Flying Field Problems!!!!

[Sukhoikid]

Someone that attends my school lives on the "landing path" of our flying field. But his house is on the other side of the dirt road, which is far away from the runway. But sometimes when you have to land bigger airplanes you have to go out to at least the road to land. The rule at our flying field says NO FLYING OVER THE ROAD OR PITS. Well some people are not following that rule it seems like during the week. So this weekend someone was flying over it and that kid I know comes up saying if yawl dont stop flying over our house we are going to shoot you down with a shotgun. And they were being REALLY serious. Well he goes home and gets his mommy and she comes up and argues. She said she has notice the planes have gotten bigger. I was wondering if anyone out there has been in this situation and know what to do. I am going to talk to this kid in a nice way tomorrow. I actually have lunch and a class with him and he thinks I am crazy for flying them. He doesnt get why we do this which is sad to me. As for me I am going to go out to the field during this week and make sure everything is going right. Cause there are two groups that fly at our field Weekend flyers and Weekday flyers.

[Shawn Berkheimer]

Give him an airplane and teach him how to fly. You need to make this guy a friend and demonstrate to the housing community that your club is doing everything it can to not disturb the homeowners. The sad truth is that if it becomes an issue with your local goverment, the club will not win. Do not play into his or anyone elses threats, just appologize and offer to let him try his hand at flying.

Shawn

[Sukhoikid]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Shawn Berkheimer
	Give him an airplane and teach him how to fly. You need to make this guy a friend and demonstrate to the housing community that your club is doing everything it can to not disturb the homeowners. The sad truth is that if it becomes an issue with your local goverment, the club will not win. Do not play into his or anyone elses threats, just appologize and offer to let him try his hand at flying. Shawn

Kind of already tried that. He said it is not his thing and doesnt get why we do it. Plus it is "too expensive" Which people at my school want to spend more money on their cars than anything else.

[Flyinhigh]

I was going to say the same thing Shawn.

Your club needs to rally -especially if it's just one house. Go get this guy a complete trainer/radio set-up. Doesn't have to be expensive ( relatively). Getting him in opn the fun may be only way you'll avoid trouble here. In my book, he should be allowed to shoot down anyone flying over his house, so you'll have to get him to stop wanting to.

By him a plane and get him in on the fun!

If that doesn't work, make harrier landings a club rule lol

[why_fly_high]

If they are the only house in the area send them Christmas gifts and try to make them happy at all costs. It would be sad to lose the field because of one house. Make sure no one flies over their house. If it comes to a pushing match your club will lose.

Dan

[SmoothFlying]

I'd hate to see a plane shot down by gun/rifle. Also remind him that it is illegal to discharge a firearm within city limits. But try to make friends with him and his family but let him know about firearms and city limits. That is if you live in the city. If not, well I wouldnt be flying my big airplane at all at that field.

[Neogenesis]

We have unfortunately have had the same problem. First thing you have to do is make it a no fly zone......period no questions asked. Second.....make sure that your club members are following the rules. Have the neighbor get a description of the offending plane. That's usually enough to narrow it down to who the offender is. If discipline has to be taken against that club member....so be it. Don't risk losing your club over one member. Post someone out on that road for a while when the big birds are flying......we found that we are a lot further out than what we think we are. Have them spot for a while so that the pilots may better judge how far out they are.

Unfortunately if you are flying over their house....they have the right to pursue legal action. They can even prevent you from getting a plane off of their property without a police escort if a crash would happen and they wanted to be a real pain about it. They cannot however shoot a plane from the air....that is destruction of personal property and they can be held liable for it.


Talk the neighbor....don't be confrontational about it......get some more information.......and proceed from there. But don't by any means thing you have the right to fly over their property.



Neo

[sweetpea]

the offender will be the one with the shotgun holes in it.

Your in a losing battle. Its simple.....post a sign at the field that says you either avoid that road/house or you risk being shot down and the field closed.

I'd also be on the lookout for a new field.........

Sad but true, homeowners tend to win

[JimC-MD]

You are in a tough spot on these kinds of issues. You need to have a club meeting and perhaps make it mandatory. Put a spotter out there with a flag and have him wave it when someone violates the airspace on landing or during a flight. The visual feedback will let guys see just how far out they are flying. It is a good teaching tool. The other things to mention are approach patterns and noise. Many pilots never learn anything other than a downwind, base and final pattern for landing. Teaching people to 45 in to the end of the runway and turn the last to final could modify the pattern enough to eliminate the problem.

My trip to the Nall this year really showed the variation in noise levels of the big planes. I love planes and am not a noise nut, but.......... Some planes with pilots ripping props would have shut our current field down in a month. Even just cans were a real improvement on the big stuff. Our county just passed a noise ordinance that is 65 db at the property line. Think about that....... $500 fine and 12 days in jail are potential penalties. Makes cans seem really cheap............

[Shawn Berkheimer]

	Quote: Originally Posted by sweetpea
	the offender will be the one with the shotgun holes in it. Your in a losing battle. Its simple.....post a sign at the field that says you either avoid that road/house or you risk being shot down and the field closed. I'd also be on the lookout for a new field......... Sad but true, homeowners tend to win

Pea is the voice of experience here. At his field the houses are about 200 yards behind the pits. If he chooses to being out the shotgun the odds are the airplane will remain safe.

As said before you need to establish rules for not overflying the house and penalties for those who do. Most importantly you need to keep the homeowners in the loop. As with most everything in life, communication is the key.

Shawn

[ds1rc]

Kevin,

We have much the same problem at our field compounded by the fact it’s the property owners house and driveway that is flown over. We also have a noise problem. We do not allow any 3D practice (gas or glow power) because of the exhaust and prop noise echo from tin buildings (barns constructed of corrugated steel). We allow any size plane to fly as long as the pilot can stay within the flight boundaries not to fly within 50 feet of the driveway. IMAC practice is ok keeping a minimum altitude of 100 feet.

We have 800 feet west of the pilot station section and unlimited to the east. With an east wind 800 feet is plenty of room to land a 40% plane from the west. Your post seems to indicate more room than this.

You will find approximately 6% of the membership causes 98% of the problems. These percentages are derived from my record keeping as Secretary/Treasurer for the past 5 years.

To solve the problem at our field we started to enforce the rules in paragraph one. The Board of Directors revoked the membership of two members who would not follow the follow the rules and stay within the flight boundaries and insisted they had the right to 3D any place any time. Four additional members joined another club and did not renew for 2007.

The rest of our 75 members fly regularly, have fun, get along with the property owner and most assuredly don’t miss the troublemakers.

Don Schultz

[crashmister]

Kevin Your problem is all to common to our hobby. I am assuming your field is in a rural aera. If so Call the police, sheriff or what ever law enforcement that has jurisdiction in your aera. Report the threat explain the situation to the officer and show him what we do. Tell him that if the situation had been handled differently by the land owner that you would be more than willing to work with them to rectify the problem. The land owner has pretty much slamed the door on that option. If you can win the police over the land owner has already lost. We had an entire subdivision try to shut us down. But since we host an open house for the police and fire dept. and there family's every year we had them in our corner. We have since expanded it to include the local building dept. also. We run 3 trainers and buddy boxes and everybody gets to fly. Open house costs us around 100.00 dollars a year but it's worth ten times that in clout. We even got some new members from it. If the local cops are in your corner who is this goof going to call to complain. The best defence is a good offence....................

[thewrap]

I'm sorry to here about your problem. I recently switched fields due to not nice members. I hope it all works out for you.

[flying skunks]

You will find that all it takes is one home owner that can make it very tough on a field.A lot of times what he or she (home owner) feels is right over there yard is a perspective issue,then again we had a group of people the would purposely fly over a house,but then again they no longer are allowed to fly at that field.Try to keep the home owner happy,keep the field.
Donnie

[jack01]

Diddo on the police thing! Prove to them on the front end that your club means well, and they'll really work with you. We had a guy start shooting at our planes at one of the local fields. The police officers knew us well, on good terms, so they went and had a little "chat" with the shooter. Tecnically, he wasn't breaking any laws since he claimed he was shooting snakes in his backyard, but the police told him as soon as an airplane comes back with shotgun pellets in it, they would give him an all expenses paid vacation in the county jail. Never heard from the guy again. We lost that field due to an interstate going in though. We've now guy a better field on Federal property, and he's getting ready to have more noise than he dreamed of. What goes around, comes around!