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The Prez Sez
Hi Folks!
Here we are in
August, and as you read this Shari and I (along with a whole bunch of
others) are in Dillingham Alaska, building a church. They tell us that
summer happened on 23 July up here, and the temperature roared all the
way to 64 degrees. Winter, of course, is the rest of the year.
At the July
meeting we agreed to table two items and revisit them in August. The
first item was an all foamy fun fly in November, and the second was for
the Club to provide a significant portion of the funding required for
the Christmas Party.
The foamy fun fly
was to be determined by the number of folks who were going to commit to
fly in it. It just makes no sense to put on a fun fly for five pilots.
I've asked both within the club and others, and the good news is there
are over ten pilots who have expressed an interest in this event.
Therefore I propose that we have an all foamy fun fly, events to
be determined, on Saturday 11 November.
On the item of
funding or partially funding the Christmas Party, Mick Fox has worked
hard to raffle almost anything and everything, but with the same five or
six folks in the raffle every time, this just isn't going to work. We
have enough funds in the treasury to support the Christmas Party, so
what better way to support the Club?
Our discussion
this month is from a column by Jay Mealy, AMA Programs Director, about
not doing "dumb stuff":
Don't Do Dumb Stuff: A Discussion On Regulations in NAS
Jay Mealy, Programs Director
Winds of change are blowing in the
direction of aviation and will rustle the leaves of the “aero tree” as
we have come to know it. There may appear a modified flying environment
once the dust settles and we should prepare ourselves now for such
changes.
The possible
changes are indefinable at the moment and there is no telling whether
they will be major or minor, immediate or gradual, restrictive or
negligible. None of these questions can be answered now except when
asked, “…will there be changes?” The answer to that question is yes.
“Why?”
Because of the
proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) development, the federal
government is being barraged with requests for space in the National
Airspace System (NAS) in which UAV flights can take place, a daunting
challenge, to say the least, but inevitable.
UAVs have
been flying military missions successfully for years so it was a matter
of time before that technology would end up in the civilian world,
assigned tasks such as traffic surveillance, air-quality monitoring,
communication, border patrol, or photography—the list goes on forever.
The problem is that the NAS and Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) were
never structured for utilization by vehicles without human operators on
board.
That may not
sound like a big deal but take this into consideration: the air is full
of all types of manned vehicles that fit into the system by following
rules from simple to complex, depending on the purpose and nature of
their flight.
Adherence to
these rules and procedures is totally the responsibility of the
pilot-in-command (PIC) who, in the current way of thinking, is occupying
the best seat from which to conduct flight safely in the vehicle. Pilots
of aircraft operating under visual flight rules (VFR) are operating
among pilots operating under instrument flight rules (IFR) and everyone
knows what everyone else is doing, and should be doing, in a comfortable
operating environment.
Now suddenly
along comes technology that removes the PIC from the vehicle, operating
in the same space as all these manned vehicles, and questions start
being asked regarding safety. How will that craft be able to see “us?”
How will the vehicle communicate with others? What if a system fails?
What if, how, and so on … You can see the potential volume of such
questions and the concerns that must be addressed.
To make a long
story short; regulations for the operation of UAVs are in the works.
Why should
that concern us as modelers? Well, the most obvious reasons are the
similarities between model aircraft and UAVs as seen by the public. This
image could influence the rule-makers into including model aircraft in
the UAV category, which in turn could make us susceptible to regulation
created for the UAVs.
We don’t want
that to happen and that is why the Academy of Model Aeronautics is
working diligently to represent our members and activity to the
regulatory agencies.
We are
fortunate that our long history—more than 70 years of self-regulation
and self-policing—has established us as a responsible and effective
organization with members who truly cherish their privilege to operate
in the NAS and will work tirelessly at preserving that privilege.
Now to the
point of all this rambling … As our sport evolves and our equipment and
skills improve, we tend to become complacent. We become accustomed to
going to the flying field and just letting it all hang out, have fun,
and partake in all types of challenging flying—higher, faster, further.
But we must be careful so as not to get too far over the edge.
Model
airplanes are different from full-scale airplanes in many ways but one
of the most important differences we must all be aware of is their
social acceptance. There is no real need for model airplanes except as a
hobby, no real purpose except as recreation. In most cases, the public
perception is that “they are dangerous.”
Full-scale
aircraft “serve a purpose.” They provide transportation of goods and
people. When a full-scale aircraft crashes, the event is publicized as a
tragedy and rightly so, but it is socially accepted as a necessary risk
and we move on.
Models, on the
other hand, involved in the same type of incident, are not so fortunate
socially. God forbid a model should be the cause of injury—or worse,
death. This is an event that may generate the same type headlines but
the social response is much more negative and the image of model flying
takes a giant minus image hit.
These types of
incidents and this type of publicity at this time in our history are the
kinds of things that can have devastating effects on our continued use
of the NAS.
As stated
previously, there are many unknowns ahead of us. The only resource the
rule-makers have upon which to base their regulatory decisions is our
history and image. We, as participants, have our image and history to
get us through these challenging times and we must diligently protect
that resource. Everyone must strive to operate as responsibly and safely
as possible and every club member should be fully briefed on the
negative impact that careless, reckless, negligent, irresponsible,
immature behavior in flight operations can cause.
Don’t do dumb
stuff!
Until next time,
stay warm and safe!
Bill.
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Club Meeting
The next
meeting of the MMRCC is scheduled for August 3, 2006 at 7:00 P.M. The
meeting will be held at the Northrop Grumman facility. Personnel are
required to sign-in and sign out for security purposes.
See you at the
meeting……………….Will
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