RC Plane and Real Plane Collide Over Runway

Mithrandir said:
So all this "Real Planes have Priority" gives the bipe flyer carte blanche to be stupid???? Huh??
Click to expand...
Where did I say that? :confused: I said if you're going to go fly your models where the big boys are, you ought to know and understand the big boy rules. Its a pretty simple concept.

Lets put this another way. I like to fly kites with camera rigs on them. Suppose I decided to go fly my kite right next to your RC field during an RC event. Do you think you and your buddies might be just a little bit miffed that some idiot decided to come fly his kite in your box without bothering to educate himself about the rules of flight you have in place in that box first? I suspect you would.


poor coordination and planning by the organizer and the bipe pilot... RC guy is a victim.....
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree that this happened as a result of poor coordination and planning by the organizer. But I'm having a bit of trouble with the RC guy is a victim part the same way I have trouble when I hear about a girl walking through a known seedy park alone at 3 AM and getting raped because of it is a victim. Does she deserve to get raped? Nope. Should she have known better? Yep. So if you want to call her and your RC guy victims, go right ahead. But neither of them are victims that I'm ever going to feel sorry for because both of them could have prevented the malady that befell them if they had just educated themselves a little bit and used some good sense.
 
cmill said:
Really? 91.13 is almost always tacked on in addition to another violation. 91.119, it was at an airport. Purpose of take off or landing, at a sparsely populated area. (Airports are aways considered that.)

91.111. Quit grasping at straws. I think we both know theres not a law judge on the planet that would put a RC in the same category as a full scale.

Ignorance does not make someones actions right. Ask the guy in the lawn chair with the six pack of beer over LAX.

I used to be huge into model rockets, and they were very controlled, even out in the middle of no where. Why should RC planes at an airport be any different? If you wanna fly your in toy, go out into a god damn field.
Click to expand...

Dang the guy was ask to come out there for a charity event....I did demos at local airports also and everything was well organized. This event was just not organized at all! And god dang quit calling them toys! Reality everything is a toy, Full Scale and Models...
 
Apophis said:
ZOMFG Yur RC toy aeroplanez video wuz sooo allsome!!!111!!one!one!!!11

Sorry, but a toy is still a toy, no amount of whining can change that.

An RC plane "operator" is not a pilot. Fact.

You have your opinions on the matter, I have mine. Move on.
Click to expand...

A lot of big hot shot rc pilots are instructors for major uav companies these days. UAVs are the future of aviation and flying these giant scale and smaller models helps out a lot! And if your calling these models toys then full scale is a toy also cause I love flying those to! Same as sport cars etc.
 
Mithrandir said:
Hmmm.... at every event I have flown RC at, (though tower controlled in my cases).. when it was RC Demo time.... the runway was CLOSED unless there was a mayday
Click to expand...

This was an uncontrolled field with no officially sanctioned ATC facility. The Pitts had all the right in the world to be there.

several have commented that the biplane pilot surely saw the crowd of people on/next to the runway.. and apparently there is a rule about flying within 500 feet of people....
Click to expand...

That reg does NOT apply to runways. There is a caveat that says "for the purposes of takeoff and landing..." Go-arounds and low approaches fall into that category which is what the Pitts was doing.

The organizers and the biplane pilot screwed up.... the poor RC pilot was just flying his demo when the management told him to.
Click to expand...

The organizers - yes, they screwed up. The Pitts pilot, not at all. The RC guy didn't take adequate precautions like using a spotter.
 
Gremlin:

Not quite a valid comparison. Let's say you were invited to a weekend RC fun fly to demonstrate your kites. Some rouge RC guy decided to fly during your demonstration and flew through your kite strings, got tangled up, and headed for the crowd. I'm sure for an appropriate moment you'd be shocked at the potential bodily harm. At some point you'd be pissed that your kite was trashed uneccessarily.

JoelT,

The second full throttle was applied, smoke on, and forward elevator was applied, he left any phase of flight considered under that rule. We need to stop justifying this as a normal go around and call it what it is, a high speed pass. I'm fairly confident the F*A will see it this way. The fact that he had a passenger makes it even worse in their eyes. Get in any aircraft with your best guy or gal and head to the location of your favorite FSDO and execute several of these "go around/low approaches" and see how far you get.
 
cmill said:
Really? 91.13 is almost always tacked on in addition to another violation. 91.119, it was at an airport. Purpose of take off or landing, at a sparsely populated area. (Airports are aways considered that.)

91.111. Quit grasping at straws. I think we both know theres not a law judge on the planet that would put a RC in the same category as a full scale.

Ignorance does not make someones actions right. Ask the guy in the lawn chair with the six pack of beer over LAX.

I used to be huge into model rockets, and they were very controlled, even out in the middle of no where. Why should RC planes at an airport be any different? If you wanna fly your in toy, go out into a god damn field.
Click to expand...


I speak from personal experince. I went to a friends NTSB hearing who did just this, at the Camrillo airshow two years ago, before the airshow had started. He departed about an hour before the airshow started in his Extra, made a pass before it started with is smoke on, and had his certificates revoked. He is a retired Delta captain, with 17,000 plus hours. The airboss even came up to him after he had landed and was at selfserve and aksed if he'd like to do a couple of fly by's durning the show. And these were exactly the violations he was charged with. And the tower had cleared him to do it.

One of the things that blew me away was the FAA's "expert" said you climb out in an Extra 300 the same way you climb out in a C172. Try a 5-8 degree climb out in an extra and tell me how high above Vy you get.

If someone can point me towards where I can search an online database, I'll show you. I can't find a search engine.

I have been to hearings at the NTSB. The NTSB judges almost always side with the FAA(they are not considered Law judges IIRC). It's very rare that they don't. You have to almost find negligence on the part of the FAA to win a case. Remember, the NTSB/FAA hearings are not like a regular court where your innocent untill proven guilty, because it's not criminal. I would not be suprised if they found more to violate this guy with. It's also clear in the video that the pilots intent was not to take off or land, and the regs's that I cited clearly state that the they do not apply if you are taking off or landing. One of the thing the Fed's brought against my friend was the fact that at one point his airplane was pointed at the crowd. Well, it's impossible to fly a traffic pattern and not have your airplane pointed at a crowd at some point.


Edit: I found it, but I'm on my way out the door to take my son to swimming lessons. I'll post when i get back!:D
 
mshunter said:
I speak from personal experince. I went to a friends NTSB hearing who did just this, at the Camrillo airshow two years ago, before the airshow had started. He departed about an hour before the airshow started in his Extra, made a pass before it started with is smoke on, and had his certificates revoked. He is a retired Delta captain, with 17,000 plus hours. The airboss even came up to him after he had landed and was at selfserve and aksed if he'd like to do a couple of fly by's durning the show. And these were exactly the violations he was charged with. And the tower had cleared him to do it.

One of the things that blew me away was the FAA's "expert" said you climb out in an Extra 300 the same way you climb out in a C172.

If someone can point me towards where I can search an online database, I'll show you.
Click to expand...

You can get cleared to do lots of things that aren't legal. Within the last couple weeks I've had tower clear me for a transition at 1000', which was about 850' agl in a very congested area. Sorry, that isn't going to work. They let another guy do patterns at 1000' when it was overcast at 1100' in glass D. There are lots of things ATC will let you do, but when it comes down to it it is 100% the pilots responsibility to ensure they are operating legally. I have no doubt the FAA will/would find the Pitts pilot was operating careless and reckless.
 
Mithrandir said:
ahh ha ha ha.... ... relax Dawg... it is all good... and even though you apparently have no respect for toy planes, I still love everything that flies... prolly even the plane you rent for 2 hours every other saturday too!!
Click to expand...

That's nice and all, but I don't rent any plane, I own one. If you were paying attention at all you probably would have seen that in my sig line.

I never said I hated RC planes, I simply said I have much more respect for actual aerobatic "pilots", than remote control operators.

That is all.
 
TXDA2000 said:
With an attitude like that, I bet you have a few affliction shirts yourself. Do you wear them in the Cherokee as well?
Click to expand...

Wow, you completely figured me out! I also spike up my hair, have a super-expensive E6B watch, and have mirrored aviators I wear all the time!!! I film all of my landings and post them on youtube as well! :rolleyes:

As I've previously posted, I DO NOT hate RC aircraft. I do, however, think it is silly to compare them in any form to real aerobatic pilots and aircraft, which is what the previous poster was trying to do.

Perfecting a model may take as much skill as flying a real plane to ILS minimums, but how many lives do you have in your hands while piloting that RC model? Zero. The consequences of failure in a real aircraft are much more grave. And therein lies the difference.

Both camps have their opinions on this, so I really don't think it's worth the effort to argue any further.
 
Muff3n said:
And he had beautiful hairrrr! :D
Click to expand...

I love this picture:
2pp0t40.gif
 
Apophis said:
That's nice and all, but I don't rent any plane, I own one. If you were paying attention at all you probably would have seen that in my
sig line.
Click to expand...


ha ha ha... when you are frequenting aviation related forums as much as I do, you tend to not even look at signatures....




Apophis said:
I never said I hated RC planes, I simply said I have much more respect for actual aerobatic "pilots", than remote control operators.

That is all.
Click to expand...

I respect everyone deserving of respect whether they operate toys or "pilot" planes.....

I can't understand why one is more deserving of any respect over the other......

I thought things like generosity, integrity where the sorts of characteristics that warrented respect.... not flying airplanes.....


Apophis said:
.............
As I've previously posted, I DO NOT hate RC aircraft. I do, however, think it is silly to compare them in any form to real aerobatic pilots and aircraft, which is what the previous poster was trying to do.

Perfecting a model may take as much skill as flying a real plane to ILS minimums, but how many lives do you have in your hands while piloting that RC model? Zero. The consequences of failure in a real aircraft are much more grave. And therein lies the difference.
........
Click to expand...

ummm... I think my statement was regarding pure pilot skill of a full size aerobatic pilot compared to the pure skill of a model pilot.. sorry.. "Operator", and comparing/contrasting aircraft performance and capability........... I fully acknowledged the benefit of the "Operator" not his'self pulling g's and not having his arse in the plane......
I think you don't understand the perspective issue.... but that is OK... I like the plane you own!!!


TXDA2000 said:
With an attitude like that, I bet you have a few affliction shirts yourself. Do you wear them in the Cherokee as well?

I feel safe to say I can see both sides of this. I've done demos similar to this one with my models. (I actually have the same model as this guy). I've also flown full scale air shows, plenty of acro time, and maybe even witnessed first hand several "go arounds" similar to this.

I've been fortunate to have well rounded experience from gliders, seaplanes, and everything in between to my current Intl Corporate Jet gig. Still fly a lot of small stuff, and plenty of RC planes/helis as well.

I can without a doubt tell you that hovering and other forms of "high alpha" flight that the upper echelon of modelers have perfected takes as much skill as flying an ILS to minimums. You can teach a monkey to do either quite well.

Watch that Heli video posted above. That's not most peoples cup of tea, but the reflexes, coordination, and situational awareness it takes to accomplish that is absolutely incredible.

The ranks of the serious RC modeler include an incredible percentage of professional and GA pilots. I assume that a lot of them are like me and hate that there is rift between two forms of the same thing, aviation.

With that out of the way, I'd like to point out of few of my opinions:

These models are no more a "toy" than a Pitts or Starduster. With a few exceptions on both sides, we buy these "toys" with surplus money to fill our spare time with a pastime that is enjoyable to us.

The RC pilot was young and uninformed. He didn't know the finer points of the situation, or the potential consequences. In a court of law that won't mean squat. I wonder if any "young and uninformed" aviators have ever found themselves in a pickle. In all of aviation, we learn with age and experience. Please keep in mind that this event was organized and run by FS pilots.

In my estimation, the person that deserves an apology the most is the pax in the bipe. The pilot knew the risks. Everytime you buzz a strip, event or not, your hanging your tail out the window. Do you think his heart rate and adrenaline were elevated before he met the model? H3LL Yeah!

This was an unfortunate event. Luckily everybody walked away. Hopefully we can learn from this for future events. I can tell you that the Modelling Community are already drafting guidelines to give the pilots the information they need to have before providing demonstrations at full scale events. The FAA might even look at this video and realize it needs a similar AC for those wishing to hold a non-waivered event at an uncontrolled airport. These guys obviously needed some guidance. (and at least a NOTAM!)
Click to expand...

BINGO... well said.....

wouldn't it be nice if the FAA came out and said.. "you were all naughty... don't do this again.. and we recommend these changes in the future to avoid this happening again"....????
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top