Never before, have I seen this...

[patowalker]

Why would the CAA be interested?

How about the ANO:
Articles; 4, 16/21, 50, 72/73, 137/138 from a quick look.
It could just as easily have ended in serious injury, or even a fatality.

A lawyer could make it difficult for the CAA to bring charges. He would argue that it was not an aircraft, because it was not registered as such and could not fly. How would article 50, for example, apply to this case?

Would the CAA intervene if someone was towed behind a car on rollerskates holding a kite and left the ground for a few seconds? Surely they should concentrate on more important issues instead of trying to slow up evolution by natural selection?

[znww5]

Conversely you could argue that having been previously registered as an aircraft, was built as an aircraft and flew as an aircraft, a reasonable person would conclude that it was indeed - an aircraft. Similarly, just because a car has a SORN, it does not cease to be a car.

[stevelup]

Originally Posted by znww5

Similarly, just because a car has a SORN, it does not cease to be a car.

Indeed, and there would be no problem having an unqualified lunatic drive it around on private property and eventually crash it into a shed... as long as only the said lunatic was put in danger.

[Heston]

So are there any differences from a legal point of view between this and the unintended flight of the Victor at Bruntingthorpe last year? Did the CAA investigate? Were prosecutions brought?

H

[Pilot.Lyons]

God it is so annoying that my iphone app never shows these links! It just says null

Can the mods try an update please i cant be bothere to dig out my laptop its upstairs

[Agaricus bisporus]

I get the impression these guys are military pilots or trainees - not very experienced ones and they have Army written all over them but could be wrong. Isn't that a military badge on the sweater of one of them?

Chelsea tractor driving idiots anyway.
And with a very limited vocabulary too. Not very impressive.

[BackPacker]

I am sure you have watched a film called "those magnificent men in their flying machines"!!!
Watched the early part with people hurling themselves off piers into the sea in all manner of potential yet disasterous flying machines?

If you watch the film carefully you will realize that the whole point of the contest was to bring forefront aviators from around the world together in a friendly competition. One of the most important aims was to learn from each other and thus make aviation safer, better and more efficient. And it worked.

Now fast forward some 100 years. We have learned a tremendous lot and made aviation incredibly safe. Millions of people take to the skies each day, with the biggest worry whether the in-flight catering sandwich will be chicken or beef.

Now I'm all for a pioneering spirit but I think the starting point for that pioneering spirit should be the body of knowledge we have *today*, and not the body of knowledge we had *100 years ago* or even *50 years ago*.

If that means that the average joe without a pilots license, let alone an aeronautical engineering degree, botches together a motorized kite, is dismissed as a lunatic, I'm all for it. Although even lunatics should be able to do whatever they fancy as long as they don't endanger anyone else or anyone elses property.

For true pioneering spirit these days, look at the likes of Burt Rutan and Richard Brandson.

[HighFlyer75]

God it is so annoying that my iphone app never shows these links! It just says null

Pilot.Lyons: You can always just go to pprune.org on Safari on the iPhone instead and then you will see the links. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the forum app but at least it saves you the walk to get the laptop

[Pilot.Lyons]

Haha highflyer i think i can manage that!

Ill give it a go now

I managed to put the effort in..... Crazy rich folks, how i envy them

As for the heli....... Hehe made my chuckle crazy fool!

[Echo Romeo]

I get the impression these guys are military pilots or trainees - not very experienced ones and they have Army written all over them but could be wrong. Isn't that a military badge on the sweater of one of them?

Think you may find they're from the polo fraternity

[RTN11]

It's pretty clear they had done absolutely no research at all, doing runs back and forth along the field with no allowance given for wind.

Lucky they didn't, or he could well of got airborne properly into a strong headwind under his own power, and caused himself a real injury.

The gene pool could probably use a little chlorine

[Obi_Wan]

I can't decide what's amused me the most; Captain Crash and his polo chums, or the outpouring of outrage from fellow PPRuNe'ers.

Far more serious incidents in far more direct contravention of the rules we fly to are broken with far fewer words posted about them.

Regardless of which regulations this chap was, or wasn't in contravention of, and we can only speculate, I can't see it being in the CAAs interest to bring a prosecution. The "is it in the public interest" question. There have to be thousands of people further up that list that this one.

[betterfromabove]

Obi-wan: Fair point. There's perhaps the question of degree of harm they may do to others. And did they continue their experiments and not publish the results on YouTube?? If they continued at an established airfield, their fun would end up being curtailed at some point. What should really worry us indeed is these guys have the ££ to go buy a proper plane, scrape through a PPL and do really stupid stuff....would the "system" spot them, effect their behaviour, change them or would they pass through to become a future AAIB statistic I wonder.....?

[sablatnic]

Bad! Very bad!! But I have seen worse

Mom crashes ultralight plane on first solo flight - YouTube