Originally Posted by Sparky Paul

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Really?
And any Hans, Dick, or Heinrick will pay attention to the FAA?
And any doofus over here in search of cheap thrills?

The FAA has no jurisdiction in Sweden, where the video was made.

If you don't like the rules the FAA already has in place for those balloons in America, you can contact your local FSDO and set them straight.

Andy

Originally Posted by Sparky Paul

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When the activity interferes lethally with the rights of everyone to be free from the thoughtless activities that so many hedonist look for, yes, it will be banned.

RC models, automobiles and most household items have 'interfered lethally' in the past.. so you would favour banning them?

I'm not arguing a 'free for all'.. Just to take a sensible view of the actual risk imposed by the activity. To my knowledge there has never been so much as a near miss or even slightly dangerous occurrence due to high altitude model airplanes dropped from balloons? As it's never likely to be something that occurs very often I honestly don't think it's anything we need to be getting in a wad about...
There are countless things out there that impose a far greater threat to our well being than models dropped from balloons.

You need to be careful what you wish for. Given that ordinary RC models have on several occasions caused fatalities there is a far more realistic case for banning them that balloon dropped FPV's.

I think what you did was fantastic. It is really clever to organise all of the components needed, put it all together and achieve what you did.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they taught this sort of thing in IT, Science, Maths and Electronics lessons in schools, it would really engaging for the kids and generate a lot of interest in the subjects and inspire kids to look at cross curricular activities and achieve something that was impossible only 70-100 years ago.

:-)

There are places where the general public can go to buy as many dangerous/lethal objects as they want for incredibly low prices. This practice is totally legal and it's even encouraged by many. These things can easily be used as weapons and are responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths every year.

Looks like we should close the hardware stores.

A plane flew past a child in a pram. The mother thinks this is too dangerous. Approaches local Senator. Media beats up the story. Something needs to be done...

Originally Posted by 1320fastback

These are far more dangerous to the public, they launch 50,370 a year and that's just here in USA.

What if one landed over a highway with a school bus full of children and it came thru the drivers window!

http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/balloon.html
http://yourweatherblog.com/?p=4523

Now I'm afraid to go outside knowing there are falling weather stations all over the world.

Maybe so BUT our hobby isn't at risk by them as it is with beyond visual rc flight.

Originally Posted by MatZeRO

I think what you did was fantastic. It is really clever to organise all of the components needed, put it all together and achieve what you did.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they taught this sort of thing in IT, Science, Maths and Electronics lessons in schools, it would really engaging for the kids and generate a lot of interest in the subjects and inspire kids to look at cross curricular activities and achieve something that was impossible only 70-100 years ago.

:-)

Try impossible 10 - 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by rtbates

Maybe so BUT our hobby isn't at risk by them as it is with beyond visual rc flight.

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And that's the core of the situation.
A few self-centered pleasure seekers will find something else to dirty on, when r/c is hit with excessive regulation.

So the route to avoidance of legislation is to call for legislation

Like i said, careful what you wish for because the law makers are unlikely to differentiate between the different forma of RC flying

I have been involved on and off with balloon launches and they are regulated. There are hundreds in the air at anytime and they often fly to over 100,000 feet. The FAA knows about the legitimate launches. Many folks have done high altitude balloon work for anything from weather research to a kids science project and now that cell phone technology allows for easy tracking and video photography it has become popular with amateur experimenters in addition to professional weather researchers and college programs.

Space Balloon - Stratosphere Spacecraft Launched From Newburgh, NY (6 min 59 sec)

The part about dropping a glider would be out of bounds for AMA flying (obviously) but for an experiment if the glider was very light it might be something that could be done safely especially if it was coordinated with the FAA. If someone were to do this in a place that is away from specific jet-ways (there are routes that are very tightly controlled for planes that fly high and fast) it would be pretty low risk. My personal opinion is people over-react nowadays to anything that involves even a tiny chance of risk. If we really followed through with this risk adverse concept we would never allow cars on the road And would send our kids to school in bubble wrap.

Chances are there are many balloon launches that aren't following guidelines but people circumvent rules everyday in society and that will always be true. Personally I like to see people trying interesting things like this and I hate to see things get to the point that we are so risk adverse that we stop creative people from learning things from experimentation. If I were doing something similar to this experiment I would definitely work with the FAA to insure we had clearance. I used to do high powered rocketry before it was even an official hobby and we used to get FAA clearance before our launches and it wasn't too difficult. In Sweden where I think this was filmed I am sure they have a regulatory agency that could be coordinated with.

The chances for an "international incident" from Sweden are much higher than from the US.

Everything we do has a reaction. I take 9 pills every morning for my heart that have more deadly probable side effects than what the med itself was made for. What ya gonna do? Without 2 for sure, I would not live very long. If we had the regulations about doing everything that we have now, back in the late 1800's we wouldn't be where we are now. Dave/zeezee

The intrusion of the government into the selling and availability of safe food and safe drugs not derived from snake oil since the 1800s is certainly something to be discouraged about.
And traffic safety. Curse those traffic lights and rules of the road.
And public education. Everybody has access to an education! What's with that?
The chances of growing old... older than dying at birth as was common back then , is something to get discouraged about also.
Drat advances in medical science!

Originally Posted by JetPlaneFlyer

So the route to avoidance of legislation is to call for legislation

Like i said, careful what you wish for because the law makers are unlikely to differentiate between the different forma of RC flying

Actually, that can work better than you suggest, at least over here. Our AMA was HIGHLY instrumental in having our US House and Senate pass legislation that will help greatly restrict and control any possible rules that the FAA was considering putting in place to control normal R/C model flying, so that we did not get swept up in and lost in the upcoming sUAV regulations.

And, our lawmakers did a pretty good job defining the type of R/C flying we most want and need to protect.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/news/me...enateBill.aspx

this one seemed to have made a lot more news:

HELLO KITTY IN SPACE (3 min 46 sec)