Toy Planes

[Dan C]

Its time to have a good old fashioned debate......who's in :)

Toy planes, what do you think of them as there has been a massive increase over the past couple of years.
Good or Bad
Personaly i dont like them as people are flying around thinking they are topgun with no insurance or training.
I would go on but its time for other peoples views

[Alistair Taylor]

A toy that gets kids away from the computer/TV screen and outside?

That has to be good.

Lots more people wanting to get into model flying, jostling the regulars for space at the flight line, filling the air with models they (shock horror)haven't made themselves, learning to fly on computer simulators then outflying the venerable club chairman?

Brilliant. It's time the fusties had a wake up call. Modelling has allways thrived on the regular injection of new ideas and new blood.

Bring 'em on I say. More people needing insurance might even result in some competition and a better deal for all of us.

AlistairT

[scott cuppello]

If by "toy" you mean stuff like the X-Lit ......bring 'em on like Alistair says.....I mean, no insurance? Have you seen one fly? Insects are about the only thing under threat from them! If you mean park-flyers.......hmmmmm, more complicated.

[Allan Jordan]

Hi, All. I love them! What you must remember Daniel is that this kind of "toy" can be instrumental in getting our youngsters out in the open air away from the computer.These youngsters are our future. We need these kids to help us get back to the country we used to be! Lets have more "toy" aeroplanes by all means! Allan J..TTFN

[Alistair Taylor]

Oooh no sure I want to go back to the country we used to be.....90s internet speeds? I don't think so, 80s job prospects, Urk!, 70's hairstyles....laughable (although I realise these are very popular with some model fliers).

60s might be an option - summer of love an all that :)

I say get the kids enthused, then see what new ideas they come up with. According to my venerable control-line manual it was a kid that came up with the symmetrical wing section, opening up the possibilities of inverted flight to the masses back in the 40s.

AlistairT

[Tom Sharp]

Ah summer of love the 60s.
I could never afford a 60, I had to be content with a 35.

[Richard Wicker]

Alistair.
I don't need a comb for the hairstyle now, "Pledge" and a duster work wonders!
There i was, all ready for a flying session, trying to figure out how to start the motor without me kipper-tie getting caught in the prop, then contemplating tottering out to the flight line on me platform Chelsea-boots without trippin' over me flares..... Still, if all else fails i can always stand into wind and have a hang glide on me shirt collers! ;)

[the unmagnificent man]

What do I think, who cares? well your getting it anyway! When I was a kid, sorry when I was younger (I'm still a kid)I would have loved to have had a toy plane to fly around, but the only sort of toy plane I could afford was made of folded paper. But yet through my child eyes it looked like the best jet ever. Then I bought my first balsa glider, then elastic powered wind up model followed eventually by my first full RC trainer. Kids of today are lucky enough to have the parkflyer type toy at their disposal and these planes in turn will lead them eventually to want something a bit better etc just as we all want that next model. To get these models in the air they will have to join a club! This can only be good for the longevity of our hobby. As for insurance, I dont condone flying without it but I imagine that a majority of newcomers to parkflying wouldnt even consider paying another third of the cost of the plane for something that may only last a couple of minutes. Another argument for joining a club I think? Do you think that parkflyers etc sould be made to buy insurance by law? Al

[scott cuppello]

"Should be made to buy insurance by law"? ..........sadly, I have no doubt a insurance clerk for some "no win, no fee" law firm has already read this and is scampering off as you read this to convince the gaffers of this new opening in the market place.....omigord....NO!

[Grant Darnley]

Toy planes, brilliant, has taken some of the geeky mystique away from the hobby now that kids can pick up an x-twin at tesco.

Mandatory insurance, no. Model insurance cover as provided by the BMFA/SAA is AFAIK provided for those who fly at flying sites. My current private flying field is(i'm almost certain) not covered by this as we have never declared it to the BMFA and upon describing it to an SAA safety inspector he confirmed it would not come under their rules. For the insurance industry to provide cover for every park/open field/football pitch etc in the country would hike premiums through the roof.

[Alistair Taylor]

You kow, people keep saying "kids have got it so easy these days with parkflyers", but all the "kids" I see with parkflyers in parks are 30-somethings who have got bored with the ipod and want to try something new that week. Maybe I just don't go to the right parks.

For many of these big kids, dabbling in RC flight will be a one-week wonder, but if the greater accessibility of RC planes (i.e. they are on the supermarket shelves where mum goes looking for birthday presents for junior) means we snag a few more true devotees, then it has to be good.


AlistairT

[Malcolm Fisher]

Re Insurance,

I have always been under the impression that BMFA insurance covered model flying anywhere in the country - provided that local Bye Laws don't forbid flying.

If it doesn't, I'm in trouble as I'm now a country member and no longer belong to a club with its own site.

As for toy plsnes, I'm in favour - even bought an electric foam Cub myself for a bit of flying on the local football field in order to counteract withdrawal symptoms.

[Grant Darnley]

I'm a country member as well, but the impression(very possibly wrong) I got was that the insurance was more to cover when I fly at recognised sites/comps/shows

[Malcolm Fisher]

If that's the case, there is no point in such as me having said insurance.

However, I feel that all model flyng folks should support the National Body - it has done an awful lot for us all, members or not, and without BMFA (or SMAE as I prefer to know it) we wouldn't have the frequency allocations we have - would probabaly all still be using the comparatively very few frequencies available on 27 MHz and wondering why we had so many unexplainable malfunctions. The insurance part of the membership fee is relatively small compared with other forms of insurance.

In your case Grant, what would happen if one of your models flew beyond range or flew away for some other reason and caused a motor vehicle crash - not beyond the bounds of possibility - if the insurance didn't cover you what would you do?

[David Ashby - Moderator]

It's a small price to pay Grant for peace of mind?
David.

[Alistair Taylor]

Very small, particularly given that the insurance company don't whack up the premiums every time you crash, and charge the same whatever you fly - from glider to ripsnorting overpowered missile.

In fact this hobby really has an awful lot to recommend it.

Easy access (if you have the money)to engines and motors more than powerful enough to whip your digits off faster than you can say Casualty! Not to mention slope soarers capable of flying faster than everything in the vicinity not operated by the RAF....(and faster than some of their toys as well)

Lots of shiny toys

Can require computer skills, razor-sharp hand-eye coordination, building skills, electronics knowledge, soldering ability, light-machine tool operation, metallurgy and metalworking, electrical know-how, or not, depending on how involved you want to get.

Outdoors and indoors pursuit - so independent of weather (to an extent, this summer has been #*%$£!!!)

Minority interest - so even just reading one copy of RCM&E puts you ahead of 99.9% of the population in knowledge of RC...

Can be competitive, relaxing, tiring, exhilarating, terrifying, hilarious depending on what you do and how you do it (it ain't wha-cher-do it's the way that-cher do it....etc etc.... hmmm terrifying vintage?).

I don't know why more people, particuarly kids, aren't into it. Well I sort of do know - the hobby has become more and more inacessible as the places where you can actually fly have moved further and further away from where people actually live, such that you can't fly if you don't have a car.

Which is why toy planes that you can fly in a parking lot/backyard without needing insurance and that cost pennies are BRILLIANT!

AlistairT

[Grant Darnley]

Don't get me wrong guys, I pay my twenty or whatever every year and don't complain, its just that the reckless abandon that most "toy planes" are flown with wouldnt fall under the safety handbooks regs anyway, certainly the ones I've seen. I know it isnt the target market but a lot of these are finding their way into the hands of guys having a boozy picnic on saturday afternoon and looking to see who can crash it most dramatically(which can be surprisingly good fun, lost count of the number of goalposts that one particular toy took on) but all it takes is for one grumpy member of the public to say they had seen a deliberate attempt to crash the model and the claim is blown out of the water.

I've seen what models can do to cars and people, I know its not pretty and the cover is worth it. But an X-twin won't punch a hole in a Range Rovers windscreen the way the ARC Carosel that nearly took my head off did and for that I don't think they need cover

[Alistair Taylor]

Grant

I agree (I think).

To injure yourself with an X-twin you'd have to short the lipo and eat it.... Requiring insurance for such planes is a nonsense.

I don't think a member of the public complaining about an x-twin or similar plane being "deliberately crashed" (is it possible to land them in a controlled fashion?) would affect insurance for the rest of us. If one of these crashed into you what would you claim for? Ruined your mascara? Not sure what you meant by this? :)

For "normal" IC/EP powered trainers of any size, insurance is essential, as is an appropriate place to fly it, and making sure you don't hand the tranny to anyone whose car you may have accidentally blighted in some obscure way.

There are still people out there who will buy a plane, assemble it and fly it without ever having joined a club or received instruction, even if (and this is a much bigger if than it ought to be....) they have joined the BMFA (I know, I was one).

Hopefully if they have had a go on an X-twin or similar, they will be a little further along the learning curve than an ab-initio novice, and so will hopefully stand a better chance of being able to control a plane to at least a limited extent.

So while X-twins will certainly encourage and not punish "bad" flying (they're almost indestructible), lets not forget that this also improves the reflexes/hand-eye-bowel coordination.


AlistairT

[Grant Darnley]

At a push, I guess if someone was flying one with a dodgy prop and a sharp edge caught you, maybe for medical expenses. But I was more thinking of - something like - someone dive-bombing a passing cyclist who then falls off and has to incur medical expense(I'm a drama queen but maybe).

Insurance would cover the costs if the plane was flown within the regs in the ANO(most importantly thou shalt not willingly crash) but if some angry dog walker decides that the pilot was reckless and at fault then the claim is dead and the pilot has to shell out. For an insurance to offer cover for such a scenario would hike the rates

[Alistair Taylor]

I see what you mean, but I'd be amazed if someone managed to cause sufficient injury with one of those planes to justify a legal claim and the payment of compensation.

Most model flyers (who are usually BMFA members) would instinctively avoid area where they are likely to come into conflict with members of the public - it's probably non-members (without insurance) who would run this risk.

But then people fly significantly heavier and faster kites, frisbees and boomerangs on public beaches with impunity.... and you don't see them being banned or compulsory insurance required before you can buy them.

I blame the squirrels (grey ones)


AlistairT

[Allan Jordan]

Hi Alistair, I don't think I put my point over to you very clearly. When I said I would like to see this country go back to the way it used to be I meant having people around who were able to use their hands and brains to make things instead of relying on the rest of the world to do it for them. Those of us who are capable of using the grey matter seem to be be in the minority. Sorry If I led you up the garden path. Allan J ..TTFN

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Alistair

How about the evening hangar sessions at the Nats....carnage!
Lost count of the number of times I got clocked by a model...

David.

[Alistair Taylor]

David

was it your model?

;o)

[Alistair Taylor]

Allan

fair point, I'd love to have those people back, just as long as they didn't come with the other sort of person - you know - the sort that decided that manned aeroplanes were destined for extinction, and then destroyed the prototypes/blueprints/blood sweat and tears of the people able to use their hands and brains.

Still - the vulcan will be flying again soon - and not a moment too soon, given the news that Putin is re-commissioning the Russian tactical bomber fleet. The dedicated bands of enthusiasts maintaining the armada of privately owned ex-cold war hardware must be rubbing their hands together in glee at the thought of government compulsory purchase orders winging their way (so to speak).

Much as I deplore arms races, they do stimulate the development of amazing aeroplanes....which in turn results in a glut of scale models of the prettier, if less effective ones (B17, Spitfire).

What was this thread about? Oh yeah - toy planes.

Here's a related discussion point - do kids brought up with video/computer games make better model pilots than those who've lived a life free of virtual? Anyone got experience of this?

If so - are manufacturers less blameworthy for making ready to fly planes that are not that easy to fly (spitfires, Mustangs, FW190s) readily available to the masses? If the little kids can fly them, are they still taking advantage of the big kids with big wallets and overconfidence in their real world flying abilities? Is this a bad thing, or just good business sense (one born every minute....)?

Ok ok I'm exaggerating a bit, but is the middle aged prospective Douglas Bader who turns up at the flying site all braggadocio and swagger, stuffs the immaculate spitfire that Mr Huang spent several hours building for him in China on launch and is never seen again, worthy of sympathy for trying to fly the unflyable, or a prize muppet for not having the humility to read the instructions and ask for help from a 10 year old?


AlistairT (TSR2/Vulcan/B24/Hurricane afficionado)

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Alistair

My models usually get stomped on by some dear little child within a few seconds :-(

David.