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Fly123 posted the following in another thread.

"They ran us out of the local parks so it's hard to find the local modelers. The cops will confiscate all your equipment, too. No one likes airplane noise."

I have had a few similar experiences when flying at parks and school yards and would like to hear from other C/L people on this subject. I have never heard of the cops confiscating C/L equipment though. This is a new low. Things have sure changed since the 1950's when we always went to the local school yard to fly our latest plane........T.Durrill

>
> Fly123 posted the following in another thread.
>
> "They ran us out of the local parks so it's hard to
>find the local modelers. The cops will confiscate all your
>equipment, too. No one likes airplane noise."
>
>
>
> I have had a few similar experiences when flying at
>parks and school yards and would like to hear from other C/L
>people on this subject. I have never heard of the cops
>confiscating C/L equipment though. This is a new low.

New low??? This is standard operating procedure for many years now. THIS, not competition rule minutia, that is the problem for all modeling activities.

We have flown a number of times in the large soccer fields near our house. They are not close to any housing, and the buildings around are mostly empty on nights or weekends. Except for the Federal prison, and those guys don't seem to complain much. Occasional people who wander by have yet to show more than the most casual interest in what we're doing. Toward the end of my chilhood, I got rousted once or twice by police. One said that they would only roust us when there was a complaint. They were very pleasant about it and kind of sympathetic. Probably not, anymore, though.

I'm miffed to hear that the police anywhere would confiscate equipment. If true, let's hear some details. That isn't right and there ought to be a stink raised.

You really have to use common sense when flying in any area that is adjacent to housing. You have to figure your going to get a complaint or worse yet a police visit. I think most people are bored and look for anything to complain about, airplane noise is an easy target. But let's face it, little is done to control-line airplanes to reduce noise.

The one thing that helps me is I live about 1.5 miles from Charlotte Motor Speedway, so people are accustomed to noise......if you’re a race fan you love it!

>You really have to use common sense when flying in any area
>that is adjacent to housing. You have to figure your going
>to get a complaint or worse yet a police visit. I think most
>people are bored and look for anything to complain about,
>airplane noise is an easy target.

Noise is a red herring. If it wasn't noise, they would complain about something else.

The first step is to hassle you. If pressed the next step is to measure the noise level and compare to local ordinances, and if you are over you have no argument.

The valid, official, issue is of course LAWSUITS. Telling people about the AMA "2-million dollar insurance policy" generates a lot of laughter amongst public officials, particularly when a normal house in a nice neighborhood is about the same price. 2 million to a city or large intitution doesn't even pay the retainer for the lawyers, much less cover the lawsuits.

Model airplanes are like the plague to public officials - perceived as dangerous, leaves them wide open to lawsuits, and the general public *despises* model airplanes.

>But let's face it, little
>is done to control-line airplanes to reduce noise.

Particularly when "conventional wisdom" among sport fliers involves using 50 year old engines, or immediately tossing the highly effective mufflers on modern engines to "save weight". It's one thing to get dinged for noise, even if it's spurious. But it's just plain stupid to actively provoke people because you want to save $50 or run "a real stunt motor" when you can go get any number of effectively-silent engines that perform better.

> Particularly when "conventional wisdom" among sport
>fliers involves using 50 year old engines, or immediately
>tossing the highly effective mufflers on modern engines to
>"save weight". It's one thing to get dinged for noise, even
>if it's spurious. But it's just plain stupid to actively
>provoke people because you want to save $50 or run "a real
>stunt motor" when you can go get any number of
>effectively-silent engines that perform better.
>

Yep that was pretty much what I was thinking. The older engines with no mufflers or at most tongue mufflers are loud. However the OS LA/FP with the stock mufflers are quiet, or at least a big improvement. I can't even imagine trying to fly some of the pourly muffled old engines at a school yard with houses close by....

We had a run in with the local police here in Richmond a few years back. I learned that the cops are usually not the ones to blame.

We had been flying on the Carver Elementary back lot for a few years. It was ideal, as some unknown genius had decided that the best softball fields for kids should be paved billiard table smooth. The baselines painted on the asphault made nice reference markings for the pit area, etc. Police had been a common sight in the area as they would drive by where we were flying to make sure all was well in the schoolyard. No attention was paid to the 70 year old, 50 year old and 30 year old with their model planes. Then one fine spring day, a cop dismounted from his car and walked around the school for awhile, then returned to his vehicle. Soon, another squad car pulled up with the shift supervisor. Then another car with the lieutenant. All three got out and walked around the school again, then had a powow by their cars. After a few minutes, they walked up, and very red-faced and apologetically asked us to leave.

We asked what the deal was, and they explained:

It seemed that several occasions in the past, someone had called police and complained about the noise. Cops had driven by, unnoticed by us, and listened. They concluded that the noise was not a problem and therefore not a police issue. Finally, the squeaky wheel resident talked to the County Board of Supervisors, who decided to make a special, secret anti-airplane rule just for that school. The first cop who showed up that day, a rookie, walked around and around the school trying to find the sign he had been told prohibited model plane flying on school grounds. After a half hour search, he noticed a piece of ruled notebook paper taped to the inside of the window of the door to the gym, that had a handwritten note saying: "Model airplane flying has been deemed a saftey hazard for children and has been banned from this school." The cop said :"no way am I enforcing this, this is a joke" and called his supervisor. The sarge looked at the note and said "forget it, we are not enforcing something as stupid as this" The LT came out and backed the first two officers. They called HQ and said we were no problem, and they would not chuck us out unless they were permitted to chuck EVERYBODY off the school grounds, including little children on the swings, etc. They felt that, as to them we were not a problem, they could not single us out for ejection without making everybody else leave also. Initially HQ agreed with their assement and said ok.
Meanwhile, it turned out, squeaky wheel homeowner, unwilling to face down a couple of old model airplane flyers, even with police backup, and deliver their complaints in person, instead called their County Supervisor friend and complained that we were still there and the cops were doing nothing. A few phone calls later, the Police Chief calls from the golf course and tells the LT to throw us out that instant. They were nice enough to tell us they would not go after us at any of the other county schools unless they were forced to again. They told us there was one problem individual near Carver Elementary that was the issue, and that we should be okay elsewhere.
I guess it was a lesson in how local government works. We were, by the cops own admission, not a police problem. But one dedicated homeowner, one who actually didn't live right next to the field but could not stand the thought that evil people were flying model airplanes on HIS school, worked tirelessly to make sure we were disposed of. Thats what kills flying sites-I don't think the cops really care, its that one misguided zealot you have to watch out for.

The story isn't over yet, I think I know which house the whiner lives in. Some night, I'll go back out there and egg his house. Juvenile perhaps, but I know I'll feel better afterwards......

>We had a run in with the local police here in Richmond a few
>years back. I learned that the cops are usually not the
>ones to blame.

That's certainly true - but they work for a lot of people who ARE the problem.

Brett

Our neighbor who has been such a problem for the club has also complained about the nearby highway and most everything else louder than a f*** in a hurricane. Her credibility with the city is somewhat damaged, but still.....So far, we are holding our own. The school where the site is located and the city mayor are very supportive because of our kids' programs. The police drive by and say Hello once in a while, but haven't been a problem. We are close to a block of homes, but the mowers and leaf blowers are much louder by the dBa meter.

Park Rangers ask us to leave a public park(Long Beach, CA) recently because "there is an ordinance" against flying model airplanes. I asked if the ranger had a copy of the City ordinances. He did, we looked, guess what, no ordinance. There were noise regulations, but those require sound meters, and the noise of Long Beach Airport drowned everything out anyway. So we were "advised" to leave but not forced too. Basically, he didn't care.
However, if we had been using drilled out tongue mufflers, there certainly would have been noise complaints, and noise rules or not, the police would have been required to act. I haven't been flying there much lately due to work, so I haven't had to deal with it, but using good mufflers, being polite, helped us through that incident.

There is something to be said for getting permission to fly on public property. If you have permission, the bureacracy may be on your side. I know of one instance of an RC field on land belonging to a state university. With a new housing deveopment, there were noise complaints. The University supported the club and they are still flying there some years later.

My flying buddy and I fly on local soccer fields, local school yards, and ball fields and have not had any problems yet. We were tossed from one ball field because a guy was stocking the concession stand on a Friday morning and asked us to leave. We had just gotten set up, lines attached, planes fueled and hadn't even cranked an engine. It would have been nice if he had told us ten minutes earlier. We left and went to the soccer field because school was still going, and we would never try to fly there during school hours. The school last year accepted us with open arms during the summer. They kept the grass mowed all summer and even asked if it was cut short enough for our use. School has just let out here, so we are ready to go back to the school yard, as we fly mostly on Friday mornings. One of the ball fields we fly is right outside a Navy base. Once my son and I were flying there and a Navy or Marine cop showed up with a dog. I thought they were going to ask us to leave because of the location being so close to the base. All he wanted was to let his dog sniff the fuel so he could teach his dog to react to the nitro. He told us he used to fly C/L and knew there would be some fuel for his dog to sniff. We talked for awhile and he even flew one of the planes before leaving. So far everyone has been o.k. with our flying, but I'm aware that all it takes is one person to mess up everything. I have even carried a trainer with me this year, but not one kid has come up when we were flying, maybe this summer some will and you can bet we will try to set the hook.

We used to fly at Chaffey Junior College in Alta Loma, Ca. for many years. We had permission to do as long as we did not leave a mess. That was never a problem for us and we had many enjoyable flying sessions there. One day a Security Guard approached us and told us that we were no longer allowed to fly there. It had been determined that we were causing the Hawks in the area stress. They had sat on the light poles many times and "watched" our planes fly. Never saw one that looked as if it needed therapy. Only bird that ever was killed was a Black Bird that flew right into the prop. That Enya 35 never skipped a beat. We cleaned up that mess too. Bottom line however is that we don't fly there anymore.

Crash2much,

I am not surprised at this story. In California, it is a given that hawk stress would be much more important than modelers being able to fly their planes on public property (or likely anywhere else). Hawks 1.....modelers 0. Sad! .....T.Durrill

Tom, I would have felt better about this if we could have got the Hawks opinion about our planes!

Steve,
Try to find some really noisey eggs.
I've been saying for years that the problem is PR, not noise. Here in the UK, toy aeroplanes are no longer socially acceptable. We have a local site with a long-running noise problem which is still in use due to liason with the locals, use of mufflers and limited flying hours.
Has anyone ever considered invading a given site for a weekend with as many unsilenced models that you can gather. Show them just how much of a problem you COULD be.

Was there ever a follow-up on the story where a flyer was booted off of school property and told by the local Barney Fife there was a city ordinance against flying models in town? He checked with the city officials and found out there wasn't any such ordinance, and then checked with the school and got their OK to fly there. Never heard if there was any more to the story.

I never fly or flew anywhere near a restricted area

As kids we flew Cox and Testors planes in the street out front of our houses. Cars would come and someone would stop them and they gladly waited and watched the flights. We even got applause if it landed nice! As the planes got bigger we went to the forest preserve. One day I had a lady let her HUGE german shepard dog out as I was flying. The dog chased the plane around as it flew and I was afraid the plane was going to get bit on landing and next thing I know the lady is in the circle chasing the dog! I flew high and my friend got her out of the circle and the dog finally came to her before I ran out of fuel. I was polite with her trying to explain how dangerous that was etc but it went in one ear and out the other. Then a few years later at that same park I wanted to test a slow combat plane I had bought. It was a John Franks designed plane with a hopped up G21 35. No sooner than the launch a forest preserve Cop shows up. Normally they are nice but this guy was a jerk! He was sooo fat I dont think he could have gotten out of the car if he wanted to. He drove up on the lawn right next to the circle and told my friend to tell me to shut it down. Next thing hes on the speaker saying "Shut it Down!". I could tell he was getting mad and the Tigre was screeeeming! I flew fast and high and it ran forever it seemed. There was No way I was going to crash it to stop it. When it finally ran out of fuel I landed it and went and talked to him. I started out calm but ended up in a shouting match with him. This guy was a jerk! I was packing my stuff up as I had explained to him that we wouldnt fly any more and he wouldnt let it go. I said go ahead and arrest me! I cant wait to go before a judge and tell him yes, I was flying a model airplane! I had to have been 17 or 18 at the time. My flying buddy finally calmed everyone down and we all left peacefully. We did fly there for a few years more without an incedent. Yes I was wrong for arguing with the cop but he should have been the adult in the situation. Its all water under the bridge now tho.

Have fun! Bruce H

BLACK HAWK

OK! So no one wants to hear this but here goes; If you fly "Whip Powered U-Control" You can fly at any park or school yard. You can fly in your yard, in a parking lot anywhere. No engine, no noise.
Larry

I fly locally in a smallish town some 30 miles from the regular flying field. Two sites, a series of baseball/softball fields and a soccer field are utilized depending on which has the shortest grass at the time. Both are level with few trees so they actually to be somewhat preferred for practice over the paved but turbulent regular flying field.
At both fields the local gendarmes have appeared, no doubt having just been run out of the donut shop, parked and watched and left, but on one occasion, the cop came over, wandered around, shuffled his feet a little and finally asked if this was RC, etc. I advised no, that it's CL, requires much more skill, and is, of course safer, etc. and told him I fly at the soccer fields occasionally to save a drive to the city and asked if any problem with that. He advised no problem, watched a couple of flights and left.
I should add that I never fly at either place in late afternoon or weekends when the field is likely being used for it's designed activity.

And then there is the story of the local expert class flyer who was flying at a soccer or baseball complex in Oklahoma City. The cop pulls up starts screaming to land right now, then pulls his cruised up beside the pilot(still flying) gets out and starts screaming again to "land". The pilot screams back that he can't, the cop is apparently fixing to either club, tazer, or shoot the pilot when the engine fortunately dies.
The cop wants to make an arrest but can't seem to find an ordinance to make the arrest under but tries to save some face by telling our pilot to stay away from the fields.
That said, the OKC police normally do a great job under impossible circumstances but any large organization has one or two incompetents that somehow slip through the cracks.

While not directly affecting CL activity, in Snohomish County, where I live the Little League guys have been set upon by the local Eco Weenies.

The site is in Snohomish, Washington (the city), not far from where the annual Bladder Grabber is held. About 5 years ago, not having near enough baseball fields to meet demand, the Little League association simply bought several acres of land from a farmer. They have since put up backstops, bleachers, all the normal stuff for baseball fields. Lots of nice, flat grass. Of course. And a very tempting flying site, although I have always managed to drive on past.

The name of the group trying to get the Little League to cease and desist escapes me at the moment, but their argument is that farm land is a treasure of some sort and even though it is private property--raising a real healthy crop of grass each year, I might add--they insist the land be used for growing crops of some sort.

Interestingly enough, state law tends to back up those who are attempting to tell the owners of this property what they can and cannot do with it.

If you were to see the property in question, bottom land which seems to get flooded every other year or so, the quaint city of Snohomish as one backdrop, a valley of farm land as another, 100s of kids playing the All American game of baseball, it would give you serious pause as to how this could possibly be a problem.

But it is...

This sounds like a situation we had here in Oregon about 8 years ago. Several complaints reached the leadership of the rc group I was in at the time about our club having a canvas strip on the edge of a farm field. The issue didn't appear to be noise or potential damage, but the mere fact that were playing with airplanes on land that was zoned for agriculture.

Checking state laws revealed that model flying was not one of the permitted exceptions to land-use laws. You could put a golf course, park, cemetary, church, or many dozens of other things on farmland with the right permits, but model airfields were not listed among the permissible exemptions, so therefore were prohibited.

Well, nobody really cared for many years until some citizen pressed the issue to close our Butteville field and another r/c site outside Salem. The clubs hired a lawyer and found a sympathetic state representative in Bill Fischer of Roseburg, who help introduce a bill in the state legislature adding model airparks to the permitted exceptions for farmland. (That next year in an odd coincidence the NW CL Regionals moved to Roseburg for several years.)

While I don't recall all the details I do remember AMA giving significant assistance and paying some of the legal bills. Its a story with a happy outcome (so far), and I offer it here to let everyone know that if you run into site trouble, it is possible to work things out if you got through the proper channels. Of course its a headache and things never happen as quickly as we'd like, but positive change can happen.

Dan,

Well, Snohomish is after Twin Peaks by another name.

I sympathize after my go around with the local authorities. What a bunch of clowns.

Larry,

I'd almost be willing to bet that if you are flying a whip at a public park and look like you are having a good time, some anal retentive will find some reason to complain.

We use to fly at the local park. The police come and watch. We were told by the police that they are glad we are having fun that is what the park is for. Then some woman several blocks away started complaining. The part officer drove to the womans house and stood in here yard to see if he could hear the airplane engine sound. The part police office said the traffic noise on the highway on the far side of the park was drounding out the engine sound and it was very hard to hear the engine sound. We were told to continue to have fun. The woman continued to complain and we did sound test with a sound meter and found the highway noise, leaf blower, weedeater, lawn mower are all louder than the airplane engine. The police office told the woman to mind her own business the sound level is well below the acceptable limit. We no longer fly at the park because we have a problem with STUPID people. People will walk right across the flying circle like we are not here. People will walk out into the flying circle and put down a blanket and have a picnic while the airplane is flying. People walk their dog across the flying circle. People will ride their bicycle across the flying circle. People don't have any sence. We have decided for safety reasons it is best to fly someplace else.

You're in good company! We have a nice site on 2 abandoned ball fields at the local Vo-Tech which we have improved and maintain. The college likes us, since we're good for security and keep the site immaculate. Most times we can't even be heard above the local higway bordering the site. Many of the few neighbors stop and say hello or watch us when we fly. Paradise......except for one neighbor who hates us, the college, and who know's what else.

Our club began enforcing a muffler and 90db @9' rule a decade ago, measuring sound AND KEEPING WRITTEN RECORDS. 90at 9 is a tighter standard than our state and local laws and when we had to fight for our site, state People saw no problem. When we had them out, you could only hear the flying on the complainer's property over the walkie talkies. We have records showing years of voluntary noise enforcement (remember, you're dealing with the government so effectivenes =='s volume of paper squared) and noise measurement. The police have spot checked us and we're proper. We have a WELL PUBLICIZED "Kidz Kontest" and make sure the city and college know of it. At our last permit renewal those newspaper clippings were right on the top of the city's file on us.

As is often the case, this complainer has other axes to grind, having claimed damage from seeds from the floral school, wanting the auto shop to inform her before using air tools, wanting the college buildings redesigned to move the engineering systems farther from her house, wanting streets closed to reduce traffic in front of her house, etc, etc...

Times change..Maybe she'll move. Meanwhile do your homework. Build a relationship with the property owner and the city before you need to. Be patient. It's worth it.

Jeff W.

It was interesting reading various people's experiences with local flying sites. I didn't mean to incite folks here. (My quote was taken from another thread about two young fliers learning to build!)

Now I feel compelled to provide the details behind my initial statement. Perhaps 20 years ago, I happened to hear the distinctive sound of a control line plane as I was passing through a neighborhood near my house in Hermosa Beach. As a kid, the sound was commanding, not to be ignored. You dropped what you were doing, jumped on the bike and went to find out who had a airplane! So of course, I scouted it out and stopped to watch. There were two guys with three or four planes--one of which was a pretty cool biplane stunter. I asked a few questions--including whether it was ok to fly in the park. They said that it was ok if you didn't get caught. That the police would confiscate your equipment. This park was one of the less popular ones and it was next to the police shooting range. That didn't sound too ok to me! I was going to watch 'em fly for a while, so I was pretty surprised when all of a sudden they disappeared. Not sure I even saw them pack up, they were gone so fast.

That one meeting would have been enough to get me started in CL, except I didn't want to become a fugitive and learn to fly on the run. Now I'm too old to run from the cops, so I drive across town and fly on official control line circles with half of Los Angeles....and it has been a lot of fun!

But what if you have no official control line circles near you and few modelers in your area. You sort of have to fly where you can and keep your fingers crossed that that you don't run into hostiles. My current local field is at the local high school.........so far, so good..............TD

We fly at schools in Simi Valley CA with no problem the only guy that got asked to leave had a toung muffler. The rest of us run HYFLO-MUFFLERS, they are almost TWO ounces lighter than stock OS and have a soft tone. Scott Dinger

We have been pretty lucky ourselves we fly at a local park across the street. People seem to enjoy watching us fly. The only thing that really chased us out was the sand and ruts (not good for the engine or landing gear.) Since then, we fly at some soccer fields, no houses within hearing range. I don't know what will happen when soccer season rolls around. We might be able to fly around some of the players, but they might get mad if our props keep popping their ball. haha

Within minutes of us starting the first engine, we inevitably hear the guy across the road from the field start up his leaf blower. He's always happy to hear us...gets less flack from his neighbours due to being able to blame it on us. The blower noise wipes out the sounds of our muffled engines..I wonder if we should file a complaint??