Where is everyone?

Thought so.

Working too much, flying too little. :(

Reminding myself why I should have prepped and painted the outbuilding in April instead of waiting until June.

BobH

On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 01:52:57 -0700 (PDT), Ed Anderson wrote in :

Loafing too much, flying too little. :-O

wrote in

You guys quit that! Go flying!

Vance wrote in news:it1c1q$s0i$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Due to multiple circumstances my flying act is grounded. Mainly, all my aircraft are in pieces. :(

The upcoming FAA rules play a part as well. Since they may have an affect on the directions I can go with the hobby, I can't justify investing any more money until I know how the new rules affect the hobby.

I just wish the FAA would get off their arses and release the proposed rules so we can find out what's going on, and submit our comments on them. Maybe they fear us? hehehehe

Brian

I went flying this morning and it was good. Then I came home and it started raining.

Vance wrote in news:it1c1q$s0i$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Due to multiple circumstances my flying act is grounded. Mainly, all my aircraft are in pieces. :(

The upcoming FAA rules play a part as well. Since they may have an affect on the directions I can go with the hobby, I can't justify investing any more money until I know how the new rules affect the hobby.

I just wish the FAA would get off their arses and release the proposed rules so we can find out what's going on, and submit our comments on them. Maybe they fear us? hehehehe

Don't get too worked up, unless you are flying at high altitudes, or over the horizon planes, or very heavy complex planes.

Otherwise, what ever that comes out will not be much concern to most of us.

-- Jim in NC

Every time they come out with new laws and rules, it's a toss up about whether they are going to have the budget to enforce them. If your doing something totally obnoxious and draw attention to yourself, then you might get in trouble.

You can't live your life in fear. Go get a plane and fly.

I was flying at a control line stunt contest all weekend. I took home yet another trophy for last place (it's hell when there's never more beginners than there are trophies -- I actually had second place in my sights, until some joker moved the ground up five feet during my second official flight today. One mediocre flight and one crash doth not a good score make...).

That still sounds like fun. As long as you have fun doing it, it was worth it. :-)

Oh, I'm getting better. And I wouldn't mind being last nearly so much if I didn't take home a trophy for it. I entered an event on Saturday, and came in last -- but had I flown that well Sunday, I would have been second. So I know I'm actually getting competitive, if I can keep my nerves from getting in the way.

"Morgans" wrote in news:bTbJp.1946$g12.68 @newsfe20.iad:

Well, I do have an interest in FPV. My plan was to learn first, then develop tools to allow it to be done even safer and more reliably. I have quite a few ideas in that regard. My previous build-my-own radio project became part of that idea. But it looks like FPV is going to be nixed completely. So unless I wanted to go rogue...

I was also becoming interested in sailplanes. I was having fun with my electric foamy glider, getting up high enough to grab thermals taking me to the point of "which way am I going?". To me, part of the fun is altitude. But also, since you have no motor, we need altitude to compensate for lack of thrust while you seek thermals and updrafts. Kinda hard to do if you are stuck below some arbitrary altitude limit. Maybe it's just my location, but I've never encountered much lift below at least a couple hundred feet. So until I know whether or not there will be an altitude ceiling...

There's also talk of speed limits. I was having an eye on some EDF jets and the thought of screaming along on high speed passes was appealing. I don't know how easy it is to go really really fast, but until I know whether or not there is a speed limit...

Maybe I'm a statistical outlier, but that's three directions I'm interested in that are potentially influenced by the new rules. Granted, it's only obvious that FPV is at major risk (with some understandable concerns, no argument from me), but there's been plenty of 'rumor' about the other two. Sure, it's just rumor, but since we won't know what the proposed rules will actually be until the FAA releases the NPRM, I'm sitting in a holding pattern. If the rules are favorable to what I want to do, then great. If not, then I'll have to rethink where I want to go with the hobby. In the mean time, I'm not going to spend any money until I know.

Heck, even if FPV is totally nixed and is considered a UAV, I'm still interested enough to at least find out how easy/hard it would be for a simple hobbyist bloke to 'get permission'. I would see this much like large scale/high altitude model rocketry is compared to an off-the-shelf model - a whole new level.

And just to be clear, the new rules are not the ONLY thing holding me from flying at the moment. I'd say it's only about a quarter of the equation for my current personal situation. So please don't get the impression that I'm fear mongering or freaking out about it. But on the other hand, it does have a non-zero effect.

Brian