What happens when I fly from the top of a cliff? At takeoff I am 40 ft. above the ground but when I move 100 ft. west I am 500ft. above the ground. How does the FAA see that? How does the controller altitude limit see that?
Can I fly down to the valley floor from the cliff? Seems like altitude would go negative.
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My apologies for being short, but I see too many people buying into this 400 ft AGL limit as if it were the law of the land and a good idea. It may be for city dwellers, but not in the country with wide open spaces.
Yes, common sense, and if the AMA's latest statements are to be believed, the 400 ft. "rule" does not apply to members of a CBO such as AMA, but they are lobbying to make it very difficult to create one that competes with them. That's my #1 issue with that organization at this time. #2 is the snooty uppity attitudes of the "old guard" that largely populate and run the flying fields who have total contempt for multirotors. I'm 54 and stopped associating with those primadonnas long before MR's existed. Recently I looked up all publicly available airfields in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Some had zero tolerance notices for MR's. Others put severe limits on size and where they can fly. They are living in a bubble and one big reason the AMA was losing members. At BestBuy they offer free AMA memberships when buying.......drones. That's where the increased membership is coming from, not renewals.
I'll venture to say 99.9% of the stupid flying occurs in cities. I don't consider flying at 1000 ft being an ass hat when done in an area that is not populated by manned aircraft. I've had sail planes with 108" wingspans; hardly huge when compared to some that are 20', but it was not difficult to fly upwards and out of 1000 ft and still maintain full control. I'm not that good anymore and no longer fly planes, but when testing geofencing on my copters it wasn't hard to exceed 400 ft in stab mode and still have control even without lights. It became frustrating getting the "RTL" notice so I simply turned it off.
Slope soaring was a lot of fun, and using cliffs to launch from was common in the early days going to Kentucky in the mountains.. This one-size-fits-all approach of limiting to 400 ft is typical Big Government thinking. They are lumping in MR's with sailplanes and large model aircraft that will be virtually eliminated by such a rule.
There are places all around the country where 400 ft. AGL limit is just plain nonsensical even for MR's. I see nothing wrong with launching from a cliff and flying as long as you aren't interfering with manned aircraft.
Sorry for the rant, but I see a concerted effort to so restrict flying that if it continues it isn't worth it to fly anything larger than 250g $50 copters outside of your backyard. Personally I don't think Big Drone (that includes 3DR) would mind if commercial enterprises in bed with government controlled the airspace and limit RC flying to even 200 ft. by forcible means. There's a reason why none of the major players are not supporting John Taylor's ongoing lawsuit against the FAA.
Hi Ned,
The FAA is only interested in AGL. (Above Ground Level.)
Now this brings up an interesting question. If you launch on the crest of a 1000 foot cliff and lifted off to say 400 ft AGL, then and fly off the cliff, are you now 1400 ft AGL?
I have been a private pilot for 25 years and I would like to think that the FAA is not interested in a drone flying 400 feet from the face of a cliff since most aircraft would not ever come that close to the cliff face. We never had issues with slope soaring gliders and real aircraft, only hawks and eagles.
Cheers, Alan
Since when is 400 ft. the law? The FAA cannot make up laws as they go along.
Join up and cut the umbilical cord to the AMA. They aren't the only CBO in town anymore.
http://www.dontflystupid.org/
You're absolutely correct, However ...
The following provisions are being proposed in the FAA’s Small UAS NPRM
Maximum altitude of 500 feet above ground level.
The one Proposal I like is this one...
Daylight-only operations (official sunrise to official sunset, local time). Which of course means 1/2hr before sunrise and 1/2hr after sunset.
I guess they don't consider our lights part of "Line of sight" at night.
for more info... http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/media/021515_sUA...
I am not from the US, so I am not going to argue the legitimacy of guidance vs regulation vs law...
But the expectations from full sized aircraft is that RC hobbyists will respect the mutually understood conventions regardless of federal legitimacy.
The minimum 500ft for full sized aircraft has a horizontal component to it, ie, full sized aircraft need to maintain a horizontal separation from a mountain, so I cannot see any issues of collision risk flying off a clif.
Like always, keep a lookout.
400 ft. is a guideline. It is not law.
If 400 ft. were the law, there could be no model aircraft shows or gliders, which is why a CBO is not bound to that "rule". The AMA would like to have a monopoly on what a CBO is, and is trying to lobby Congress to give them exclusive rights that don't apply to the average hobbyist, so that is why a new CBO was started at RCG.
Read Section 336 please. Flying below 400' is not written in stone and FAA can't make #hit up willy nily. This one-size-fits-approach is idiotic. .
Could you define:
CBO
AMA surely not the American Medical Assoc.
RCG
Thanks.
Flying with an AMA membership has some perks...
and as long as you follow their guidelines(not too hard, mostly common sense rules) you get...
That $1000.00 theft includes theft from your car, not a lot of money but better than nothing.
Thats just a few of the benifits for the $75 bucks a year... less if over 65, free for kids.
check it out at http://www.modelaircraft.org/membership/membership/overview.aspx
CBO= Community Based Organization
AMA= Academy of Model Aeronautics
RCG= RCGroups (website here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2580042
Here are AMA's model aircraft safety code https://www.modelaircraft.org/files/105.PDF
As far as the height requirements, I am not sure about FAA, so double check at your local flying field, they will be able to explain the tools on determining AGL heights in these situations.
AFAIK, there is a horizontal component to this, etc
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