“I have always been an aviation enthusiast. When I finally could afford it, much younger and without kids, I splurged and attained my private pilot license in the 1990s. That’s me a day or so after earning my private’s pilot’s license… Soon after, I joined the USAFR as a flight nurse just so I could be around planes…that’s me in the Medical Crew Directors Chair in a C-9 Nightingale. I normally crewed C-141Bs out of Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio… All the while, I had a dream of some day building my own private experimental aircraft. I joined my local EAA chapter in pursuit of this dream. However, then..and now…with a family to support, that dream was too costly. Now, as I look toward retirement within the next 10 years, I am looking to RC aircraft as a hobby to embrace for the rest of my life. I am nearing completion of my first DIY aircraft, Flitetest’s own Simple Cub… I hope to be flying in the spring. But now, with these proposed rules, the FAA will raise the bar to entry for me to a level that might be just too burdensome to continue. I shake my head in dismay, as, even though I had bigger aspirations earlier in life, RC aircraft as a hobby was always something that I found attractive…that was always an accessible hobby should my bigger plans for full-size aircraft fall through. Well, they have. And now, these rules will potentially block my access to the one hobby which I had hoped will be with me for the rest of my life. No, I believe the FAA needs to re-think the impact the imposition of these rules will have on such a hobby…a hobby that can inspire old and young alike to reach for the sky…to slip the surly bonds of earth, to quote a famous poem from WWII. I’m strongly opposed to these rules as written. They will devastate the hobby I love. Please, Filte Test, be my advocate….my voice…in opposing these rules as written. Thank you.”