Mike.... I sent the remarks out to try and illustrate the over-reaction that we get when anyone mentions full-sized aircraft. I think I've succeeded. I don't condone flying models near full size planes or anything similar (road traffic, for example) and I don't think there's anyone else out there who would. On the other hand I also didn't like the tone of the original post for several reasons, one being that it even went as far as to threaten violence against someone for no particular reason at all except a percieved violation of their rights.
You have fallen into the trap, I believe, of moving from the specifcs of this incident to an irrellevant generalization. I haven't seen foam wings collide with aircraft but I've seen them hit other vehicles and they don't seem to do noticeable damage. They're likely to scare people, though, (that's bad enough) so you keep them away traffic. Skydivers are a completely different situation -- there's much more energy involved. (There was an incident in Spain a while back where a skydiver took out a sailplane killing themself and the sailplane occupants.) Another point I was making -- and I believe this really is important -- is that sometimes people do things in planes that are probably not wise. It doesn't always result in an accident but it increases the probability that one will occur. Often they don't realize that they're doing this until something else happens and they find they're in deep trouble. In this case if someone's doing an approach to an airstrip that not only requires coming very close to a ridge, close enough that something like a bird (or a foamie) is likely to scare them to the point where they could lose control of the plane then maybe they should think twice about doing such an approach. I know this is a vague assertion but I believe that many of the accidents involving GA planes are caused by pilots getting into situations that are just a little beyond them and its usually done incrementally (ridge OK, bird OK, ridge+bird not OK). (My sources, such as they are, are the NTSB accident database and commentaries about selected incidents -- I'm not very interested in piloting planes but I am interested in why they crash.) (Modellers can also get into this type of incremental situation but the consiquences are usually just embarassing!) Anyway, I'm going off the air, back to model sailplanes..........the quiet life...... Martin Usher 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. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
