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Flying responsibility


Hasek
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I am wondering what all your thoughts are about this. This situation didn't occur involving kites, but certainly has the same issues/implacations.

I went to the local state park where the large majority of kite flying is in my metropolis. There is a large main field with a parking lot on each end. There is another smaller field which is not used too much except when rugby or some other team sport plays or practices there.

A few hundred feet away from where I parked there were three guys flying electric remote control planes. One of these guys was a hot dog flyer, one was unskilled, and the other guy was good and pretty much flying high which would avoid most any possible problems. The hot dog guy was doing 15 foot fly by's over the one parking lot, and maybe 25 feet fly by's over the other parking lot at the opposite end of the field.

This is a pretty busy park with families having picnics, sunbathers lying in the field, bicyclists and joggers using the path around the perimeter of the field, kids romping around, etc.

I started flying electric RC planes last summer. There are many variables that can cause a crash for even experienced pilots; dumb thumbs on the remote, bad gust of wind, radio transmitter glitches (they were using old tech radios), etc. These guys could have been flying at the other field.

I was there about 15 minutes shaking my head the whole time, and then decided to leave.

I have been pondering this for a few days, and thought of the same responsibilities we have as kite fliers. The first stunt kite I ever flew was a Team Hawaiian. For those of you who aren't familiar with that kite, it was a big heavy kite. I was flying it one day and it was windy, I hit some guy in the head with it. I wasn't trying to be cute or hot dogging, I just wasn't skilled in flying at that point. Of course that doesn't let me off the hook for my poor flying. Man did I feel horrible, fortunately he was okay.

Back to the RC planes; I didn't know how to handle that situation. I get kind of intense and direct in conversations of this nature, so I felt it best not to approach them.

What do you all do in these situations when this type of thing happens with other kite fliers you encounter? I am hardly a "Johnny By The Book", but one thing I am very conscious of since I grew up, is that my actions don't mess other people up.

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Good post, thanks Hasek.

Personally, I'm not much for collusion... If we observe and allow dangerous activity to continue, we take on a portion of the responsibility, imho.

Granted, there is some tact required, hard finger-pointing will rarely yield a good response.

Typically, I break some common ground, try their kite, let them try mine, then cite a scenario "similar" to theirs, without out and out naming them.

You know, build up, try and give them some context with which to realize their own role... If no dice, escalate in stages, most folks really don't intend be be jackasses, they're just missing enough pieces that they continue to overlook the big picture... "It only takes one crash, just one pissed off person, the 'right' one, then we're in front of a city council defending against a kite ban at our local park, ya know?"

Granted, that's just my style, but it works for me... I really hate to alienate folks from kiting (local or beyond), just about as much as I hate to see poor kiting etiquette.

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Interesting thread.

And I dont know how I would handle the situation myself either.

If I tried Johns way it would be embarrasing when I crashed. hopefully not into anyone!!

I was flying a while ago, in the area of some Power lines but at what I thought to be a good distance away from them, after all I used to be in the Police and the Ambulance Service, you would expect me to know about safety and stuff.

A Guy came over and told me he worked for a power company and was concerned at how close I was flying to the lines. Of course accepting his expert opinion I asked how far away he thought I should be, "well at least as far again as you are" he said, I was already about 3 time my line length away. So off I went and got further away.

Others watching me might well have thought "look at the jackass crashing repeatedly into the ground with his kite while he is close to the lines" at least the Power guy came over and tlaked to me so I could go crash somewhere else.

Bet if we think about it most of us have had that Jackass moment.

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