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[bmapope]

I will be in this hobby 2 years Jan. the 18th and have experienced both good and bad at local flying fields as I predominately fly nitro heli's. The plane guys sometimes have a beef with the heli guys flying 3d. I recently purchased a 100cc edge 540 and the local club president help me assemble the plane. He is a great guy and is now learning helicopters and myself along with the fellow who taught me all about helicopters have been helping him learn, it has been great. Was wondering what we have to do to get the older gentlemen warmed up to the idea. We have been relatively successful at blending in at the field, but there always seem to be an air of tension and they seem to never stop flying circuits to give a brother a chance to get a tank in. Other than the flight patterns being way different and hard to fly together, what gives?!?

[Jermo]

outlive them?

Seriously, if you find an answer let me know. I was looking to join the local club but have pretty much decided I won't give my money to a club to be around people that don't want me and my chopper around. I've met some really awesum guys who flew planks only and a afew huge flaming axxh***s. It's not worth my time or cash to deal with the bad eggs.

If you find an answer let me know.

[Dilbeck]

Its really not that diffecult to figure out, The problem is within oneself or a group of flyers. Anyone with a plane or heli likes to fly or would have a train or something else. It comes down to respect! Planes have been around as long as dirt and when something else comes in and starts tearing up the flight line and acting all arrogant things go south rather quickly. We should stop this here and now. I like planes as well as helis/boats/cars. It just seems that this younger generation of "3D flyers" think some of the older "Plank" flyers are outdated/old-school/washed up old men. I get tired of my 19 year old telling me he knows better than I!! This is where this comes from. My 19 year old knows better than me? Then wants to borrow $50 dollars, OK... This is a hobby and we can all enjoy all aspects of it. I learn things from the young and old alike. Learning is the key, These old guys can teach a lot, Give them a chance you will learn a lot..

[bmapope]

Dilbeck, if you would notice I have spent alot of time with the older, retired, president of the club building a new 100 cc Wildhare Edge 540. He taught me a ton on what to do and not to do. I also met a guy 2 years ago who is 44 (I'm 40) and had been flying helis for 17 years who has taught me all I know about helis. The thing is when I maidened my edge there were alot of those older plane guys who showed up ( I believe) to see a heli guy crash his new plane. Whether that was true or not I don't know. We have actually had a fun fly of all the local renegades at the field and raised $400 for toys for tots for the club, it was awesome. We had over 60 pilots and everyone represented well. We have warmed up several of the regulars and actually have some of them tinkering with helis now!

[maineflyer]

I agree about the respect thing, we have a couple of guys who don't fly at all. One shows up just to complain about what others are doing and the other shows up to BS and hang out with friends. He is quick to help people get their planes together or started and when you are in the air he is taking pictures wiht his camera. Guess which one I want to see show up . I am the only guy at the field flying anything bigger than 60 size glow most of the time and am new to helis and will be bringing those out this spring... Fortunitely most of the guys won't mind but there is always a couple that if they can't do it or don't have it them complain about it....
It is all about respecting the other person and what they can do. The hobby is too small to segregate all the different aspects. We need to stick toghter not tear each other and what they fly down.
Just my 2 cents

[ryanm]

We have some of this problem at our local field. The population is split pretty evenly between older guys who like to fly a circular pattern and then a different crowd that likes more aerobatic stuff. The aerobatic guys as I called them fly some 3d, aerobatics, imac type stuff and heli's. Some are old, some are young, even as young as 12-14. Most of our club members are good guys, even the older circular pattern flying guys are great guys. There are a few that gripe, particularly about 3d and heli's. I fly both of those, and have made lots of friends in the club and over time have gotten more and more people interested in 3d, attitudes have definitely changed towards 3d airplane flying. But not heli's. And they have been growing at our field as well and now the rift is becoming more pronounced. Most of the airplane guys are not enjoying the 3d heli crowd, and vice versa. Some of the heli pilots fly mostly pattern style flying and nobody minds them much, but the 3d ones have been having more and more problems finding airtime. There is always somebody sticking a plane in the air, even when they see a heli guy getting his machine ready to fly. Nobody shows the heli guys the courtesy of giving them 5-10 minutes in the air alone. The heli guys have begun flying later in the day after all the airplanes have gone home and generally just avoiding fun flys altogether since they can't get any airtime. Not the best solution. We've had some informal talks about dedicating 10-15 minutes of each hour to heli time and grounding the airplanes if a heli guy is present - and wants to fly. This has met with a good amount of resistance so far to any airplane guys that we have brought it up with. Many have said that they feel the 3d airplane guys should also be grounded then and forced to fly during this 10-15 minute window. It gets ugly...

All in all I think respect is the key, but sadly the circle pattern airplane guys outnumber everybody else and don't well tolerate being told that they need to give others a chance to fly sometimes too. Seems that nobody can see the bigger picture that without club members a club dies. And if you alienate many of the members by not being receptive to their needs, they will go elsewhere.

[D air]

haha it's pretty much the same everywhere in the world i guess
It's hard sometimes to get even on the field because heli's and planes have totaly different flight routines. Well... we split up the field in different directions (depents where the wind is comming from). We can fly with 3 planes and 3 heli's at the same time without any problems. There are still some oldies over here that still keep complaining about our flyingstyle but we'll give them a coffee and something to eat and they will be quiet for a while.. it's mostly on Sundays so the rest of the days we don't have any issue's at all

[Skylane]

I belong to a small local club (35 members max) and they only allow 3 aircraft to fly at a time. I have yet to see a Heli at the field in the 2 years I've been flying my "plank" there.

I've not flown a Heli (or seen one at our field) But I don't see any reason why the two can't share the same air-space. Just takes communication between the pilots......right? Am I way off base here? I'd love to see some Heli's at our field!

I hope you don't refer to everyone's fixed wing aircraft as a plank! That might be part of the problem Fixed wing aircraft have been around a long time, but the designs are still evolving as much if not more than Heli's!

[D air]

I wish lot more people have the same thoughts as you have..
the world would be a better place on all flying fields

[flyingtanks]

Same problems in my experience but at my local field the folks flying fixed-wing are generally understanding when I fly my heli, but I always ask them before going up and will try and wait for a bit of lull. The exception is the guy who throws a fit.

In theory there should not be a problem if fixed-wing simply flies a bit high and helis stay lower. When a plane needs to take-off/land just call it and the helis clear the approach/runway. But it never seems that easy....

I do understand how it can make fixed-wing pilots nervous to have a heli doing hard-3D out in front of them. But I can get just as nervous with my heli when a plane starts doing verticals and other maneuvers over my heli.

[bgw45]

I belong to two different clubs in the DFW area. Each club field has designated areas for heli flyers. There seems to be no issue with frequency control as neither location has any heli flyers on 72. All have moved to 2.4.

At any given moment there will be both types of aircraft flying at the same time. This is possible as both fields have room for both aircraft to be flown at the same time. No issues of frustration from either group.

There are other smaller club fields that do have issues. It is hard to teach kids to share, regardless of their age.