazard of bird strikes on aircraft or any of the thousand ways a person could get hurt walking down the streets of NYC, will be blown completely out of proportion, inspiring government agencies to "do something to protect us," but only if its very easy to do and little extra work, like a total ban or, if it's not, expands their budgets and number of personnel to fight the new overblown threat.

This could easily happen to hobby rocketry, too, and if you don't have some large organization(s) with adequate funds to represent you, you're out of luck.

Here's a nice example of one of the most detailed hysteria articles. What they fail to mention about EVERY civilian drone case is that the operators were already breaking laws and, in one case, the idiot flying from his hotel balcony, the operator was fined $2,200 after, luckily, hurting no one and damaging nothing other than his $500 quadcopter:

https://www.sott.net/article/280863...t-increasing-and-FAA-unable-to-handle-problem

A few excerpts:

Very early in the article: "Since November 2009, law enforcement agencies, universities and other registered drone users have reported 23 accidents and 236 unsafe incidents, according to FAA records."

That's about FOUR ACCIDENTS PER YEAR NATIONWIDE, accidents of unknown severity at that. And who was hurt? More often than not, it's the pilot!

Much later in the article, the connection obviously missed by the idiot who wrote the article. Note the repeat of the "236" figure: "Civilian agencies have reported 236 unsafe or abnormal incidents to the FAA since 2009, the records show. The vast majority of incidents involved drones flown by Customs and Border Protection."

Also: "Since 2005, the system has received 50 reports of unsafe incidents involving drones. Some were minor infractions or deviations from airspace regulations. Others were near-disasters. Many of the incidents involved military drones flying outside restricted airspace."

And the SIZE of the "drones" spotted by commercial pilots put them way outside the size of any civilian drone I've ever seen on major RC hobby forums or anywhere else.

Typical "the sky is falling!" idiocy. Assuming there is even a real problem, the answer is not to hamper the hobby of people who aren't idiots when it comes to operating RC aircraft, but to prosecute those who are.