Flying Rc in the traffic pattern

Pinstriper

Pinstriper

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Pinstriper
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Not sure if you guys will be able to see this without registering (I'd register if ya can') I'm the original poster on this thread. I'm selling my first person view gear as I no longer do it since I got my ppl.. There are fools out there gonna kill one of us and our families. They are flying unmanned Rc aircraft above the clouds, in the traffic patterns, spying on control towers etc.

I've had fools calling my Craigslist as telling me they do stupid stuff like that.. I have forwarded this thread to the Pres. of the AMA and AOPA in hopes they speed up regulating it :(

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1786429#post23490399
 
How big are these things?

I was under the impression they were quite small.

Can they really cause damage worse than, say, a bird strike? We need to be careful not to overstate the risk. Most bird strikes are not fatal, but they are expensive. And unlike birds, you can sue the operator of a quad copter.
 
Nah, lets regulate GA more and leave the RC guys alone.:wink2: Just make it illegal to fly into a RC drone and everyone wins.:rolleyes2: Or make em put those super powerful laser pointers on the RC drones so GA pilots can see them coming.:lol:
Big sky, free country.:yes:
People have been killed by falling GA planes you might want to think before suggesting we outlaw all potential risk.:nono:
 
These can be a simple trex450 heli weighing a pound or so.. To hexagon rotors weighing a few pounds made of aluminum search FPV on youtube. One caller told me it was freaking cool to capture GA with his quad .. Most guys run 170* lens to get a wide view.. But objects in the lens are closer than they appear.. Which means you gotta get close :(
 
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They are plenty large enough that hitting one with the wrong part of the airplane could make that flight your last flight.
 
I once had to circle an airport for a good 15 minutes before I was able to get the RC guys to land their damn planes that they were zipping around over the runway and through the pattern. Big fast little airplanes.
 
Ya but most folks don't know article 550.. Or are aware of any guidelines as most don't belong to clubs due to rules on how to fly..
 
jesse said:
I once had to circle an airport for a good 15 minutes before I was able to get the RC guys to land their damn planes that they were zipping around over the runway and through the pattern. Big fast little airplanes.
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Very unusual for RC to operate at an airport without management approval. I've never seen it happen except for special events with ground coordination.
 
Pinstriper said:
Ya but most folks don't know article 550.. Or are aware of any guidelines as most don't belong to clubs due to rules on how to fly..
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Indeed, FAA's UAV rulemaking is inclusive of RC. Release of the rules has been delayed several times. One possible outcome is join AMA, fly at sanctioned and insured RC fields, and follow AMAs rules or follow these more restrictive FAA rules.

I just hope these new technologies and the FAA's involvement don't disrupt sanctioned clubs that follow the rules.
 
These guys can fly 3-10 miles away from where they are standing.. My personal farthest was .5 miles ., this is me in 2010 GPS and radar enabled in a foam plane until I decided this is stupid and got my ppl..

http://youtu.be/0vgXzqjjsdg
 
I was landing in Sebring about a year ago and my son swore he saw a RC plane follwing me in the pattern. I told him he was bonkers. Maybe I was wrong. I would not be surprised if these things can make a mess of your day if they hit you. They way a few pound to much more but are more solid than your average bird.

Can see it in the NTSB: pilot crashed because he failed to see and avoid the RC plane that crashed into his winshield and shattered it.

Doug
 
AMA sanctioned rc clubs operating at regular un-towered public airports have rules in place requiring those operating a regular rc plane to have a spotter. There should be an operational scanner as well, tuned to the Unicom frequency and there should be a notam identifying the airport as one where an rc club may be flying. Full scale aircraft without a radio should cross the field above pattern height to make their intention known that they wish to land.

The flying of quadcopters of various sizes and other rc planes with gopro like cameras in fpv mode outside of actual visual range, puts them squarely under the regulations for commercial UAVs and are clearly a potential danger for full scale aircraft.
 
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W35, states in the A/FD there is RC Aircraft that use the RWY. I have only been I there one time. I wonder how easy it is to spot an RC plane?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
I'm amazed by some of these videos. What's the restriction on range ? Is it a wifi connection between the copter and the ipad ?
 
What about full scale operating in the pattern of an R/C field?

I only say that in jest, but when I was a kid I remember getting buzzed many times at the R/C field. There was this one fellow that came by every Sunday morning one summer in a beautifully polished aluminum aircraft. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I think it was a Globe Swift. He would come down so low and close you could see him grinning. Then there was the morning that a Twin Commander scared the crap out of us by popping up from the river on the south side of the field before doing several low passes. Even a police helicopter would come through for a few orbits. Of course I thought it was cool.
 
Judging by the accident record, I don't think any group has a lock on hazardous behavior.
 
MDeitch1976 said:
W35, states in the A/FD there is RC Aircraft that use the RWY. I have only been I there one time. I wonder how easy it is to spot an RC plane?
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I've been into W35 a few times, and had an RC operator (pilot?) politely get out of the way by landing on the grass while I was flying the pattern. Then again when I throttled up to depart.

I saw the airplane, but W35 is so quiet that I suspect you will spot the operator and his / her antenna even if you don't immediately spot the plane. They'll likely be the only person on the airport!

Scenic area and the approach to 29 is directly over the Potomac, which runs around / alongside the airport.
 
At the rc field we seem to lose an airplane ever busy afternoon. Fun flys are carnage.
 
At my airport on Sunday mornings a group of guys like to come out and play with their RC planes on the runway(a half mile grass strip). Did I mention its a bunch of old guys who take their time? So half the time the tow plane lines up and takes up slack and we get to sit and wait for a few minutes.

Landing is even more fun.
 
douglas393 said:
I was landing in Sebring about a year ago and my son swore he saw a RC plane follwing me in the pattern. I told him he was bonkers. Maybe I was wrong. I would not be surprised if these things can make a mess of your day if they hit you. They way a few pound to much more but are more solid than your average bird.

Can see it in the NTSB: pilot crashed because he failed to see and avoid the RC plane that crashed into his winshield and shattered it.

Doug
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I posted about a near collision I had with what I believe was a fairly large (1/4 scale) RC aircraft at 6000 MSL a few years ago.

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30482
 
madtrader said:
What about full scale operating in the pattern of an R/C field?

I only say that in jest, but when I was a kid I remember getting buzzed many times at the R/C field. There was this one fellow that came by every Sunday morning one summer in a beautifully polished aluminum aircraft. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I think it was a Globe Swift. He would come down so low and close you could see him grinning. Then there was the morning that a Twin Commander scared the crap out of us by popping up from the river on the south side of the field before doing several low passes. Even a police helicopter would come through for a few orbits. Of course I thought it was cool.
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There's a nice R/C field a few miles from my home base with crossing runways and fairly standard markings. From a distance it sure looks like the real (full scale) thing and I wouldn't be surprised if several pilots have gotten pretty close to landing there before the small size became apparent.
 
I'm gonna start bringing a shotgun with me. I've always wanted to do some air-to-air combat. :D

But in all seriousness, I don't understand these people that fly near real aircraft or around airports without a spotter with an aviation radio. I fly RC all the time and make sure if I'm going above about 200', or within a mile of an airport that I have my handheld aviation radio on. Just makes no sense that these people take the danger so lightly. I guess it's easy for them, as it's not their ass on the line in the real plane.
 
douglas393 said:
To shoot the operator or the RC plane? Cannot see why you would want to shoot down a perfectly innocent plane.
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Yeah, but then I'd have to stop flying and land. Well, I suppose I could do a fly-by shooting...

:wink2:
 
HighFlyingA380 said:
I'm gonna start bringing a shotgun with me. I've always wanted to do some air-to-air combat. :D

But in all seriousness, I don't understand these people that fly near real aircraft or around airports without a spotter with an aviation radio. I fly RC all the time and make sure if I'm going above about 200', or within a mile of an airport that I have my handheld aviation radio on. Just makes no sense that these people take the danger so lightly. I guess it's easy for them, as it's not their ass on the line in the real plane.
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I suspect a good high power wideband jammer would be just as effective and a lot easier to aim/wield from inside an airplane. Just don't use it when you're trying to communicate or navigate electronically.
 
It's stupid.. But on the rc forums guys boast and brag at times.. Youtube is chocked full of stupid careless people.. On the rc thread I have going on the subject they pretty much feel airplanes are built to with stand worse impacts. I copied this from the thread that is now 8 pages on Rc Groups...

"Guy's. It's not the FPV going over 450ft or the glider parking at 2000ft. I flew at a field outside Rockford Il that was city run and just happened to be in line with the flight for life chopper route from one hospitol to another. We'd be flying and someone would call out that we had a full size bird commin through, and we'd all head for the deck or fly 90deg away from the flight path. One day, the call rang out and we all scattered like roaches when the lights go on...All but one. He kept flying despite our warnings and got so close that the heli veered off to the right. The guy said he was higher than the heli..To us on the ground, both craft were at the same spot in the sky, the heli covered the plane as it flew through.
It's not the FPV going over 450ft or the glider parking at 2000ft. The problem is that there's a whole lot of stupid out there. "

I'd bet money on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe5N3StJlZY
 
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gismo said:
I suspect a good high power wideband jammer would be just as effective and a lot easier to aim/wield from inside an airplane. Just don't use it when you're trying to communicate or navigate electronically.
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Well, sure, but that's a lot more expensive, and a whole lot less fun.
 
gismo said:
I suspect a good high power wideband jammer would be just as effective and a lot easier to aim/wield from inside an airplane. Just don't use it when you're trying to communicate or navigate electronically.
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Just geeking out for a moment here...

Why bother making it Wideband? They're confined to a very limited spectrum.

Most of the new toys are using digital modulation in the ISM 2.4 GHz band for short-range stuff though. You'll take out WiFi and warm up any water molecules hanging around while you're jamming those.

(Microwave oven - 2.4 GHz roughly. Just a lot more power than your average WiFi access point.)

For the VHF stuff, you'll need a directional antenna that will be too big to easily wield in a cockpit.

And it'll whack your Comm radios at the least, probably your VOR too. Not great selectivity in the older aviation receivers. They're deaf as a post too, compared to modern stuff.
 
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