Oh I wish I had mod points today.

Spat my coffee all over my screen when I read that.

ROTFFL

Reminds me of my favorite part of Iron Sky where the North Korean delegate stands up and ascribes credit for the approaching fleet of space ships to his glorous leader Kim Yong Ill.

Love that movie!

Given that the NSA is busy tapping the phones and email conversations of the leaders with which the USA is "negotiating" this TPPA, it's hard to believe that this isn't just a one-sided deal.

How can other nations "negotiate" when the USA knows exactly what their bottom lines are (given that they've likely exchanged such information with their fellow politicians within their own country by phone or email)?

What's more -- why does this all need to be done in secret -- hidden away from the eyes and ears of those who these politicians are elected to REPRESENT and SERVE?

This is a huge con-job on the peoples of the non-US nations involved.

I strongly suspect there will be a great deal of "post-political career" employment on offer for those foreign politicians who agree to the US-dictated terms of the TPPA.

Outrageous!

Can you still leave comments on YouTube videos though -- after you've deleted your G+ account?

Whenever you store a lot of energy in a small space and have the potential for rapid release then there will always be a fire risk.

Gasoline, electricity, kinetic energy -- it all poses a fire risk in the event of an uncontrolled release of that energy.

If you want 100% safety then walk.

Uh-oh, I forgot about the risk of spontaneous human combustion!

We're stuffed!

Damn, they even confiscated my asbestos underwear!

What are we to do now?

No, the official definition of a drone is an "unmanned aerial/aircraft system" and if you dare to fly an RC model for financial reward, it automatically becomes a UAS, regardless of whether it's flown right in front of your face or 100 miles away beyond visual LOS.

400 feet is *not* high, you need to get some telemetry on your models.

Whenever I've flown a telemetry equipped model and shown other RC fliers just how low 400 feet AGL is, they are surprised.

Given the low cost of telemetry these days, every club should have a model they can use to demonstrate how low 400ft AGL really is and that can be done by investing in a stand-alone system like this Wireless Copilot or adding an altitude sensor to any RC gear (such as Hitec, FrSky, JR, etc) that has inbuilt support for such.

As for the FAA's assertion that earning a single red cent from flying a model turns that model into an "unmanned aerial system" equivalent to a predator drone... well here's all I have to say about that: Trappy vs FAA (Youtube vid with ads I'm afraid).

Of course a gasoline-powered car has *never* caught on fire after a crash [/sarc]

No matter what mechanism we use for storing large amounts of energy in a small package, there is *always* the risk that it will be subject to an uncontrolled release if it suffers a physical insult.

Call me when a Tesla spontaneously explodes in flames... then it's time to get worried.

I don't want to take investors on at this stage because the "cost" of that money would be too high.

As someone who's successfully been through the process many times, I know that the cost of investment capital falls significantly as you move towards commercialisation. Besides, I don't need money -- all I need are a bunch of idiot bureaucrats to admit that there is *no* real difference between flying an RC plane over a grassy field in the country and flying the same an RC plane with a 250g payload over the same grassy field.

Simply classifying something as "commercial" does not increase the level of risk to anyone and, as I've already stated, many hundreds of people all over this country fly their RC models over grassy fields (and even in busy city parks within controlled airspace) every weekend -- without the need for a pilot's license and other bureaucratic nonsense.

And yes, I *do* understand how GA works. Been working around aircraft for a long time and have had a workshop at the local airfield for over 10 years.

Why do people presume so much when they know so little?

Sorry, but you are wrong on just about every point.

And, as I've always claimed, intelligence is inversely proportional to one's propensity to engage in profanity.

I guess you're also talking about all the other people who fly RC models all around the world -- since that's *exactly* what I'm trying to do here.

And, for the record, I've been involved in aviation for decades. I spent many year servicing avionics and provide consulting services to several local aviation companies.

You should check your facts before embarrassing yourself.

The rules sir, are an ass.

Please explain how the fact that their *might* be a commercial result to my flying an RC model should somehow make the risks associated with that flying so great as to require a full-sized pilot's license and a raft of other compliance hurdles to be negotiated -- while at the same time people with far less skill/experience are crashing their RC models in parks all over the country on a weekend?

Did you even read what I posted?

Unless your children are tresspassing and illegally standing in a privately owned grassy field miles from anywhere in the middle of the countryside (which is where I would be flying my 900g RC model), how would I be flying over them? Do your children regularly tresspass onto private property? You need to teach them about property rights.

They are far more likely to be hit by some novice RC flier trying to control their much bigger and more powerful RC helicopter or plane down at the local park.

And remember -- we're not talking about a "drone" here, we're talking about an RC plane that weighs 900g, is made of foam and is simply a vehicle for carrying a few bits of electronics into the air to collect some data. You do know the difference between a foam RC plane and a Predator don't you?

So yes, I guess (even if only because I read what others have written), I guess I *am* smarter than some -- well smarter than *you* anyway. :-)

Yes, I have spent a lot of time around these sort of systems.

Testing on a bike is fine -- in a 2D environment and a degree of that testing has already been done -- to verify the concept and the first-level implementation.

What's needed now is some real-world testing in a 3D environment so that the firmware can be refined to provide the desired level of performance and its effectiveness can be validated.

Obviously I'm not giving the full story as to the mechanisms involved but suffice to say that the system presently meets all the expectations had for it - but the firmware requires quite a bit of refinement. To undertake that refinement I need to collect some real-world datasets and that involves flying the system while logging the data collected from the sense elements.

Unfortunately, since I only have around 50 years of RC flying experience and am considered by many to be something of an "expert" in the field, I'm apparently wildly unqualified to strap 250g of electronics to the side of a small foam model and fly it around for a few minutes over a remote grassy field so as to collect this data.