I've observed two incidents recently. The first was about 3 weeks ago when I was out flying my Topaz at a local park. Nice big grass field perfect for landing practice. While concentrating on my plane I heard what was clearly an electric plane flying behind me. I turned around after landing and saw a guy with his kids flying some toy POS. I went over to him and confirmed what channel he was on. I was not overly concerned since I fly ham band, but I wanted to see anyhow. It was on 49 MHz.
I informed him that it was totally NOT cool to turn on when he saw another plane flying (we were only 100 feet apart). He told me that he did check. He turned on his TX for a few seconds and watched my plane. When it did not go out of control he figured it was OK to fly.!!! He turned white when I told him that doing that could result in the loss of a $1,500 plane that the owner would expect him to replace!! Then at last Sunday's SC2 contest in Riverside, CA we had 2 park fliers buzzing around on the other side of the soccer complex where we were flying. Fast action by the CD (Mike Lee) determined that they were on 49 and 27 MHz. But I shudder to think what would happen if either one was on 72!! The problem is that most of the guys with the toys are totally ignorant of what they should be doing to ensure safety. I'm not sure what to do about it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bill Malvey RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
