Lesson learned in frustration

[JennyC6]

Yes possibly but then the club at its current location would not exist.

Because we carry no fuel the actual fire risk is quite low and so our insurance premiums are exceptionally low.
Being within 20 metres of domestic residences on one side of the fields and million dollar race horses on the other local noise restrictions and exhaust emissions are a bit of a problem.

Location within the city limits, in a populated area, and yet authorised and insured makes for a very convenient location and a huge possible membership. Long distances to travel to fly is something that actually adds significant costs that are best spent on models rather than on fuel and vehicle service costs.

I started on I.C. but seriously I do not miss it. The flying of the planes is what I enjoy most and not their power plants.

Have fun!

More likely to get a fire with a lipo powered plane crashing than you ever are with something glow fuelled. Not only that, but a lot of people mishandle lipos...charging damaged packs, charging them improperly, charging hot/over-discharged packs...and this can cause some nasty fires as well. Some fields in fire-prone California have taken steps to limit, if not outright ban, lipos in aircraft because of the instability when one crashes or is mishandled. Glow fuel, by comparison, is fairly inert. You really have to poke it with a stick to get it to burn.

Gasoline fuelled engines are a scoche riskier in this regard but not excessively so. IF they can mow the field's grass with gasoline equipment a gasoline model airplane prolly won't set it ablaze, and if it's so heavily dried out that a gas-burning model airplane or lawnmower might set it alight I think it's time to close the field altogether until it isn't such a tinderbox. Turbines are pretty much flying matchheads though.

The noise...Ican buy that for 2-cycles, turbines, but my 4-strokes aren't any louder than a high performance electric setup and I can hear prop noise over exhaust noise when I do ground runs on them which does not happen with my 2-cycles. ICE doesn't automatically mean earsplitting and electric doesn't automatically mean quiet. And hell, if EDFs are kosher on a noise standpoint even a sport 2-cycle that isn't running a pipe would also be kosher. EDFs loud AF, also much higher pitched and piercing.

I'll also freely admit that I'm not exactly sympathetic when people come crying about what someone else is doing on someone else's property. I'm the type of guy to tell 'em to mind their own business rather than let them govern what total strangers do on someone else's property from their own. Same reasons I refuse to ever live under an HOA.

 

[Hai-Lee]

More likely to get a fire with a lipo powered plane crashing than you ever are with something glow fuelled. Not only that, but a lot of people mishandle lipos...charging damaged packs, charging them improperly, charging hot/over-discharged packs...and this can cause some nasty fires as well. Some fields in fire-prone California have taken steps to limit, if not outright ban, lipos in aircraft because of the instability when one crashes or is mishandled. Glow fuel, by comparison, is fairly inert. You really have to poke it with a stick to get it to burn.

Gasoline fuelled engines are a scoche riskier in this regard but not excessively so. IF they can mow the field's grass with gasoline equipment a gasoline model airplane prolly won't set it ablaze, and if it's so heavily dried out that a gas-burning model airplane or lawnmower might set it alight I think it's time to close the field altogether until it isn't such a tinderbox. Turbines are pretty much flying matchheads though.

The noise...Ican buy that for 2-cycles, turbines, but my 4-strokes aren't any louder than a high performance electric setup and I can hear prop noise over exhaust noise when I do ground runs on them which does not happen with my 2-cycles. ICE doesn't automatically mean earsplitting and electric doesn't automatically mean quiet. And hell, if EDFs are kosher on a noise standpoint even a sport 2-cycle that isn't running a pipe would also be kosher. EDFs loud AF, also much higher pitched and piercing.

I'll also freely admit that I'm not exactly sympathetic when people come crying about what someone else is doing on someone else's property. I'm the type of guy to tell 'em to mind their own business rather than let them govern what total strangers do on someone else's property from their own. Same reasons I refuse to ever live under an HOA.

I am not saying that I.C. fuel is a greater fire risk. What I am trying to relay to you is that the insurer and the lessee of the property are not happy with the use of fuel on the property and in a built up area.

Their fear is that if an errant plane crashes into a vehicle or a house it could spill its fuel load on the car/house and then it could ignite and a fire ensue.

Mind you in 4 years of flying using LiPos I have only seen 1 fire and that fire started in the ESC because the pilot had put a 4S battery on a 3S ESC and then flew it around at full throttle. Even then it did not become a real fire until after it had landed.

Have fun!

 

[fliers1]

I'm still waiting (45 years) to hear the powers-that-be to be banging on my door asking, "What can we do to help you help us?" Oh, wait...no, it was just the wind. lol
It's a global multi-billion dollar problem and it seems that no one is aware of this. What happened to the turn over every stone to find a solution concept? I read a web site: Why nobody takes your creative ideas seriously. Like climate change.


This is the mindset in MAAC, the Canadian version of AMA. This is straight from the top leaders who seem to have thrown in the towel.

Clarence,

I guess in a way I have given up a little bit on the survival of aeromodeling. However, I have sent your material to the president of MAAC.

Sincerely,
Linda Patrick
MAAC Secretary/Treasurer

905-632-9808 Local
905-632-3304 Fax
1-855-359-6222 Toll Free
sec-treas@maac.ca

Greetings Clarence

It is not the lack of willing, competent instructors, that are causing the decline in our hobby. One cannot instruct anyone, if no one is interested enough to check out the hobby, in the first place. Said another way, there is no school, if there are no students.

Much has been written about the various changes in technology, society, the movement of people from a rural or small town environment to the large urban centres, the pressures of earning a living in todays world, the demise of service clubs and churches (1,100 churches are closing their doors, in Ontario alone, in 2019), the decline in leisure time and the increase in options. that a individual can pursue in their available leisure time and the most important – the lack of interest in aviation, as a whole. On top of all that, there is the current changes in the regulatory environment and the anticipated constraints yet to come.

All organizations are trying to reach out, via Social Media marketing, to those who might be attracted to their organization. The MAAC club instructors are doing a fine job in teaching and welcoming new people to the hobby. Life is what it is, and that means change.

Peter Shaffer - MAAC President


Hi Clarence,

I do remember our conversations and did at the time pass along all information sent to me. Neither you or I can force people to accept anything they are presented with. It did not happen then and I’m not sure it would now.

How has it been going for you there in the USA? Has your program been accepted by the AMA? As far as that goes, one does not necessarily need to know how to fly, technology has taken care of that. Radio’s can be programed to have the model do flight and come back to take off point!!! Even the full-size airplanes are more technology driven than piloted by people.

I’ve been with MAAC now for forty years. I’m not sure that the hobby can be saved. The world is different today than it was in the 30’s when AMA was formed and in 49 when MAAC was formed. Todays generation are not exposed to aircraft the way that the traditional modeler, you and I (even though I don’t fly models) were. We watched movies with all the different types of airplanes flying in the skies, today it’s about the technology, the cockpit, on the outside they all look the same with different paint jobs. You can’t walk down the street by the local park and see model airplanes flying, you need to get into a car, loaded with your stuff and drive half an hour or more to the nearest flying site.

MAAC lost over 250 members at the end of 2018, another 250+ this year and we’re looking at another 250 in 2020. I did a count in July of the members 10,000 at the time and found that 75% of those members were over the age of 50. Not a good outlook for the future with 2500 people under the age of 50 coming along behind the traditional long-term member. AMA is not faring well either, their numbers are down, and they have cut staff. Apparently, the British aeromodelling association has experienced member losses as well.

Go into any hobby store or online and have a look at what they are selling. We are in a disposable world. Todays member is here for one to five years and then they are gone.

Don’t know where it’s all going in the end.


Linda Patrick
MAAC Secretary/Treasurer

905-632-9808 Local
905-632-3304 Fax
1-855-359-6222 Toll Free
sec-treas@maac.ca