| First of all you have to understand two things. | | Flying model airplanes is NOT a right! It is a privilege just like driving | is. And just like driving, it can be taken away.
Interesting that you brought up driving as a privilege.
Courts have made declarations that driving is indeed a right, once a person has received a license, rather than a privilege. (And courts have gone the other way as well. It's a pretty heated issue.)
This page is hardly objective, but it does give some of the history on the issue --
formatting link
and for a bit more on the difference between a right and a privilege, these pages are good --
formatting link
formatting link
Even so, the difference between the two is relatively academic (at least in the real world.) Even rights are quite often taken away from people -- because they violated the law, or sometimes just because it's convenient for the local law enforcement (like it would be in this case.)
In any event, if I understand it correctly, it hasn't been really shown that the FAA even has the authority to regulate R/C airplanes, at least not when they don't conflict with the operation of full sized airplanes.
Keith suggested that we go ahead and fly anyways if we're in the affected area. It sounds like a great idea, but the problem is that it only takes one person who's aware of the NOTAM to call the police, and the police will come down and tell you to stop (if they're nice) or just arrest you (if they're not.) Legal or not, if you keep flying after the police tell you to stop, it's likely you'll end up in jail.
Once in jail, you'll probably want to fight it, and to do that will require a lawyer and lots of money. To make matters worse, you may be labeled as a `terrorist' and it may very well make the hobby look bad. (The press won't care that the FAA/government is overstepping it's bounds. They'll just talk about how you ignored the police officer when he told you to stop, how the NOTAM was there to protect us from terrorism, etc.)
So, I wouldn't suggest flying in the affected area (especially if you intend to tell the police that you have the right to do so, no matter what the FAA says) unless you're ready to spend some time in jail and/or court, and have the money to spend fighting the issue. If you do have the time and not the money, you may be able to convince some organization to help you in your act of civil disobedience in order to get the legal situation clarified -- I doubt the AMA would be willing to buck the system like this, but the EFF or ACLU might. If you want to go this route, great!, but I'd suggest talking to the EFF or ACLU first. You might want to talk to the AMA as well, if you're a member, and give them a chance to talk you out of it :)
As for Dave Brown suggesting that flying be only allowed at AMA fields, well, the AMA sanctions clubs, not fields. And even so, that's not likely to make Dave many friends in the non-AMA members RC community, at least not unless they let non-AMA members fly at the AMA fields on those days (which seems very unlikely, but it would be a very nice PR move.)
And no, I'm not a lawyer. But yes, I do give money to the ACLU and EFF :)
| "SBarn18665" wrote in message | news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m15.aol.com... | > Big Brother has issued a NOTAM that, in addition to other forms of | > aircraft, specifically addresses radio controlled aircraft, in its | > ban of aircraft in the vicinity of Jacksonville, FL during the | > super bowl next weekend.