For the last month there have been DOT/FAA meetings in Washington to address the growing number of unmanned aircraft (i.e. RC planes, helis, and "drones" from 250g to 55lbs) and what if anything to do about them. Task Force Report with recommendations (last 2 pages are a summary): http://www.faa.gov/uas/publications/media/RTFARCFinalReport_11-21-15.pdf Pretty impressive math/statistical formulas used to calculate the probability of injury/deaths caused by falling RC craft. Recommendation: Mandatory online, free registration of any RC aircraft pilot who is then given an ID number that must be displayed on or in (as long as it can be accessed without tools) every craft. Or they can register the craft's seriel number, then it doesn't need to display an ID number. Task Force Members: https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=84125 Heavy retail representation. Would have liked some kind of "Ethics Expert" there as well. The timeline for implementation of the pilot registration isn't clear, but if it's truly easy and free as they recommend then the requirement is pretty much the minimum burden I can imagine (short of asking nicely that everyone please don't do anything too dangerous or illegal with your RC craft) being placed on RC enthusiasts.
So are they exempting aircraft under 250g? Most of what I fly these days are micro airplanes well under that. I guess if the reasoning behind this is to provide a way to track down the owner of a craft that falls on somebody's head, stuff under that weight poses much less risk. I was at a fireworks show this past July 4th and a teenage girl was flying a large drone over the crowd to take video of the fireworks. I kept thinking how many RC planes I've had crap out me at random times, and how much harm that big drone would cause if it fell onto the crowd from 500 feet up.
Yes craft under 250g are exempt, but if you also fly even foamies weighing 251g you will be required to register (name and address) and display your ID# on the plane. The intent of pilot registration.... depends on who you ask I read that this Christmas season they're expecting to sell ~400,000 quadcopters in the USA alone. Heck I had two of these sent to my nephews: Amazon.com: Syma X11C 4 Channel 2.4Ghz RC Quadcopter with 2MP HD Camera - Black: Toys & Games And ordered one without a camera for myself: Amazon.com: Syma X11 R/C Quadcopter - Red: Toys & Games Larger ones with FPV gear (video monitor) are now close to $100, so there will be all kinds of boundaries being pushed now that just about anyone can afford it.
If anyone's looking for a gift idea or just a fun toy for themselves I had 2 of these (the ~$40 X11C version with a video camera) sent to my nephews and a plain ~$22 X11 for myself, and boy it's a really nice flying little quadcopter: Amazon.com: Syma X11 R/C Quadcopter - White: Toys & Games I would't want anything much bigger for indoors but it's strong enough to fly outside even in a fairly healthy breeze. Very smooth controls, low and high rates, neat flips where it blips the throttle automatically so almost no altitude loss and has bright red and blue LEDs to help with orientation. Not too noisy either since the motors are geared with larger props. Flies ~6 minutes then takes 30 minutes to recharge via USB. Prop guards are removable but don't change the flying much so I leave them on. So far very durable as well. Would be a perfect 1st quadcopter but on high rates fast enough to be entertaining for even seasoned RC pilots. Good review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR-5nBLXs4 Image Unavailable, Please Login
+1 An incredible little piece of technology. I actually bought two (long story!) of its slightly bigger brother, the X5c; Amazon.com: Syma X5C Explorers 2.4G 4CH 6-Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter With HD Camera: Toys & Games Prior to going balls out & getting a DJI Phantom. Many forums recommended it as a good platform to learn on. Little suckers are amazing - guess they're going to be the 'go to' xmas present this year. Not sure if they're under 250g's though...... Cheers, Ian
nice, I was looking at that one too but the nephews are 13 and 16 so the smaller X11 should be even easier to learn on, and safer for indoors flight. As for flying weight you're well under the upcoming registration limits at 106g: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEzBoTzOtwA The X5SW is only $20 more than yours and has Wifi so you can watch and record video on your phone while flying, but from the youtube video I watched there's a little too much "lag" (and the camera has a pretty narrow field of view) so don't think it would be very effective in flying solely through FPV, other than in a very wide open area: Amazon.com: Cheerwing® Syma X5SW FPV Explorers2 2.4Ghz 4CH 6-Axis Gyro RC Headless Quadcopter Drone UFO with 2MP HD Wifi Camera (White) - Ship From US: Toys & Games How's the video from yours? Got anything cool worth sharing?
Done deal, At least it's one number for all of your models. https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/
Maidened a fun new plane yesterday, the Durafly EFX Racer. They were on sale a few weeks back for $95 shipped, and since drilling my Vampire into the ground showing off with an inverted low pass (repairable) needed a "toss in the car for a quick flight from the field 2 miles from my house" plane. Supposedly does 100mph on 4S out of the box and I don't doubt it. Easy hand launcher, flies great at 1/3 thottle but nail it and she'll climb straight up as far as my eyes can see, glides beautifully for a soft belly landing. Very nice hardware and twin wing spars that'll take incredible high-g turns and pull outs. A couple other guys at the field have them also so we're planning on some casual pilot racing type fun. One yesterday had a bigger motor and prop, and while not much faster on the top end could accelerate even stronger than mine. Heck of a plane for under $100, and uses the same batteries (45C 4S 2000mAh) as my F-14 so it's nice not to need to buy new ones. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Check out this video of a hand-built "baby shark" pylon racer. The guy with the other EFX Racer had one yesterday and I launched it for it's maiden flight. Wicked fast. Make sure the video is in HD and full screen and don't blink! nanoplanes.net/balsa_babyshark [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g0WCsvC3mg[/ame] Image Unavailable, Please Login
FAA Registration website is up and running: https://registermyuas.faa.gov/restricted#/home It took about 5 minutes to register; supposedly the $5 fee will be refunded for those signing up in the next month. screengrabs below. Interesting to me that the FAA makes it difficult to learn their position on FPV. Their "Do's and Don's" state "Don't fly beyond line of sight of the operator", yet also "Don't fly contrary to your aeromodeling community-based safety guidelines" (AMA guidelines say an RC pilot can fly with video goggles, as long as they have a spotter). Searching FAA's site for "goggle", "FPV", "enhanced" does not bring anything up. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Cool! Heading there next. It even made my morning news this am. They also noted that the $5 fee was being waived for the first month. Cheers, Ian
It'd been almost 2 months since I've been out to Scobee RC field, but yesterday the stars aligned with weather and lack of chores (and as predicted, basically had the field to myself due to the Super Bowl) so finished up 2 FPV planes: WingWing (my second) with a 1200TVL 16:9 CMOS camera and 600mW video transmitter, and the Lancaster with a 700TVL CMOS camera and integrated 200mW VTX mounted on a panning servo hooked up to rudder channel. Will hook up later to headtracking unit on headset. Was a little too windy to risk the Lanc but had a friend wear the Headplay HD headset while I maidened the Wing line-of-sight. He said the video was clear and had no interference throughout the flight. Wing needs a little nose weight but otherwise fly well with the added ~75g of video gear. For FPVing around the backyard I have this quad: Amazon.com: Syma X5C Explorers 2.4G 4CH 6-Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter With HD Camera: Toys & Games and this FPV kit on the way: Syma X5C - 1 X5SC 5.8G FPV Camera Fitting-51.99 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com The Syma X5C flies just as well as the smaller X11 (the newer X5SW supposedly doesn't). Syma really make a great budget-quadcopter. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Be glad you aren't near Washington DC. As of Jan 2016 everything is grounded within 30mi radius of DC. All clubs are shut down. I hate that FAA doesn't consider difference between rc and drone. If I'm flying a rc plane 30mi from DC with a radio range of 1mi, what could possibly happen? I have a dozen planes just sitting idle in the basement. I have 90 acres of private land behind backyard to fly over, but FAA says too bad. I'm still mad about the manned aircraft restrictions after 9/11, now this same restriction is being applied to unmanned aircraft! BTW, there is no weight limit around DC, so even micro stuff is grounded. Now who is actually going to enforce this nuttiness?
Damn that sucks! 30 mile radius almost includes Baltimore :/ Clubs just outside the no-fly circle are going to be busting at the seams. I take it you're not on the pre-order list for the big, new P-38 coming out next month then? FlightLineRC P-38L Lightning "Allied Green" 1600mm (63") Wingspan - PNP FLW3011P
More freedom...gone. They will eventually find excuses for anything and everything. Some day we will need permission to get out of bed. Not to go all p&r, but Well done America.
When I was 14 we lived in the D.C. area for a while and I was in a free-flight club. We flew our models wherever there was an open space but the favorite was near Greenbelt Lake. I can still picture my silk covered Clipper climbing away in the sunlight. Hi performance rubber powered models and sailplanes filled the sky. Those were wonderful days that will never return.
To play devil's advocate, consider that it's quite easy today for even a novice to put together an RC craft carrying a decent sized payload that will fly 10, 20, or further miles from the "pilot" with high accuracy. Sure the Pres and other pols in DC are pretty well protected and "hitting" one with an RC bomb or chemicals would require luck as well as skill, but seems like they're taking the better to be safe than sorry approach. The 30-mile no-fly zone around DC is certainly overkill for small RC drones or airplanes (or any "line of sight" craft) but how do you separate the "good" RC hobbyists from the nefarious and/or merely dangerously foolish ones? If the Fed had gotten an earlier jump on the issue (by regulating higher-power video transmission and maybe GPS gear) the RC hobbyist would likely be freer than they are now. But this stuff has been accessible and relatively cheap for several years now so the cat's out of the bag so to speak. For better or worse the world of Bob's youth is most certainly gone, but hey you can always move to Montana or Iowa or somewhere and fly to your heart's content.
No, that P-38 has been one of my highest maintenance aircraft, so even before restrictions it was not used much. Also, the guy at my office keeps buying planes for me to fly. There is now a fairly new Zero and brand new ME262 above my office. Recent Fcar 456 purchase keeps me busy too. Did help one of my other co-workers practice in the company parking lot with his 48" Hobbyzone Super Cub last week. Shhh, don't tell the FAA. Why is all the fun stuff illegal? Does anyone believe the FAA can really enforce this? The only possible way would be to educate the local/state police. This is just too much, but unfortunately there just aren't enough rc plane owners to have much effect on these rules. Bob, I remember as a kid there being a rc flying club in Greenbelt. I believe it was on the sight of the old ERCO Ercoupe manufacturing facility? Any truth to that? I believe the club and old ERCO runway are long gone now. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I think that we were further east from the Erco site. My big brother would drive me there in his Model A roadster and drop me off at a field that was at a fairly good elevation. I can't locate it now but I do remember that it was in a wheat field and the thermals were very strong and you could fly anything up to the weight of a sewer lid and get lift. Man! This brings back a flood of happy memories! One of the prettiest sights ever was a silk covered clear doped free flight leisurely riding a thermal in the sunlight. I flew a Cleveland Playboy, a Goldberg Zipper or Clipper, and was building a Valkerie when we had to go back to Florida where the hobby didn't exist there on the beach of Siesta Key...except at my house. I built some gliders that I flew like kites because free flighting anything was immediately saying goodbye because of the strong off shore breeze. The humidity often turned dope milky so it wasn't as much fun as in Washington. When the war started I was too busy watching the P-39's, P-40's, and P-51's from Sarasota Airbase.
No wonder you got into planes for the rest of your life Bob! Your stories are great. Yeah my J-Power P-38 took a lot of work to get it reliable, mainly the gear and motors, but the new, bigger one is supposedly solid right out of the box. I've got enough on my plate for a while but will get one eventually. Ah the Freewing ME262! Awesome plane, more scale and better stock retracts than my Dynam but also costs ~$150 more and needs 6S batteries which I don't already have. You gotta go outside the no-fly zone and fly her, she's a real thrill. Yeah total enforcement will be tough, but that's probably why they made a unilateral rule: any RC craft in the air is verboten so it would be a relatively easy matter of finding the pilot and hopefully giving them at most a warning for the first time. I take it you don't live IN the district, how far away is the nearest legal RC field? I'd be bummed too if I had 90 acres of previously prime flying zone in my backyard as well... but seeing as I now have to drive ~30 minutes for a decent RC field it CAN be done.
hey Ian - I forgot that you posted about the X5C already. What a great quad! Reviews said the newer X5SW (wifi FPV, which apparently sucks) has some software glitch that makes it unstable in winds, but the ~2 year old X5C is a real sweetheart. I paid $5 extra on Amazon for the sinister all-black model Mine lost signal at altitude a few times, causing some heart palpitations as it climbed away on its own before regaining control, but tonight I fixed the TX antenna so should have no problems controlling it until it's a tiny dot in the sky. Have you done this to yours? Pretty simple hack to make the TX antenna an even fraction of the full 2.4gHz wavelength of 125mm. I soldered a ~42 mm length of thin, stiff wire onto the stock antenna (which doesn't even extend into the hollow plastic sheath, wrong length too) for a total antenna length of 62.5mm which is 1/2 the full wavelength. If you take out the ~8 tiny screws to separate the two halves of the TX, then the 6 more around the main board you'll have good access. New, longer antenna will fit fine inside the formerly empty sheath. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQbRnQsHLHA I'm now waiting for this Syma FPV kit to arrive from China, which will link right up to my Headplay for cheap and easy backyard FPV flying. Syma X5C - 1 X5SC 5.8G FPV Camera Fitting-51.99 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com Based on reviews I also ordered a wide angle lens (808 keycain cam lens 'D') for greater field of view. And I'm sure you've already sourced extra batteries, but these have more capacity than stock at a very small weight penalty and are cheap as chips: http://www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopter-parts/pp_186502.html
I didn't do anything great like so many of my friends but I did what drove me. Still that way. I just finished d the profile painting of the Boeing 314 Clipper and I think it might be okay. Now on to a B-17G.
