kalm2kaos
Heliman
Location: Norfolk, U.K.
| I had the odorous task of setting up some heli rules for our club, as they were going to make it a plank only club and the half dozen of us that attempt to fly heli's kicked up such a stink they relented but wanted some good workable rules which would enable us to stay.
First let me say our flying space is quite restricted, we fly alongside an active airfield to our left, and a road to our right, this gives us a width of less than 100 yards, and a length of roughly 250-300 yards. (Not much but membership is cheap )
Heli's do have their own allocated flying slots where the field is exclusivly theirs, however as long as the plankers don't mind we can fly during plank time as long as nobody else is flying.
1, No heli shall fly at the same time as fixed wing or c/l.
2, Only one heli shall be flown at any one time.
3, Only those recognised by the club committee are allowed to give instruction to novice heli pilots.
Thats about it really
The reasoning behind them is as follows....
1 When flying a plank it is very distracting and un-nerving to have a heli buzzing away less than 20 yards from you, especially as you cant keep an eye on it due to watching your own plane. As someone who flys both I can see the sense in this one.
2 If there are more than one heli flying, given the size of our field, and one heli went haywire, as soon as that person alerted all others to a potential problem, it would be human nature for us to look to see what the problem was and more to the point, make sure it wasn't heading towards us! If another person was flying at the same time, by the time they had looked to the problem heli, then back to their own, it could mean two heli's going in the wrong place, not a good move. Besides there is nothing better than sitting back having a good laugh at somebody elses flying.
3 We dont have any officially certified heli instructors, so the decision was made to restrict instructing to those who had at least a year on flying heli's. The reason for this was purely because of the way the world is going with regard to liability issues and the nature of the world to try and blame somebody for every accident that happened. We could then have been seen to have made the sport as safe as we could.
Oh and one I'd forgotten, because its second nature, you never fly alone!!(At least not at the club field  )
gravity REALLY sucks |
