Long story short, bloke phones/emails our airfield having a moan about GA flying over a disused airfield he now uses for flying models... Gives a date and reg which we can link back to one of our instructors doing a PFL - as this is a site commonly used by the local flight schools in the area for PFLs, and previously by the military when Church Fenton was active. Instructor says he was doing a PFL, not hooning about playing crop-dusters or Joe Airshow pilot, and aeromodeller bloke describes it a serious incident where he thought the aircraft was about to crash and he had to take evasive action with his model (not seen by instructor or student on the day) all seen by his two mates who were witnesses.
Guy generally sounds like he's got a chip on his shoulders, and sends email with pictures/maps showing
their flying areas, and sounding off about how they follow CAA rules etc.
Bit of digging from instructor suggests they are possibly in breach of CAP 658 (although this may be just guidance) with a load of videos on their website of flying above 400' (as they have an onboard camera with telemetry
) and one with the silly sods cloud-surfing (at least 2-3000' from the looks of it) which seems a bit dangerous as that's where big aeroplanes play. Interestingly the January AAIB bulletin has a report of a Robin hitting a small RC glider on approach to Shoreham, and that suggests the rules allow any height to be flown if the model weighs under 4kg? Consensus here seems to be below 400'.
Should the instructor send them an email and call them out on it, or just put it down to experience, let them enjoy the sky as much as the next man, and make a mental note to give them a wide berth in future?!
Should instructor send them a nice email thanking them for their observations, give a few helpful pointers as to the safety issues with them flying above 1000', saying he hopes we can all share the sky together and try to get along, maybe offer them a flight in a real aeroplane and a look around the hangars?
Thoughts? Ideas?