It has begun.... my local park where I learned to fly has banned flying

dogzilla · April 28, 2016, 10:59:22 AM

My local council has now explicitly banned all forms of model aircraft. But hey, local yobbo's are free to zoom up and down in their stolen scooters with no helmets and have been doing so for years.

Couldn't say this is a massive surprise. What with the nanny state's continued expansion and the ever increasing paranoia of drone's. Having flown there for 15 years it's never been a problem. I fly when it's quiet, mid-week when nobody is around but now it's a problem and the park wardens are getting arsey.

Just 1 park left now in an adjacent council and I'm expecting that to get the chop soon enough. Yesterday there was feller which his brand new Phantom4 flying low over the car park and changing rooms. So not surprising when you've got bellends like that around.

Grrrr......rant over.

CurryKitten · April 28, 2016, 11:05:17 AM

The only solution seems to be to fly from the back of a stolen scooter then !

Sorry - this is a real pain, my little field I found for flying is due to get 3,500 houses built on it soon, so the problem of where can I fly safely away from people is a tricky one.

Dave · April 28, 2016, 11:21:18 AM

I'm really lucky in as much as I live out in the sticks and am surrounded by fields, I often struggle to decide which field to use.

I can see this becoming more of a problem for City dwellers though but can also understand that parks are public areas so I can imagine its a lot more difficult for pilots to fly within the law. The local councils will probably just think 'sod it, we cant be arsed to mess around...blanket ban'.

Tricky one, I can see both sides, pain for you though :(

electrotor · April 28, 2016, 11:28:59 AM

Quote from: dogzilla on April 28, 2016, 10:59:22 AM
My local council has now explicitly banned all forms of model aircraft. But hey, local yobbo's are free to zoom up and down in their stolen scooters with no helmets and have been doing so for years.

Couldn't say this is a massive surprise. What with the nanny state's continued expansion and the ever increasing paranoia of drone's. Having flown there for 15 years it's never been a problem. I fly when it's quiet, mid-week when nobody is around but now it's a problem and the park wardens are getting arsey.

Just 1 park left now in an adjacent council and I'm expecting that to get the chop soon enough. Yesterday there was feller which his brand new Phantom4 flying low over the car park and changing rooms. So not surprising when you've got bellends like that around.

Grrrr......rant over.

Bummer for sure.
But first off the council must have passed this resolution/byelaw or whatever it is and have this minuted. They must also publish this and post notices to this effect. Just word of mouth is insufficient.
Secondly you should approach your local councillor pointing out your responsible use of the park and informing them of the irresponsible use of it by others (scooters). In the past I have found that the best method is through a local councillor whom you can approach less formally. At our local private flying site we had draconian conditions slapped on us (flying permitted only Mon-Sat 9.00am-5.00pm. It had previously been all day every day). The council refused to even meet with us but once we approached a local councillor she saw our predicament and whilst she could not instruct the council to change their minds she could insist on them meeting with us. We eventually did and discovered that there had been an internal cock-up leading the council to completely misunderstand what we were doing. Result was reversion back to the previous conditions. It was getting the meeting with the council which was the hurdle.

Loopdreams · April 28, 2016, 11:33:20 AM

Just too many moany moaners everywhere who can't live and let live and choose to get furious about things that actually make no difference to them at all.

FPVSteve · April 28, 2016, 11:34:40 AM

^ that is really good advice (electrotor)

FPVSteve · April 28, 2016, 11:35:25 AM

Quote from: Loopdreams on April 28, 2016, 11:33:20 AM
Just too many moany moaners everywhere who can't live and let live and choose to get furious about things that actually make no difference to them at all.

No wonder kids don't play outside nowadays -everything they do gets whined about :)

Loopdreams · April 28, 2016, 11:57:07 AM

I put the blame for that squarely at the door of our fear-mongering right wing media barons who peddle their tawdry rags by pandering to people's endless appetite for reading about misery and tragedy, creating the impression that there is danger everywhere. When actually things are probably safer now than they were during their parents and grandparents generations.

Billy_boy_2010 · April 28, 2016, 02:49:05 PM

Quote from: Loopdreams on April 28, 2016, 11:57:07 AM
I put the blame for that squarely at the door of our fear-mongering right wing media barons who peddle their tawdry rags by pandering to people's endless appetite for reading about misery and tragedy, creating the impression that there is danger everywhere. When actually things are probably safer now than they were during their parents and grandparents generations.

Are you joking? We are living in a more left wing environment than ever before. You can't say or do anything without offending someone- and it's the left wing who listen.

Although all politicians are pretty stumped as to how to handle the drone thing.

Loopdreams · April 28, 2016, 02:56:18 PM

Oh right, so most tabloids aren't right wing then? I guess that all their editors and journos never got that memo. :+

FPVSteve · April 28, 2016, 03:26:36 PM

Pain / accidents / mistakes / risk / failure are character-building. You grow as a human from experiencing any of those.

Sadly most parents don't allow that to happen any more.

I'm not saying let kids go play on motorways (although I'd be lying if I said I hadn't ran across a few in my time) but they need to fall off stuff. They need to get into arguments and they need to exercise free will.

We seem to be turning into a sanitised society for the supposed good of everyone - yet all everyone does is complain.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this rant :D

Loopdreams · April 28, 2016, 03:36:15 PM

I'm not saying you but it strikes me that a lot of the same people who say things like that and moan about health and safety gone mad etc. would also be the first in line to blame any parents for their perceived negligence if their kids were playing unsupervised and ran in front of their car. Or else they'd make a claim because they were walking past a building site and got injured by a falling hammer and a lawyer told them that the mandatory screens around the scaffold had not been fitted correctly or whatever. People often seem to want to have it both ways is what I'm saying.

They either need to accept the sacrifice of a few kids in the name of increased freedom (which they are almost universally unwilling to do when it actually comes down to it) or stop moaning about measures put in place in the wake of tragic incidents designed to prevent a recurrence.

FPVSteve · April 28, 2016, 04:01:17 PM

I think in the past people relied on what was known as "common sense" to get by. It's a tough one - "accidents" are, and always will be a thing, but people like to apportion blame if at all possible nowadays.

Maybe the rules aren't for their protection but for ours against litigious ~~old gits~~ helicopter parents with nothing better to do :D

FPVSteve · April 28, 2016, 04:05:34 PM

We had an angry lady come over once accusing us of filming her children in her garden, completely out of her tree with rage (there wasn't even a camera onboard the large commercial quad at the time) ... turns out her husband was kicking off about the aircraft flying nearby, so she came over all guns blazing.

We had permission to be in the field and thankfully she calmed down once all was explained, but maybe it IS for our protection - I mean, it isn't nice having someone insinuate you're a pervert just because they're angry, irrational and it's what the media loves to say we get up to. Having to put up with that while maintaining grace and decorum through gritted teeth isn't easy (once upon a time that accusation would have resulted in a swift punch! You don't go around accusing people of that type of stuff willy-nilly IMO!)

So yea... maybe it's for the best that we're being shoo-ed away from public areas. They're sometimes 'orrible :P

Loopdreams · April 28, 2016, 04:08:35 PM

Quote from: Steve W on April 28, 2016, 04:01:17 PM
I think in the past people relied on what was known as "common sense" to get by. It's a tough one - "accidents" are, and always will be a thing, but people like to apportion blame if at all possible nowadays.

Maybe the rules aren't for their protection but for ours against litigious ~~old gits~~ helicopter parents with nothing better to do :D

People did used to rely on common sense and so cost of, say, putting up a large building could be measured in human lives as well as money. Much as it still is in parts of the world now.

The problem with just relying on common sense is that lots of folk don't really have any. So they need rules and people enforcing them or it's carnage. Whilst it's definitely true that something is lost as a resultt on balance I'd rather have it how it is now. if you really want a danger fix there's still lots of things you can do and nobody is going to stop you just as long as it's only your own neck that you're risking.