For those of you who are interested, I thought I would share my similar experience of NIMBY's that destroyed a sport I enjoyed, and you may take away some valuable lessons from it.
I used to trail ride, that is riding old roads that had not been tarmac'd on a dirt bike. Some of you would call it off roading or hooning about on a dirt bike. Usual mix of people. Some (the majority in my opinion and experience) had quiet bikes, rode sensibly and courteously and never broke any laws. Others (the minority in my opinion and experience) rode noisy illegal bikes like they were on a race track.
No matter what we (the sensible ones) did, the NIMBY's were constantly lobbying parliament for the law to be changed and us to be banned. Their main gripes were the noise of the illegal bikes (legal ones are pretty damn quiet) and the conduct of the idiot riders. Even though both the issues (noise and bad riding) were covered by exisitng laws and could be enforced if the Police had the will and time, parliament chose to pander to the strong lobbyists (including The Ramblers Association - very strong) and ban us from almost everywhere. We used to have access to 5% of all off road tracks (as did anyone with a road legal vehicle), and now we only have 1%. Almost destroyed the industry overnight.
My comparison with the helicopter industry is that whilst the helicopter industry has the support of very rich and influential customers with the obvious leverage that has in Parliament, and the obvious benefits of helicopters for Police and rescue. Do not underestimate the strength of negative feeling that can be generated, sometimes for incorrect or unfair reasons. As we used to think whenever we passed a house that happened to be on the lanes, "lets be as quiet as possible, preferably so they dont hear us, so that is one less complaint to stop us doing what we enjoy".
Obviously it is more difficult for you guys to pass unnoticed! But at least you dont have to worry about spotty bike thieves giving you a bad name
