I finally got brave and

[MichaelHarris]

flew one of my R/C planes last week. After the Patriot Act, known around my house as; Liberties? You Have no Liberties Act, took away my life-long passion for high powered rocketry;

My Last Big-Un taking off

I took up R/C planes. For 2 years I've built um but never flew um. Call me chicken but the thought of a pile of balsa wood and covering in the middle of a field after taking weeks to build scared the crap out of me. After a few failed take-offs I mastered it, soared with the eagles and all that.


Now landing, thats an entirely different story,


I still miss this though,

[LibertyorDeath]

1. Wow ! That looks like a total Blast

Great pics

Thanks for sharing

[MichaelHarris]

2. your welcome

Planes are cool but I had been working on a high-powered rocket for a year. Full of electronics and cameras. The along comes asscroft and the new and improved ATF. The national rocketry organizations sued but we lost. Seems physics and rocketry taught to school children was just too much of a threat.

[theoceansnerves]

3. wait are you serious?

there's provisions in the patriot act that outlaw model rocketry?
i'm not into that but i remember watching a show on discovery about this competition out in the desert where everyone was launching insane rockets-- i'm guessing that no longer takes place?

[MichaelHarris]

4. heck yeah

they lowered the limits of propellant we can have per reloadable motor. I think its 62.5 grams total propellant weight. Motors are indexed by letter, A being a very small Estes like motor and G being the biggest you can get without an explosive permit. The deal is as soon as the laws went into effect the BATFE stopped approving permits. The two organizations, NAR http://www.nar.org/ and Tripoli http://www.tripoli.org/ sued. Just recently a verdict was handed down and we lost. Some people still launch the big ones because they we're able to get the explosive permits before 9-11. Anyone after that has a hell of a time getting the permit and they raised the price of it. Before all of this we could launch motors up to small I power without permits. Our hobby has been self-regulated since 1957 with certifications needed to purchase larger motors. We are also regulated by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Act) as well as DOT (department of transportation). There has not been one fatality since 1957, the birth of the hobby. The BATFE said in the courtroom they had evidence that a terrorist cell in the US planned to use model rockets to do something but refused to say what that 'something' was. That was their case and they won. The rocketry people had scientists show that the propellant in hobby rockets doesn't burn fast enough to cause a major explosion. I've seen the big ones explode and its nothing more than the propellant breaking up and going poof. Our hobby requires the tubes of the rocket be cardboard, we do however fiberglass the larger ones. I'm not sure but I don't think a cardboard tube with a plastic nose cone and balsa wood fins can take out an aircraft carrier. I would need more science on that.

On edit: The orange rocket in my post is on a small I size motor. The last one I could legally buy.

[7th_Sephiroth]

5. thats all they have to do is

say the word terrorist and another one of your freedoms is revoked

[MichaelHarris]

6. my guess is

someone will freak and outlaw R/C planes because some kid crashed one in a house or something.