tpat*@*aol.com

, Ohio

, United States

Posted on
2020-02-21 5:39:43
“I have an extremely stressful job. Flying my planes is one of the very few ways I can escape the anxiety of my life for a while. I belong to a small club in town of Bazetta Ohio. We have about 50 members most of which do not fly anymore due to old age. Our club is in a fairly remote location with no cell service. Throughout our flying season us younger guys spend time with the older members some that fly and some that don’t. We have members of the Amish community that belong to the club And fly they bring their children and grandchildren to watch the planes. We have two fly ins during the summer both which are completely free to the public where people can come watch and learn about RC flight. Our club is a place where people from different walks of life from our community get together and talk about flying and watch each other in the air. The older guys that don’t fly come out to watch and volunteer their pearls of wisdom about “back in the old days”. I’m convinced that for some of these guys if it was not for the club they would never spend time with anyone. One member is about 85 and is still very keen, when We are flying he will often say things like “ oh yeah, my son and I built a plane like that years ago”. I’ve never asked him but I’m quite sure his son passed on a while back and flying is he way to stay connected to him. Honestly a lot of people will still fly remote ID or not but one thing is for sure, it will destroy clubs like mine. We have no internet or cell service and it just wouldn’t be possible to get. Furthermore it’s not needed, our club is located between to large airports, the Youngstown regional airport and the Air Force reserve base in Vienna Ohio. There are also two smaller private fields. In all my years of flying I’ve never seen a single mishap with anything RC and a full sized aircraft. This proposed rule isn’t needed and would nearly destroy a community of hobbyists.”