MattyB

Unless you have modified the module or RX itself, you should be fine - it's the RF stage that has to be compliant in a homebuilt RC system, not the whole setup.

Agreed @leccyflyer. In a worst case scenario I can also see clubs de-affiliating from the BMFA if they believe the value proposition isn't the same under any potential new regs, though that would mean they also wouldn't benefit from the Art.16 authorisation either. We can't really predict much until the CAAs final proposal is made though.

Fair enough. I guess my key point is, the two activities are not mutually exclusive - if you get the Easyglider assembled and set up on your TX, an experienced modeller (your mentor or anyone else you trust) can give it a 10 min test flight and trim it out so it is ready to take to the slope when conditions allow. You don't need to fly it yourself or get it setup on the buddy box at this point, that can wait.

More on insurance validity from the RCC site... It seems the BMFA are hedging their bets as to whether not being compliant with current registration practices would invalidate the insurance. I suspect they would take a similar position if RID were to come in... "What about insurance cover if I am not displaying a valid Operator Id on my aircraft? Insurance cover can only be fully assured for ‘lawful activities’ and if you do not comply (if required by law) then you will be operating unlawfully, and your insurance cover could be in question in the event of a claim. It is also important to note that any legal costs and/or punitive financial sanctions incurred by an individual member under criminal law as a result of non-compliance will be outside the scope of cover. The BMFA’s affiliated clubs will remain fully protected by the BMFA’s insurance in the event of a claim made against them, should individual members be found to be non-compliant." The danger for the BMFA is that if RID came in and individual modellers actively decide not to comply, those members may feel there is little point in re-joining if one of the primary benefits (insurance cover) is no longer applicable to them.

From the handbook... "Activities (Liability Insurance) covers the normal and lawful pursuits of the Association and its registered members." I've been at many BMFA events over the years where members have asked (often quite esoteric) questions along the lines of "Are we covered if...". The answer has always come back that, unless you are actively engaged in an intentional criminal act, you are covered. An analogous example from car insurance would be that you are covered for third party liability if you crash and injure someone else whilst speeding, but not if you are do the same whilst driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. However, I am sure the BMFA and policy providers would look at this again and clarify the position if and when RID becomes mandatory.

This weekend looks perfect for Easyglider maidening off the flat, and the RR ones can be assembled in an hour or two max. Just saying…

It certainly was a surprising omission given that info would appear to have been useful to the CAA; they could have them easily identified any delta between the views of national association members and those of the general public. Perhaps they did not want to ask because they didn’t want to be accused of using the info to distort/massage the results? Intriguing….

Wow. Consider my gast well and truly flabbered! Perhaps you should consider some light Googling… Right, time to retreat quietly I think to avoid making any more stress or work for the mods - nothing to see here, move along please….!

My first flights in a glider were at RAF Syerston whilst at Notts Uni in the late 90s. The price back then? £15 a year membership fee, and £3.10 a winch launch. Instruction was free (all RAF guys), and no soaring fees either cos we owned our own K13 (reg. HPE, or Happy)! and K6. Driving the vintage post war tractor for retrieving aircraft was a heck of a lot of fun too! Tremendous days - I think I went solo for about £130!!!

So out of interest, do you also believe Rosa Parks was wrong not to give up her bus seat in Alabama in 1955? What about the suffragettes; should they have stick to housekeeping and family making for their husbands rather than targeting the vote? And presumably all low income families should have paid the poll tax unquestioningly, even if it did put them into bankruptcy? It thankfully doesn’t happen too often these days in the UK, but sometimes truly awful legislation gets put in place and the authorities refuse to change direction despite the wishes of the populace. In that situation only measured, organised public protest and civil disobedience is likely to effect change. Hopefully it will not be necessary in this case, but taking it entirely off the table would be shortsighted at this point.

Ok, if you are going to bluntly “correct” all us “whingers” , I’ll repay the complement… 😉 Your post portrays a complete lack of understanding of how we actually got to this point. It shows you have lapped up the “it’s all about safety” narrative that the CAA and UK Gov are happy for pilots who couldn’t be bothered to read the many docs released on the topic since ~2015 to infer, when it’s always actually been about the integration of commercial and military UAS into the low level airspace for tax £££s and jobs. I should probably insert links to the likes of the 2015 Riga declaration and the BMFA webinar (as I’ve done many times before) where this is all explained. I’m not going to bother though, as you wouldn’t read or watch them given they don’t suit the narrative you’ve decided on. Instead I’ll wish you well with your sheep-like following of whatever legislation is put on the statute book next. Thankfully not everyone in this hobby will be so compliant if the CAA do chose to completely over reach in their efforts to support commercial interests. Ps - I also feel very safe now that I can be 100% certain you have never broken the speed limit or parked illegally either… That is correct, yes? 🧐

All you have proved there is that you did right a very confusing post that almost everyone here took as meaning you would buy those units immediately.

Sometimes really bad legislation has to be challenged, otherwise the authorities will just carry on going with ever more invasive regsI. f they passed a rule saying you had to wear a luminous bib with “RC Modeller - dangerous” on the front and told you you could only fly in one me of 5 locations in the UK, would you do it? Actions need to be thought through and proportionate, but I agree with Ron there is a time when wilful disobedience is the only tenable strategy in challenging the erosion of rights. Only when we see their final proposals will we know whether that is the next stage or not.

If you just want to experience a flight, then choose the location based on views and ease of getting there. If you want to get hands on and do some flying, I’d recommend the Long Mynd or LGC on the Dunstable Downs, as in ridge lift you’ll get a longer flight and more time to try stuff out.

I don’t think that is true; it’s just more people are focussed on trying to prevent RID being implement for LOS models aircraft in the first place at this point, rather than working out how we would comply if it is. If it does move forward I’m certain we’ll have lots of time to chew the fat over the devices that can be used to comply with whatever finally gets passed by UK Gov.

WLTP in all the reviews is 318 miles, and even the metadata stored by Google for Toyota's BZ4X page has that figure: ..but you are right when you actually get to the site the range figure is now 270 combined; apologies. Perhaps their marketing department retrospectively decided they want to only go with a relatively pessimistic real world figure that 100% of drivers should be able to achieve in daily driving? Whatever the reason, the stats suggest that 250-270 with 150Kw fast charging capability should be enough for 99.9% of journeys in this country - whose bladder and stomach will allow them to travel that far without a 30-45 min break anyway?! Yes, rapids of those speeds aren't ubiquitous yet, but they will be in 1-2 years so I don't agree that the car has to have a bigger battery to be comparable. In that situation the limit on range will always be the driver, not the car. Besides, how the heck are you going to refuel a H2 powered vehicle once you do reach the end of it's range given there are only 16 stations in the UK?! I did provide a link to this on the last page - the 10 year warranty is not applicable in the UK, it's only 5 on the FC... I do quite like the look of it, but given the price (£50k), the current fuelling issue and the doubts over warranty, any long range EV is more compelling at this point in time IMO. Practical H2 driving for general motorists seems a very, very long way away...

Sorry, yes, was a typo.

Maybe not, but I do think there is a major difference between the two in terms of likely compliance rates. If the CAA and UK Gov stop at broadcast remote ID for model aircraft with exceptions for recognised flying sites, I'm pretty sure the vast the majority of current pilots will continue to participate. If they go to broadcast remote ID (which is far higher cost and pretty invasive IMO in terms of the data being provided and the potential for remote monitoring and enforcement) I can see large numbers of modellers exiting, and another chunk choosing to operate off grid in defiance of the new rules. A decent percentage of traditional aeromodellers may also choose to leave the BMFA if they perceive they have been unsuccessful in protecting the hobby from regulators.

You have to laugh, it’s easier than crying…! “Please welcome Dronetag BS, the ultimate cost-effective solution designed to help aeromodelers, FPV pilots, and hobbyists comply with the latest FAA standards. With its affordable price of $49, this device is a game-changer. We call it Dronetag BS – a basic solution to prove that Remote ID is no BS.”

The difference in weight and the additional range they have is not huge when Compton the current gen of H2 cars against a current and EV… Toyota Mirai saloon - 1900kg kerb weight, 400 miles range Toyota BZ4X EV SUV - 1970kg kerb weight, 318 miles (so prob 290 real world)

Until you have kit such solar, battery (or a vehicle with V2G), solar diverter and a time of use tariff for import and export in place it’s hard to really understand the options available for optimisation. At super high level, by using these resources in together and rethinking how and when you carry out tasks that require energy you can optimise consumption in ways that aren’t possible if you take all your energy from the grid. We have had ours for over a year now, and I’m still working out how to optimise things so we take even less from the grid than we do today.

(Hydrogen) Fuel Cell.

That is certainly how it seems to have gone in France, and that is the broad model in the US, with the caveat no-one is sure exactly how many FRIAs are actually going to be allowed. certainly there are plenty of well established model flying sites that have been turned down, though I've given up following the details of it at this point as it appears we have our own battle to fight here that I am (selfishly I suppose!) more invested in!

Sounds ideal to me... "Yep, it's definitely on board and transmitting Officer, it's dat nasty carbon foo-see-large that's the problem, nowt I can do about it..." 😉

I don't think the scale of the problem is lost on many in this thread; the only possible exceptions are the small number here who are sceptical of there being any human induced climate change at all. Where lots of us disagree with you is that we should not do anything at all in case the lifecycle carbon emissions of our action are worse. According to you I should not have invested in solar because the carbon emitted during their manufacture and transport from China. Putting aside the fact the original ones we ordered were from Norway so wouldn't have had to come far anyway (those were sadly unavailable), all the best solar panels today last for at least 25 years, more likely 35 with minimal (~0.3-0.5%/year) degradation. Models show that (even here in the UK) manufacturing carbon costs will be offset by the carbon-free energy they produce in 2.5-3.5 years. That means there will be a net carbon reduction for the remaining 22-32 years. They are also reducing our transport emissions too; by partially powering the (yes, secondhand, already existing!) PHEV hybrid with solar over the first 250 miles, it looks like 80-100mpg across our usage cycle will be possible, though there will be a drop of a few % points for 2-3 months of the year when we will need to charge it from the grid. "But what about the harmful effect of sourcing the materials, and the fact we don't have UK recycling for them yet?" you say... Well, I simply choose to believe that: many highly educated people who know far more than all of us on here about energy generation and use state that solar is an important part of the energy mix going forward, so us doing it seems sensible, and; there is an awful long time for the recycling aspect to be addressed before my current panels will have to come down off the roof! 25 years is a lifetime in tech after all. Do I know with absolute certainty the lifecycle carbon and overall resource usage of us as a family is lowered significantly by this decision? No, I don't. However, I am absolutely certain that without buying the solar we would have consumed less efficiently (because we wouldn't be so careful thinking about how we consume), and we'd have used far more fossil fuels over the next 25-35 years for home and transportation purposes. Given the balance of probabilities on emissions, and the fact it gives us 80% electricity independence and saves us significant money in the long term, we believe going ahead with it was more likely to be beneficial to both the planet and us than keeping going as we were. Hydrogen may be helpful option in some specific circumstances (probably large scale transport like lorries and possibly shipping). However, it is much harder to make a case for it in private vehicles or (in future) surface based robotaxis. It's bulky, dangerous, difficult to transport and store, and (in comparison to a vehicle that uses electricity directly instead of using it to store water) extremely inefficient. It is also interesting that over the last 10 years EV adoption has increased hugely, but H2 adoption (both in terms of cars sold and infrastructure) remains microscopic. If H2 is the future, it's coming awfully slowly. It also appears FC vehicles suffer from similar issues to those that you have criticised EVs for, most notably powertrain life. The tech is apparently improved in recent years (though I've never seen or driven in one so can't comment from experience), but powertrain warranties don't seem to reflect that: Toyota Mirai in the UK - 5yrs/50k miles (apparently in some markets it is longer than this, not sure why though) Toyota BZ4X (full electric BEV) in the UK - 10yrs/100k miles Toyota hybrid batteries in the UK - 15 years The older FC vehicles would appear to have been similar in robustness to first gen EVs like the Leaf, i.e. not very! This Hyundai owner in Germany paid 50k Euros for the car, which went 50k miles before the FC died, at which point Hyundai quoted 100k Euros to replace it! Replacement FC's for the newer model are only ~42k Euros each though; positively bargainous, though not even quite as "cheap" as a replacement EV battery... 😉