Scott Page
Very Strong User
Punched in the throat. While I suspected this, seeing you post this is horrific.
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What are you doing to fight the FAA's proposed Remote ID?
- Thread starter Wayne
- Start date
Punched in the throat. While I suspected this, seeing you post this is horrific.
I made my comment to the FAA. I've also told as many of my friends as i can about it and asked them to comment. I'm asking people who don't fly to comment telling them that if they want to operate a drone in a park in the future this applies to them. I saw a guy in my local park flying a quad the other day and i stopped and told him about it asked him to look it up and comment. Another friend that flies belongs to a large church, i told him he should contact them about it and ask his congregants to comment. Getting the word out is the best thing we can do.
Hank
Hank
Scott Page
Very Strong User
I worked for days on my first reply to the FAA. Since that time I've come to realize that the idea of "reshaping" the RID NPRM is misguided. The FAA and those pressing them for the RID rules are not ignorant of the difference between LOS and BVLOS operations. They are not ignorant of the long safety history of model aviation. They just don't care. Our safety record, our pleasure, and our freedoms do not matter. Why I wondered??
They may be annoyed by the anomalous miscreant that posts youtube videos flying where they should not - but that's not what's behind the RID NPRM. Commercial drone operations are not even driving this bus - but they are happily riding on the coattails. The surreptitious driver of this Below is my second reply. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding this RID NPRM. Originally I believed that the FAA was simply ignorant of the many facets of the recreational aircraft hobby. It appeared the attempt to regulate and identify BVLOS aircraft would inadvertently cause the elimination of traditional home built RC airplanes. Exempting LOS operations from this RID NPRM and reworking the FRIA proposal could effect the BVLOS identification issue without this collateral damage to the safe and educational hobby. I've since come to understand that the foundation of this RID NPRM is fear of malfeasance from terrorists or criminals. This new understanding makes this RID NPRM even more heinous because it indicates that the attack on 9/11 continues. The FAA has become a terrorist tool as they strip away the rights of the citizens in the bastion of freedom. No doubt Homeland Security is the rebar in this foundation of fear. As a citizen of the United States who watched and was terrorized by the attacks on 9/11. Today I feel more fearful, terrorized, and personally threatened from government overreach exemplified by this horrible RID NPRM. Make no mistake: The Model Airplane Hobby and industry has been hindered and damaged by the regulations the FAA have implemented in the past decade. This RID NPRM will be the coup de grâce for recreational model aviation. With that loss a major gateway engaging youth and adults learning science, technology, engineering, and innovation will be shut forever. Shame war mongers that have so terrorized us to come to this point. Shame on the legislators and FAA for capitulating to the threat of terrorism. |
Agreed - we need to reach out beyond our hobby to get more support.
I had a thought yesterday. Someone was telling me how they plan to visit DC for the organized protest. If this was local I would join. So what if we expanded that protest to include local FAA offices? This would allow all those that can't travel to DC to join in the protest locally. FAA has a lot of building around here, need to figure out the main. Need locations not behind fences at international airports.
I had a thought yesterday. Someone was telling me how they plan to visit DC for the organized protest. If this was local I would join. So what if we expanded that protest to include local FAA offices? This would allow all those that can't travel to DC to join in the protest locally. FAA has a lot of building around here, need to figure out the main. Need locations not behind fences at international airports.
Scott Page
Very Strong User
I've heard that there is a protest in CO as well. This is a good idea.... and a great idea IF it generated some media attention.
We emailed our customer list again last night and urged them to comment. I kept it very short and on point. (I think you all know how difficult that is for me.) Huge response, and I think it really helped to get comments. A copy can be seen here:
Perhaps this will help some other efforts out there. I wish I had a larger email list.
We did get a lot of requests to share talking points. I have avoided that in the past as I wanted people to write in their own words. But I think we can come up with some of the basics so they can write about the more dangerous aspects for the hobby. Perhaps a simple list of bullet points? What do you think? Perhaps we can pull together the protest idea a bit more and share thoughts on that?
Perhaps this will help some other efforts out there. I wish I had a larger email list.
We did get a lot of requests to share talking points. I have avoided that in the past as I wanted people to write in their own words. But I think we can come up with some of the basics so they can write about the more dangerous aspects for the hobby. Perhaps a simple list of bullet points? What do you think? Perhaps we can pull together the protest idea a bit more and share thoughts on that?
Here is a fun one:
My response:
Gavin - If you work for the FAA on this, then perhaps you can share some insight with me? How many intrusions are you having from traditional line of sight models? Any? As far as I know all of the intrusions have been Beyond Line Of Sight drones. That is a huge difference.
Yes, the traditional hobby will be decimated by the proposed rules as the FAA clearly has no understanding of the hobby when they wrote this NPRM. When they state things like most existing aircraft will be able to meet the RFID requirements via simple firmware change. This is FAR from reality. I know of no existing radio system today that will meet the rules they have outlined, or would be capable of meeting these requirements. When you get into the finer details of what I as a manufacturer must do, there is no possible way that I can continue my business. I have to provide an airplane that is tamper proof, that can not be armed without FAA approval. This means that even in my own house, for maintenance I can not power up the model without FAA approval. The security and server requirements are beyond what even the FAA currently has. How can I afford to develop all of this and deploy it all? It is insane on so many levels, this is just one of the minor concerns with the 300+ page NPRM.
The reality is Line Of Sight pilots do not cause these issues. We have been doing this since the 50s. My current club site is under the approach to a local airport. We have another airport nearby that allows models to fly from the taxiway. We have a former air force base that hosted model events while the airport was also used for full scale aviation. We used to have a club site under the approach to Oakland International Airport, sadly it is now closed due to regulation changes. That club had operated there for decades with no issues, only regulation killed it.
Reality is Line Of Sight operations do not allow for much of a threat. We can only pilot the aircraft as far as we can see, for someone with really good eyesight, maybe that is 1400 feet if they have a really big glider. The vast majority of our flights only use 500 feet from where the pilot is standing.
I think the model community will agree to an acceptable level of regulation that will help the FAA and the commercial UAS operators. But it needs to be smart, easy and cheap. Something like reporting flights via an app like airmap.com should be plenty. We are already registered as pilots and soon will have to take skills test too.
The FAA heavy handed approach is a industry killer. And the model hobby is a great feeder into full scale operations, businesses and innovation. Kill the hobby and you do a lot more damage than you think.
p.s. If you think this is ADS-B, you better go look again. That would have been far easier to accomplish, but the FAA deemed that would not work as ADS-B is not designed for low altitudes.
My response:
Gavin - If you work for the FAA on this, then perhaps you can share some insight with me? How many intrusions are you having from traditional line of sight models? Any? As far as I know all of the intrusions have been Beyond Line Of Sight drones. That is a huge difference.
Yes, the traditional hobby will be decimated by the proposed rules as the FAA clearly has no understanding of the hobby when they wrote this NPRM. When they state things like most existing aircraft will be able to meet the RFID requirements via simple firmware change. This is FAR from reality. I know of no existing radio system today that will meet the rules they have outlined, or would be capable of meeting these requirements. When you get into the finer details of what I as a manufacturer must do, there is no possible way that I can continue my business. I have to provide an airplane that is tamper proof, that can not be armed without FAA approval. This means that even in my own house, for maintenance I can not power up the model without FAA approval. The security and server requirements are beyond what even the FAA currently has. How can I afford to develop all of this and deploy it all? It is insane on so many levels, this is just one of the minor concerns with the 300+ page NPRM.
The reality is Line Of Sight pilots do not cause these issues. We have been doing this since the 50s. My current club site is under the approach to a local airport. We have another airport nearby that allows models to fly from the taxiway. We have a former air force base that hosted model events while the airport was also used for full scale aviation. We used to have a club site under the approach to Oakland International Airport, sadly it is now closed due to regulation changes. That club had operated there for decades with no issues, only regulation killed it.
Reality is Line Of Sight operations do not allow for much of a threat. We can only pilot the aircraft as far as we can see, for someone with really good eyesight, maybe that is 1400 feet if they have a really big glider. The vast majority of our flights only use 500 feet from where the pilot is standing.
I think the model community will agree to an acceptable level of regulation that will help the FAA and the commercial UAS operators. But it needs to be smart, easy and cheap. Something like reporting flights via an app like airmap.com should be plenty. We are already registered as pilots and soon will have to take skills test too.
The FAA heavy handed approach is a industry killer. And the model hobby is a great feeder into full scale operations, businesses and innovation. Kill the hobby and you do a lot more damage than you think.
p.s. If you think this is ADS-B, you better go look again. That would have been far easier to accomplish, but the FAA deemed that would not work as ADS-B is not designed for low altitudes.
Here is one from an international point of view:
translation:
Unfortunately, this nasty tendency - the destruction of technical sports, including Aircraft modeling, is gaining momentum not only in Russia but all over the world ... Some prohibitions, restrictions ...
Not really no one needs the active, creative thinking technicians? What is going on with our youth? Thinking people less. But more and more stupid consumers!
Creativity will never die! But it is now less and less ....
They say the world this trend ... Where is rolling this world?
There is a Russian proverb: "What you sow, you reap will be" ...
I'm sorry...
translation:
Unfortunately, this nasty tendency - the destruction of technical sports, including Aircraft modeling, is gaining momentum not only in Russia but all over the world ... Some prohibitions, restrictions ...
Not really no one needs the active, creative thinking technicians? What is going on with our youth? Thinking people less. But more and more stupid consumers!
Creativity will never die! But it is now less and less ....
They say the world this trend ... Where is rolling this world?
There is a Russian proverb: "What you sow, you reap will be" ...
I'm sorry...
u2builder
Strong User
I've sent quite a few comments to the FAA. I agree that this will eventually lead to the virtual extinction of model aviation, though it may take many years for the FAA to actually develop standards for this very complicated and RID plan that they have proposed. If coalitions can be formed it may be possible to get Congress to revisit the Exclusion they already built into the law for LOS operations and force the FAA to allow it:
Congress included this optional Exclusion in SEC 349 to exempt "traditional LOS model aircraft from RID. The challenge is to find a way to get Congress to change "may" to shall.
‘‘(j) EXCLUSIONS.—The Administrator may exempt from the
requirements of this section small unmanned aircraft systems that
are not capable of navigating beyond the visual line of sight of
the operator through advanced flight systems and technology, if
the Administrator determines that such an exemption does not
pose a risk to the safety of the national airspace system.’’
Congress included this optional Exclusion in SEC 349 to exempt "traditional LOS model aircraft from RID. The challenge is to find a way to get Congress to change "may" to shall.
‘‘(j) EXCLUSIONS.—The Administrator may exempt from the
requirements of this section small unmanned aircraft systems that
are not capable of navigating beyond the visual line of sight of
the operator through advanced flight systems and technology, if
the Administrator determines that such an exemption does not
pose a risk to the safety of the national airspace system.’’
We need people to contact the AMA and get them to organize a campaign to our elected officials. They wined and dined with the FAA not thinking about the agenda of the FAA. I guess our AMA strengh is 200,000 according to what I read. Our message to the FAA should be strong and forceful. Our voices have no strength or sway with the FAA as individuals each with our own message. I have written my comments to the FAA and will include them here as well. I have sent emails to the AMA and to their Goverment liaison group. They have taken our money promised to support our hobbies and have let us down. Have you seen any advertisements for our AMA. Have they done much to show our hobby to our country, our neighbors and friends. Seen any news stories on local or national events. The FAA had no clue as to what our hobby is or what it has done for our country. The AMA did a poor job of educating the FAA. 200,000 is a small number in today's world. We have all been busy toiling away to make ends meet and we have neglected our hobby and have not done much in asking those who represent us to spread the word. I myself no longer have the time to build my models and take them down to the field and fly. I am a Life member of the AMA and was introduced to it by a family friend when I was 13. I am now almost 65. I was glad when I finally could afford to become a life member. Now at times I regret it.
My comments to the FAA follow.
I find it absolutely criminal that the FAA seems driven to destroy our hobby which was well regulated and self governed with the help of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. It is obvious the FAA is under the influence of big businesses that cannot wait to clear the air of model airplane hobbyists so they can flood the air with delivery drones. How much money has Amazon and Google pumped into the FAA pockets to take away our hobby. This systematic approach to limit our rights to fly our radio controlled aircraf must be stopped. After fixing our flight cealing around airports and agreeing it would stop there, our FAA decided that 400 feet was to be a universal limit. Now remote ID for drowned becomes remote ID for all RC aircraft. This is already an expensive hobby and now our FAA seeks to add greater expenses to our hobby. Millions of American Citizens have participated in this hobby which has inspired aircraft pilots and aviation innovators as well as aviation industries. Our government should be actively fighting to keep our hobby alive.
Thank you Wayne for reaching out to me. I don't want to see our hobby fade away.
My comments to the FAA follow.
I find it absolutely criminal that the FAA seems driven to destroy our hobby which was well regulated and self governed with the help of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. It is obvious the FAA is under the influence of big businesses that cannot wait to clear the air of model airplane hobbyists so they can flood the air with delivery drones. How much money has Amazon and Google pumped into the FAA pockets to take away our hobby. This systematic approach to limit our rights to fly our radio controlled aircraf must be stopped. After fixing our flight cealing around airports and agreeing it would stop there, our FAA decided that 400 feet was to be a universal limit. Now remote ID for drowned becomes remote ID for all RC aircraft. This is already an expensive hobby and now our FAA seeks to add greater expenses to our hobby. Millions of American Citizens have participated in this hobby which has inspired aircraft pilots and aviation innovators as well as aviation industries. Our government should be actively fighting to keep our hobby alive.
Thank you Wayne for reaching out to me. I don't want to see our hobby fade away.
fliers1
New User
Wayne, the link on the orange box doesn't load for me
Scott Page
Very Strong User
Think Horton hears a who.
According to the December issue of Model Aviation the paying members of the AMA are 110,000. To put this in some perspective - the Youtube drone personality Josh Bardwell has 145,000 subscribers. According to Forbes There are 24 million golfers in the U.S and 2.6 million golfed for the first time ever last year. Or -- Paying AMA members represent under 5% of the number of people that golfed for the first time ever last year. I use golf because it's a similar demographic.
Remember also - that the moral of Horton hears who was that every single voice in whoville was needed - even Cindy Lou Who.
