Safety and Fun at TEMAC

[Michael]

This is just a reminder that SAFETY and FUN are two most important issues at TEMAC.

We want everyone to have fun, within good safety parameters.

Some of our recent events have been much more successful than anticipated, and we are learning from them. Future events will have better crowd control and other safety measures in place, but the fun will continue.

Despite the excitement experienced at some of the recent crashes at the club (which invariably do happen), we want make sure that no one would ever be hurt, nor should anyone think that we encourage such accidents.

Safety is paramount to having fun.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to maintain safety as our club grows, feel free to get in on the conversation here, or send me a private email if you prefer.

[email protected]

Michael Rogozinsky
President, TEMAC

[Andy Hoffer]

A couple simple safety suggestions:

1.  Strict observance of traffic pattern when more than one aircraft is in the air.  i.e.  if winds are from the north, all aircraft are to fly a clockwise (righthand) pattern, flying upwind, right to left, over the field (landing/takeoff area) and downwind, left to right, east of the field (NOT over the landing/takeoff area).  Likewise, if winds are from the south, all aircraft are to fly a counter-clockwise (left hand) pattern, flying upwind, left to right, over the field (landing/takeoff area) and downwind, right to left, east of the field (NOT over the landing/takeoff area).  This will avoid the hazardous condition of aircraft flying in opposite directions over the field !

2.  When more than one aircraft is in the air, no aerobatics in the traffic pattern which might conflict with other aircraft in the pattern, e.g. loops over the field which result in potential head-on collision situations, or 3D manoeuvres over the field in the traffic pattern.  When more than one pilot is flying, aerobatics should be confined to defined areas, agreed upon by the pilots flying at the time, e.g. one at the north end of the field, one at the south end, to avoid aircraft interfering with one another.  Observance of the traffic pattern and collision avoidance should be primary objectives.

Andy Hoffer

[Ededge2002]

From the description a loop would not make a head on collision a possibility.  I agree with the upwind pattern on the runway side of the field as it would make landing not require you to break pattern.   Limiting aerobatics seems a little over the top though to me.

[thehaze]

I don't think aerobatic flying is much of an issue. We have not had a mid-air caused by this type of flying. Where I see some issues come mainly out of three areas:

1. People are not using one of the pilot stations while flying. I think this is due to the fact that most of the hand launches occur either to the north or the south of the end of the fence and pilots don't or can't get back to a station.  A couple of times we have accidentally had more than the prescribed number of planes in the air at one time. And that wouldn't happen if everyone used a pilot's station when flying, because once all the stations are full no more planes would go up in the air.

2.  Another thing to consider is to use caution when flying very fast or very slow aircraft. In my experience flying a faster plane in the pattern with slower ones is quite hard as you can't anticipate where the other plane is going easily. I would suggest that pilots use their discretion before taking off and if there are planes in the air that are much faster or slower than theirs, perhaps waiting is the thing to do.

3. Lastly I do believe the greatest risk to safety a TEMAC is created when aircraft fly outside of the allowed flight boundaries. I.e. over Stouffville Rd. And over the pits (including flying towards the flight line in an easterly direction). A model going down over the field is not likely to hurt anything, however the risks to people and property when flying outside of the boundaries are very real. I would suggest that we place a visible marker at the Northernmost extent of the boundary to help pilots from flying over the road. It's pretty hard to judge the distance to the road at times and I'm pretty sure that I've come closer to the road than I thought when setting up for a landing from the North.

In terms of the mid-air, I don't think anyone is encouraging these things to happen. And I'd like to hope that the comments and reaction to them at the field and on the forum was not misconstrued as an encouragement for people to purposely create these situations from occurring. But rather an expression of our interest in our hobby and the inevitability that every once and a while a model will crash, in the same way that the crowd cheers when a crash occurs at a NASCAR race.

The Skills day was a great day of flying and I for one want it to become an annual event. The growth in the number of members at TEMAC is a testament to the fun atmosphere that permeates the club and that's not something you find everywhere. We should do everything we can to keep that going.

Just my $0.02