Model aircraft pilots angry over drone laws

Wise words Bayzle.

Off topic I know but the 5 mile radius bit is a red herring. It related to radio transmission and risk of interference (in days before superhet receivers) and nothing to do with flying models per se.

It applied to land and water vehicles also and prohbited use to control fixed appliances.

How things have changed since those days of super regenerative receivers where you could only operate one radio model at a time and a range of 100 meters was considered excellent. Remember the Radio Modeller Singlet homebuild design and rubber band powered Elmic escapements? I think I still have mine in the loft!

I remain of the view that there are two problems regarding drones:

1. Disruption due to reported devices which are being innocently flown in unsuitable areas but which pose no criminal threat. Freely available maps showing restriced / no fly zones will help here as currently the information is not readily found.

2. Controlling activity with criminal intent - the licensing proposals are unlikely to help much other than to support a minor prosection for what in fact was a non malicious event as in 1 above. Maybe the regulations are aiming at the wrong target.

Twin Towers comes to mind also!! (that was not an aeromodeller as far as I recall)

Autonomous drones must create a real headache for the authorities as there is no transmission to monitor.

For those of you who wish to there is a petition to
oppose this proposed drone and model aircraft
registration here at

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/259863

Please take some time to fill it in and pass this on.

John

Signed.

We are having a similar debate here in NZ following the Christchurch tragedy. The government quickly introduced a ban on automatic weapons and will introduce gun registration. The pro-gun lobby trotted out similar arguments about criminalising law abiding people and suggested criminals wouldn’t bother handing in their weapons or registering them.

Surely the point is that everybody that registers would potentially be off the list of suspects and the authorities will only have to spend their time dealing with the small percentage that don’t comply with the regulations.

Those of us with steam engines join a club and pay subs so we can get our boilers tested and approved for public use. We do it because we have to if we want to be safe and be insured to use them in public. Surely its much the same arguments for model aircraft?

Pete

Members of model aircraft clubs pay a membership fee, and as members have training classes, and are schooled up on CAA regs covering their sport. There is quite a bit on "drones" in the Wings over New Zealand web site, I tghink it's in the NZ Civil aviation section.

I know that there are some model aircraft in the Christchurch club that could in the wrong hands do major damage.

Ian S C

Its typical bureacracy of this Country; knee jerk reaction; I guess they must be seen to be doing something... hence these ill thought out solutions... another example is Defra wanting to ban the use of household coal... as reported on the bbc; heritage railways are up in arms... would they then have to import it?? ... or shut up... the worst thing with bureaucracy is ; their own failure to admit they are wrong....

vic