Enealio
Heliman
Location: Rochester, New York / Austin, Texas
| Seasoned Planker gone Heli HellraiserHaving been a member of HCAM since I was twelve years old, I have been welcomed from the day I brought my .40 sized trainer out till the day I got my Raptor 50. Joking around, I have been called a "traitor" but that is all in good humor. Until 2 years ago, when 3D planes were coming into popularity, I found a group of progressive guys, looking to push the envelope a little further. flying a plane like a Heli, prop hangin', ie 3D. This is were problems started.
1. These planes weren't P-51 mustangs
2. They didnt fly like a bat out of hell, in circles
3. They sometimes werent flying, but hovering
This was an outrage, all hell broke loose. Rules started popping up out of nowhere segregating a group of flyers, who in most cases had greater control of their airframes than the 100+mph mustangs that ripped through the sky. You can't do this there. You cant do that maneuver, it's unsafe. Then finally, 3D flying is just unsafe. More and more club members began to push the envelope more and more. More and more rules came into play and the lines began to draw themselves, and in most cases, parrallel to those of age. An article that seemed to rock the basis on which most of these "new rules" were based upon came out in a popular magazine. The article was written by none other than the big man on safety in this hobby. The AMA. It stated that in most cases of 3D flying, that this style of flying is safer than that of 100mph+ crop dusting. There some points made that seemed to ring clear.
1. The typical 3D pilot is one of exceptional skill, seeing as this style of flying would be somewhat impossible without such experience
2. Planes in a pre-stall and post stall situation have less built up energy as say an airplane that is traveling at 100 mph.
*given that these numbers may be a little exaggerated, a high speed airplane will always have more built up energy than an airplane that has zero airspeed or a very low airspeed at that.
This words changed a lot of these stigmata's that were placed upon this style of flying. I.E, It was accepted as a safe form of flying.
My point is, that this,in my opinion is only temporary. This club, having been a planker for the past 6 years, I believe is going to be progressive. Things in future of this club make it more and more appealing for them to accept us as full members with as much of a right to fly as they do. For example, those of you who attended Saturadys, unofficial mini FF, you might of noticed the appartments that were to your left as you entered MMSP. Due to the current boom in housing development, flight patterns for large airplanes have been restricted, due to a 'no overfly' policy that is crucial to keeping the clubs lease on the land. One crashed plane into an appartment or car or anything else could be the end of the club. This may be a bit harsh, but issues of this nature are occuring. From the way a heli fly's compared to that of which a plane fly's. The is no need to "final" or take a long base leg to bleed off energy. Heli's tend(not all the time) to produce less noise a than a DA 100 on a pitt's style muffler.(yet again exaggerated, but a little .46 on a pipe can produce big numbers on a sound meter). Flying heli's in the current space is easily accomlished. Plane's on the otherhand, there is little room for error. This saying, I believe that this club might have a bright future for Heli's and a grim one for large gas airplanes. That is just an opinion, not necessarily the way the club should look to progress towards(although I wouldnt mind it, I moved to Heli's for a reasons, they add an extra demension that changes things completely!) But then again, I do like to pull out the DA- 50 powered 80" CAP 232 for a spin.
Maybe, current heli pilots and those wishing to join the club should organize themselves and attend a club meeting to voice our opinions, calm the waters and maybe get something done about these reoccuring issues that pop up one after another. We all enjoy this hobby and there is bound to be common ground between the two groups, just might take a little digging to find it, but it is there.
Again, trying to have a non-biased opinion. All lot of these rules that these club members press on some of the club members are only for our safety.Heli's as we know aren't toys, nor are airplanes. They haven't seen or heard anything but the one or two occurances each year were a heli' accident is either fatal or where it results in severe injury. They do hear of the airplane incidents where a plane crashes into a spotter or some other person and ends in a fatality or severe injury. They take these into account too, but having flown with most people at the field for quite a while, there is a mutual trust and respect that is between the pilots. Unfortuneately they don't pass this on to new membersof the club and do seem to be extremely harsh and in a number of cases very malicious towards newer members that dont have this time aged trust, that the majority of the plankers have. This being very unfortunate for new members and very embarrassing for the members who display this attitude toward the future of this hobby. It is this behavior that I wish to see delt with but as they say, you can't teach an old dog* new tricks.
*codger
I would personally like to thank Javiar again for letting me try out those 600mm V's. I have decided that those will suite my needs, so I will be ordering some this coming Wed. Thanks again John and all for getting this whole thing together. Sure hope we can do that again, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks again for all those who helped me out. I cant seem to remember the the gentlemen who was instructing me on the tict-tocks, thanks again and there working out great!
Thanks again for all of your help,Hope to see another FF soon!
Eric
******disregard the grammatical errors, this is a blog and it dont count!!
Nealio |
Seriously though, I appreciate your support and efforts. You are destined to go far, of that I have no doubts.
