right now I do not know what length of stay will be here in korea. I all depends what contracts the company wins here in the coming months. Right now I am due to stay in Korea until March 28th. There are prospects of staying longer. But it is still unclear. If I knew I was going to stay a while I would probably order up a Strega ARC and have it shipped over with other equipment coming over herre for various projects. But if I will be only here short term then I dread having to figure out how to pack up a fully assembled Stunter back to the states safely and at a reasonable cost.
There is a fairly large park right across the street from the Off base apartment I am staying at. Flying on base would probably be too complicated because the only open spaces on base is the golf course (not likely getting permission from the base commande to fly there) and out on the runway which happens to be a high security area. Since Osan is a very active base, flying on base is probably out of the question.
Getting someone the launch would not be an issue as there are plenty of bored enlisted kids who would come hang out on the offer of a 6 pack. With the advent of quality ARF's I can see potential interest in CL especially in a radio frequency sensitive environment like a tactical AFB, but (always a but) finding a suitable open area suitable for flying is the issue.
This brings me to a thought raised in the post about electric CL. Noise is way down on the list when it comes to loosing flying locations. Real Estate development and increasing competition for open land use by more and more people is the other. Noise most time is only an excuse. Everyone knows that a properly muffled IC model engine emits little more than a moderate buzz and much of that is propeller noise.
School facilities are worried more about liability issues, than noise, as are most other public facilities. Then of course you have to yeild the football, baseball, running track/field to the legitimate users of those facilities. Just not enough CL flyers out there to justify the dedication of land for that use only. Heck land is expensive and expensive to maintain. To dedicate a chunk of space exclusively for CL when that space remains unused except for perhaps only several hours per week is by anyones account a waste of space. And easily given away to a activity or group the would more fully utilize that space.
Model airfields do not generate revenue for a municipality, Golf Courses do. Plain and simple. Dog parks more fully utilize smaller spaces. Baseball, Football, soccer, fields are for the kids and if you are a weekday school year flyer and have proper muffler then you may be able to get in a few flights but on the week ends and in the summer those fields are pretty much booked.
I strongly feel that no matter what you fly, someone is going to resent you using up all that space just to fly your silly toy airplane. Heck they could be barbecuing, Sunning, kite flying, kicking a soccer ball around in that space right NOW. CL is dead in South Korea not for a want of space, certainly not for the noise (Osan is one noisy place especialy with the unmuffles scooters, and the F-18's and A-10's routinely flying around. It is dead because RC, PC Games and other electronic toys have created a lack of interest. Then simply it has been forgotten. No Brodack's here, no cottage industry, no exposure, a forgotten activity.
Topic: CL officially dead in Korea (Read 3113 times)