I made the trip back to South Korea to attend my brother in law's wedding recently and had a chance to meet up with my flying buddy Mr. Jang. Since I moved back to the US, he has not been flying that much focusing more on shooting long distance targets (145 meters) with a bow and arrow. Interesting set up (did not get any pics though) using really light CF bows with about a 45 pound draw with CF arrows using relatively small flights and a heavy tip. I did not try as I did not want to embarass myself. It has been a while since I have launched arrows down range....
Since he has not been flying much and due to recent changes in regulations in Korea, he did not really have anywhere that was set up for flying. The soccer field at the same complex that the archery range was just happened to fill up as we arrived. Some discussion with the locals suggested that there was a large enough area located near the Costco in Song-do. I was a little apprehensive but went along. Costco was a little ways to our west, a fairly tall building about 150 meters to our north and roads fairly close to the edges of open area. There were people in the area but there were enough of us to keep them clear of where we were flying. Mr Jang brought out an electric Gieseke Nobler, electric Vector 40 and an Enya 60 powered SV-11.
We both got 2 flights each on the G Nobler and 1 each on Vector when I saw a police car make its way near us. They stopped and got out while Mr. Jang was flying, waited for him to land and approached while I recovered the airplane. About a 5 minute discussion was had and then it was over. They were fair in their discussion commenting that while there was not a noise problem, the speed of the airplanes and the ability to maneuver them quickly had brought some concern to the local citizens (Mr. Jang lives about 4 blocks away) and they asked us to stop flying. Sure glad that we had not fired up the SV-11, the outcome might have been a little different.
All in all it was a good time with plenty of jokes about getting hauled away in handcuffs with your handle still in hand and being on "Korea's Most Wanted" program. I tried hard to convince Mr. Jang to come to the US for the Worlds and Nats to fly or to watch. He certainly did not seem confident in the competition side of things so I do not think he will make the trip even though I offered many airplanes for him to fly. My son Michael posted some of the activity on facebook and comments were received rather quickly from different areas in the world.
Just thought I would share a few pics of the day. Note that while I was tempted, I did not take a picture of Mr. Jang speaking with the police as I wanted to be on the airplane back to the US the next day.
John
Topic: Flying in South Korea (Read 1185 times)
