AC 91-57 (Model Airplanes) Cancelled

This can only be a bad thing, if you're an RC flyer.

I doubt anyone has come away with fewer restrictions after being under the FAA microscope.
 
Maybe I am wrong, but I do not see this as a big deal for people flying model planes. I do not see the FAA tracking down people in parks. While I know that some of these RC planes can be huge, the ones that I flew had to remain in view and should not be lumped in with autonomous drones. I never gave the FAA much thought. Now the drone thing is different I agree. Surely some common sense rules could prevent most incidents.
 
Morgan3820 said:
...I do not see the FAA tracking down people in parks...
Click to expand...

Me neither. I noticed that the recent presidential TFR banned model aircraft operations within 30 NM of SFO, and I wondered how in the heck they think all the model aircraft operators in urban and suburban areas are going to find out about that, let alone how they would ever enforce it. It's not like there's a requirement for them to check NOTAMs. :rolleyes:
 
AMA(www.modelaircraft.org) sends out TFR notification emails much like FAA SAFETY does... Actually, I get notifications from AMA way before I get them from FAA Safety team for TFRs around KJFK/KEWR.
 
The last tfr that grounded me I first heard about from an rc guy.:D no worries about those guys.
 
igorek82 said:
AMA(www.modelaircraft.org) sends out TFR notification emails much like FAA SAFETY does... Actually, I get notifications from AMA way before I get them from FAA Safety team for TFRs around KJFK/KEWR.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Any idea what percentage of RC folks are on the AMA email distribution?
 
Palmpilot said:
Interesting. Any idea what percentage of RC folks are on the AMA email distribution?
Click to expand...

Having been part of the R/C community for 20+years prior to earning my Private, I would say...with confidence....+90%.
 
Palmpilot said:
Interesting. Any idea what percentage of RC folks are on the AMA email distribution?
Click to expand...

All of the pilots with large/nice/fast aircraft, and the majority of aircraft & helo pilots, excepting only new quad copter guys and die-hard loners.
 
Cancelling this has no effect on anything. It was nothing more than a document of recommendations. It's and AC, not a law. It was cancelled because the FAA has passed regulation now and has more coming on the matter that contradicts it.

Now that said, their regulations are absurd, idiotic, poorly thought out, etc etc. Which I'm sure nobody finds surprising.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
Cancelling this has no effect on anything. It was nothing more than a document of recommendations. It's and AC, not a law. It was cancelled because the FAA has passed regulation now and has more coming on the matter that contradicts it.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize they had actually adopted a regulation on this. Does anyone have the citation so I can see what they came up with?
 
From folks who are familiar with the RC scene, what would you estimate the compliance rate to be with the RC prohibition during VIP TFRs?
 
Last edited:
It was part of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act.
http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/HR658_020112.pdf

Then in addition, there was this little gem:
http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/model_aircraft_spec_rule.pdf

As far as compliance with TFRs....
The AMA clubs and their specific fields are probably very compliant. But this really only accounts for the old grumpy men flying models around in circles :D

The general public that buys a quadcopter, pulls it out of the box, and flies around the neighborhood has no clue. They wouldn't even have a way of knowing.
 
Looks like they've cancelled the cancellation of AC 91-57 so looks like it's back in place.
 
Until they cancel the uncancelled cancellation.
 
Gottafly1 said:
Having been part of the R/C community for 20+years prior to earning my Private, I would say...with confidence....+90%.
Click to expand...

Palmpilot, I would guess anyone with an email address that's a member of AMA will receive one... AFAIK they started sending those out a few years ago without us having to sign up for them. I also agree that it is general public with a quadcopter and lack of clue that is far more dangerous than an AMA members flying at their sanctioned fields... I have never seen anyone fly at our field (~10 miles from KJFK) during an active TFR for as long as I've been a member.

Below is the one from today

----
From: AMA Webmaster
To: igorek82

New FDC NOTAM/TFRs have been issued for the greater New York, NY and Newark, NJ metropolitan area for Wednesday, 10/15, from 3:45p until 6:45p EDT. The TFRs are issued for security purposes to cover VIP movement in this area. Outdoor radio control model aircraft operations are prohibited within the lateral limits of the New York Class B airspace for the specific times listed below. Control Line and Free Flight modelers should use discretion when operating within the TFR. Please note that TFRs are subject to change with very short notice. Check back often for the most current NOTAM/TFR information. Timely alerts are also available on the web or on your cell phone at: Twitter.com/amagov.

See the link to the TFR below for more detailed information regarding the restrictions:

Map View of the Affected Area

View the TFR in Google Earth
(Open the KML file or download and open in Google Earth)

Area 1 (10/7, 1:00p – 5:30p and 7:45p – 9:00p EDT)
The lateral limits of the New York Class B airspace
Area 2 (10/7, 1:00p – 2:15p and 7:45p – 9:00p EDT)
(8nm radius from Latitude: 40º37'58"N, Longitude: 73º46'17"W)
Area 3 (10/7, 1:30p – 5:30p EDT)
(7nm radius from Latitude: 40º46'09"N, Longitude: 73º58'32"W)
Excluding:
(2nm radius from Latitude: 40º50'55"N, Longitude: 74º03'44"W)
TFR - 4/5905

Regards

Government Relations Support Team
 
Last edited:
Pedals2Paddles said:
Cancelling this has no effect on anything. It was nothing more than a document of recommendations. It's and AC, not a law. It was cancelled because the FAA has passed regulation now and has more coming on the matter that contradicts it.

Now that said, their regulations are absurd, idiotic, poorly thought out, etc etc. Which I'm sure nobody finds surprising.
Click to expand...

Do your comments mean that you intend to ignore any government pronouncements on use of UAS and fly them anyway you determine is appropriate?
 
I'm an AMA member and didn't get the notice, so I guess I'd better check my settings.
 
jnmeade said:
Do your comments mean that you intend to ignore any government pronouncements on use of UAS and fly them anyway you determine is appropriate?
Click to expand...

I did not say that, imply that, or suggest that. And no. The fact that you would insinuate that is insulting. In fact I'm a member of a local UAV group with active community outreach on safe operation. And regularly interacts with the FAA and Secret Service on all of these matters. Thank you very much.
 
UAVs are so inexpensive and available so widely that I have to think that in the future, there will be large numbers of users who will not belong to any organized group, and will not get the word on TFRs.
 
Palmpilot said:
UAVs are so inexpensive and available so widely that I have to think that in the future, there will be large numbers of users who will not belong to any organized group, and will not get the word on TFRs.
Click to expand...
Too late. Already happened.
 
The reason I said "in the future" is that earlier in the thread, I was assured that the number is currently less than 10%.
 
His 90% number was accurate about 3 years ago. The availability and popularity of consumer ready to fly multirotors has made that no longer the case. The general public is flying remote controlled aircraft in huge numbers. And the they have never heard about or care about the AMA. They're not any email list. They've never heard of a TFR.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
...The general public is flying remote controlled aircraft in huge numbers. And the they have never heard about or care about the AMA. They're not any email list. They've never heard of a TFR.
Click to expand...

That sounds likely.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
His 90% number was accurate about 3 years ago. The availability and popularity of consumer ready to fly multirotors has made that no longer the case. The general public is flying remote controlled aircraft in huge numbers. And the they have never heard about or care about the AMA. They're not any email list. They've never heard of a TFR.
Click to expand...

With entry level RC plane/helicopter/multi-rotor prices coming down so much, I'm not surprised. You can get a full setup RC setup for flying at a field or park for $40-$200 to start. But if you want to fly at an AMA field, you need to add another $100+ per year. Equipment prices are coming down while membership fees are going up.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
I did not say that, imply that, or suggest that. And no. The fact that you would insinuate that is insulting. In fact I'm a member of a local UAV group with active community outreach on safe operation. And regularly interacts with the FAA and Secret Service on all of these matters. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

I insinuated nothing. I asked a simple question.
 
Palmpilot said:
From what folks who are familiar with the RC scene, what would you estimate the compliance rate to be with the RC prohibition during VIP TFRs?
Click to expand...

Less than 50%. The issue is that many RC pilots are not members of AMA.
 
I fly RC helos. I am not a member of the AMA for the past 50 years or so.
Did belong, back in the misty dawn of flight.

The farmers I hang around with are all interested in having a quad rotor with a GoPro for making videos of their combines chewing up corn, etc. Even the 70 year old ones. They have never even heard of the FAA, much less of the AMA. If you mention it they opine that they belonged to the FFA when they were kids "Is that the same?"

The comment that the GPS guided, gyro stabilized quad rotor, with live down linked video to the operator's HUD glasses, will totally change the face of RC model aircraft is a vast understatement. It is the atomic bomb that will leave the FAA beating it's head against the nearest wall.

As the announcer says in his deep voice "Coming soon over a hot tub near you is Gomer and his Autoquad 4000, streaming HD video of your girlfriend's nipples straight onto the internet."

Anyway, in spite of my familiarity with the various regulatory bodies, etc. nothing they say or do will change what I do. I will continue to fly my toys below 400 feet as I please. And I suspect I am only one of millions .:D
 
I'm an AMA member and I fly my aircraft above 400 ft all the time. You can go to any RC field and see this, especially with the turbines. 400 ft was always a recommendation and not law. AMA even supports flight above 400 ft with a spotter.

It's about using common sense, which seems in short supply these days. If I'm flying at 1,000 ft and hear a "full scale plane" coming, I can be below 400 ft in seconds. In 12 yrs of flying RC I've never even had to do that because I fly in areas that aren't near airports.

Now, a month ago I wrote about the guy who had a quad copter above 500 ft and went out my door maybe 50-75 ft away. He's a moron. If you can't hear a Bell 407 coming from miles away, you're either deaf or you kept your aircraft high intentionally hoping to get footage of a helicopter. I'd say in this case it was the later. I'm still waiting for his vid to show up on YouTube.
 
Last edited:
As you have heard, the FAA may violate certificated pilots who fly UAS in a way the FAA says in against the regs. So, we certificated pilots have more to lose than John Doe who bought one from off eBay and has no pilot's license.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...rgets-you-licensed-pilots-at-particular-risk/

FWIW, I fly off my farm strip and have more than a passing interest in UAS that fly near me. We all know there are legal ways to fly airplanes below 500' out here in the boondocks, so UAS operators should not assume I can not and will not be down in the area they may consider "theirs".

As an active corn and soybean farmer who has followed the ag use of UAS, I don't know of a single farmer who has one or plans to get one. I know a number of people pushing their use to farmers. While there will no doubt be great changes, at this point in time the UAS have such a short flight time that you can't do much with most of the quadcopter types available. They can lift so little that you can't figure on spraying with them or using them to drop a salt block to the cattle in the back 40. I'm also in close contact with a crop scouting agronomy firm that is following UAS very closely and has been involved in some local college testing. It's hard to see how you get a UAS to turn over the bottom leaves of a soybean plant to count the aphids. It's not to sure yet how a UAS will let you quantify the defoliation economic threshhold of Japanese beetles.
The farmers who will likely eventually use UAS as they develop will be the big guys who don't walk their fields often and will rely on UAS pictures to cover more ground. It won't be the family farmer with 600 acres. It will be the BTO (big time operator) with 6,000 acres.
I don't doubt for a second UAS is coming to agriculture, but for right now it is coming to agriculture because the promoters know they don't have the privacy issues in the "wide open space" that they do with they try to sell UAS to the local police.
 
Last edited:
Dr. O said:
I fly RC helos. I am not a member of the AMA for the past 50 years or so.
Did belong, back in the misty dawn of flight.

The farmers I hang around with are all interested in having a quad rotor with a GoPro for making videos of their combines chewing up corn, etc. Even the 70 year old ones. They have never even heard of the FAA, much less of the AMA. If you mention it they opine that they belonged to the FFA when they were kids "Is that the same?"

The comment that the GPS guided, gyro stabilized quad rotor, with live down linked video to the operator's HUD glasses, will totally change the face of RC model aircraft is a vast understatement. It is the atomic bomb that will leave the FAA beating it's head against the nearest wall.

As the announcer says in his deep voice "Coming soon over a hot tub near you is Gomer and his Autoquad 4000, streaming HD video of your girlfriend's nipples straight onto the internet."

Anyway, in spite of my familiarity with the various regulatory bodies, etc. nothing they say or do will change what I do. I will continue to fly my toys below 400 feet as I please. And I suspect I am only one of millions .:D
Click to expand...

Yeah, those nipples don't show well from above 400':D;)
 
I always wondered if the bastards would do this, very third world. Going after an unused permission because of something 'egregious' they don't like. From Jim's link:
In addition, drone pilots who hold airmen certificates are at particular risk, especially if they fly manned aircraft for a living. According to the new guidance: “For a deliberate, egregious violation by a certificate holder, regardless of whether the certificate holder is exercising the privileges of the certificate in connection with the violations associated with a UAS operation, certificate action, may be appropriate. Such certificate action may be in addition to a civil penalty.” This means that a model aircraft operator may put his professional license at risk – even though no license is required to fly a model aircraft – if the FAA decides that his or her conduct is egregious enough.
 
The FAA really needs to tone down this knee jerk reaction BS, before they loose whatever credibility they have left.
 
Because certificate holders "should appreciate the potential for endangerment that operating a UAS contrary to the FAA’s safety regulations may cause" we "warrant a civil penalty above the moderate range". I'm guessing they're referring to upcoming regs since the existing stuff seems to be advisory - when it's not cancelled.

Are there that many UAS/RC flying around those fields? Other than me, I've only once seen someone else flying in the parks around me in the 18 years I've lived next them and I live fairly close to a RC store. As far as I know, I'm the biggest annoyance around here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top