“I grew up in an aviation family, my dad was a pilot in world war II and we owned a private plane growing up, as such I was exposed to aviation at a very early age. Some of my best memories are of hanging out with my dad at the airport and of building and flying model airplanes with him. Unfortunately I am no longer able to hang out with my dad, but the things he taught me about flying live on and I think about him often when I am both at the work bench in my garage building and at the flying field thinking he would be excited to see whatever I was working on or flying at that time. I know my story is not unique as I have spoken with several flying buddies who all were introduced to flying by their fathers developing a life long love for aircraft. We all talk about growing up flying free flight gliders that we bought at the drug store or built from kits, then graduation to flying “u-control” airplanes in the street or at the local school to later flying radio control planes and the excitement that we felt when you first “wiggle the sticks” and see the plane respond. It truly is a magic feeling. I have been involved with many hobbies and sports through my life, (I suffer from a bit of a peter pan complex refusing to grow up), and model aviation is the only one that has remained a constant for me. I have thought about how we got to this point and I am writing this letter and I don’t remember seeing news stories about people flying radio controlled airplanes causing public outcries because their privacy was invaded or someone flew their plane into a helicopter or other object prior to the advent of “drones”. It used to be to fly a radio control plane there was a learning curve that you would have to go through that involved building, flying, crashing, and repairing several models before you were able to fly with any proficiency. Now anyone can buy a drone, charge the battery, and go fly. I see this as the root of the issue, as it appears that these are the aircraft that seem to be in the news stories. The concern I have is that the public is crying for a change and so legislation is being written and proposed that lumps ALL model aircraft into the same category, where they should be in two categories: 1. Drones or assisted aircraft, including fpv. 2. Radio control aircraft that are not assisted. I am concerned that this new legislation is a knee jerk reaction to get something into the 24 hour news cycle to appease an uninformed public with a story about how we all are safer now with added legislation, and like so many other laws on the books I only feel that the people who will really be impacted by it are the ones who follow the rules. If the majority of the news stories are focusing on the drones or assisted aircraft, why are they not being singled out as the ones needing new legislation? Why must everyone be impacted by new legislation when we don’t all utilize the aircraft that are causing issues? Unfortunately I am afraid that the people who are proposing the legislation are not aware of the impacts that they will have on many of us and the hobby that we enjoy so much. I hope that through the efforts such as this they may become aware that there are many facets to this hobby and that they don’t have to lump everyone together impacting so many that are not doing anything other than enjoying flight.”