Ben

Ellebrecht

, St. Louis

, Missouri

, United States

Posted on
2020-02-22 20:05:36
“One of the earliest memories I have of flying came from when I was in something like the third grade. I had saved money up from my birthday and allowance from doing chores to buy my first R/C airplane. It was made by Nerf and resembled something like an SR-71 Blackbird. My dad would take me to the field next to my house and we would fly that for hours. He bought a plane to fly with me and we would spend many evenings when he came home from work over in the field flying. I was proud of that, and it was a big purchase for me (keeping in mind that $40 to a third grader is a lot). From that day on, I was hooked on the hobby. I have owned things from trucks to boats, but during my senior year in high school, I saw a youtube channel from Mr. Steele. After him I found Flite Test and many others and I became fascinated with the FPV hobby. I built my first drone that year, and to this day I still fly it whenever I can get the time. I am sitting here at my desk in college and the drone is just feet from me. These new regulations will not only take away one of my favorite hobbies as I know it, but it will prevent kids from ever having the experience I did with my dad. That one small purchase made me a life-long lover of the hobby, it pushed me to pursue a degree in engineering, and it made me more curious about just how far I could push my comfort zone and learn. I think that making regulations this strong is a sincere mistake. I understand there is a need for regulations if companies like Amazon are going to use drones for package delivery, but taking away a hobby from people in order for a business to have free airspace is completely unfair to the citizens of the United States. As it stands, there are no AMA fields within reasonable distance to me. The closest one is 15 miles from where I live and I do not have a car with me at college, I don’t need one. Flying is a stress relief for me, and not being able to walk down the street to the open field and fly will be hard to overcome. Please reconsider this ruling and be more considerate of the citizens who fly for a hobby. I think there is a way to create safe airspaces for all without putting a financial burden on those who can’t afford to spend lots of extra money on a hobby that is already quite expensive.”