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As some of you might know I'm also a comitted 'planker' and hold a membership at a club which has just a few Heli pilots, one of whom is a competitive F3C flyer.
I've recently faced some 'interesting' conversations with the older members of the club that have seen me become a little dissillusioned. In particular, our club plays host to several very serious scale modellers (at worlds level) and some other dyed in the cloth plankers which see anything other than castor oil as the work of the devil.
My question is how do we expect to drive the hobby forward with attitudes and opinions that were formed in the pre-war years. I've seen some absolutely incredible conversations with people wanting to start flying telling them how difficult it is, how most people fail and most recently how helicopters are inherintly dangerous but in the same breath displaying a complete disregard to the edges of a spinning prop. it took me and another member about 15 minutes to re-assure this prospective member that it really isn't that difficult to fly a .40 sized trainer and he really shouldn't worry.
I'm genuinely scared for the future of model flying in it's entirity for as long as these people continue to have a say in the way that we move our hobby forward. I've taken some action myself in joining the commitee at our club and at the age of 29 I'm an absolute baby, thankfully our new chairman is also half the age of some of the other members and shares some of my views, yet I know that this isn't just affecting our club.
So, I guess despite being a bit of a rant it's also a call to arms, please do take some action to have a say in what happens at your club, these older flyers can't have that long left now and to think that we could perpetuate this idiotic self destruction really worries me. The BMFA does have it's shortcomings as does the scottish eqivalent SAA yet surely the face of flying is at club level and is something we all control.
Most recently my club has 'decided amongst itself' without any comittee consultation that 450 sized helicopters are too big for our indoor venue, however there are frequently 2 or more shockflyers in the air and IFo's and the like bouncing off the walls with props breaking off left, right and centre. In fact, it's fair to say that more work and maintenance goes into keeping a helicopter safe during the course of a week than a shocky or even a balsa model will ever see in it's lifetime, however this is a mute point with our resident pensioners. I've gone so far as to find and arrange another indoor venue some 3 or 4 miles down the road just for helicopters but know that the club will want what is actually a superior venue for the Fixed wing brigade - I wonder do we as the organisers of this night ban their presence or rise above it and let them fly?
As you can probably tell I'm boiling over with this at the moment but would still like to use this energy constructively and appeal to you all to take positive steps in keeping the hobby alive and not letting the gimmers take it to their grave.
Andy
I've recently faced some 'interesting' conversations with the older members of the club that have seen me become a little dissillusioned. In particular, our club plays host to several very serious scale modellers (at worlds level) and some other dyed in the cloth plankers which see anything other than castor oil as the work of the devil.
My question is how do we expect to drive the hobby forward with attitudes and opinions that were formed in the pre-war years. I've seen some absolutely incredible conversations with people wanting to start flying telling them how difficult it is, how most people fail and most recently how helicopters are inherintly dangerous but in the same breath displaying a complete disregard to the edges of a spinning prop. it took me and another member about 15 minutes to re-assure this prospective member that it really isn't that difficult to fly a .40 sized trainer and he really shouldn't worry.
I'm genuinely scared for the future of model flying in it's entirity for as long as these people continue to have a say in the way that we move our hobby forward. I've taken some action myself in joining the commitee at our club and at the age of 29 I'm an absolute baby, thankfully our new chairman is also half the age of some of the other members and shares some of my views, yet I know that this isn't just affecting our club.
So, I guess despite being a bit of a rant it's also a call to arms, please do take some action to have a say in what happens at your club, these older flyers can't have that long left now and to think that we could perpetuate this idiotic self destruction really worries me. The BMFA does have it's shortcomings as does the scottish eqivalent SAA yet surely the face of flying is at club level and is something we all control.
Most recently my club has 'decided amongst itself' without any comittee consultation that 450 sized helicopters are too big for our indoor venue, however there are frequently 2 or more shockflyers in the air and IFo's and the like bouncing off the walls with props breaking off left, right and centre. In fact, it's fair to say that more work and maintenance goes into keeping a helicopter safe during the course of a week than a shocky or even a balsa model will ever see in it's lifetime, however this is a mute point with our resident pensioners. I've gone so far as to find and arrange another indoor venue some 3 or 4 miles down the road just for helicopters but know that the club will want what is actually a superior venue for the Fixed wing brigade - I wonder do we as the organisers of this night ban their presence or rise above it and let them fly?
As you can probably tell I'm boiling over with this at the moment but would still like to use this energy constructively and appeal to you all to take positive steps in keeping the hobby alive and not letting the gimmers take it to their grave.
Andy
If there dead against they get it explained were a MIXED Club get used to it or don't join (or though they might get no choice anyway)
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