Would you allow people to fly your plane remotely via a web service for a fee?
Amir Michail
I've been thinking of a web 2.0 startup that would pair up people with
model airplanes with people who would like to fly them remotely via
the web from the comfort of their homes.
A video camera would transmit live video from the plane and/or the
ground.
The owner of the plane would be responsible for the safety of the
plane. If flight inputs coming in via the web put the plane in danger,
then the owner can override them temporarily.
Flight inputs may come in from one person or a combination of people
via some voting mechanism. Users who would like more control over the
plane would pay more.
Has anyone done something like this before?
Would you allow people to fly your plane remotely via such a web
service for a fee?
Amir
Tim Wescott
going to crash I either have to take over the controls or I have to
watch a whole bunch of work hit the ground hard?
Oooh oooh. I'll sign up. Right after I find a doctor to spend eight
hours amputating my feet, toe by toe and without anesthesia.
--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/
Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
Amir Michail
> Amir Michail wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> > I've been thinking of a web 2.0 startup that would pair up people with
> > model airplanes with people who would like to fly them remotely via
> > the web from the comfort of their homes.
>
> > A video camera would transmit live video from the plane and/or the
> > ground.
>
> > The owner of the plane would be responsible for the safety of the
> > plane. If flight inputs coming in via the web put the plane in danger,
> > then the owner can override them temporarily.
>
> > Flight inputs may come in from one person or a combination of people
> > via some voting mechanism. Users who would like more control over the
> > plane would pay more.
>
> > Has anyone done something like this before?
>
> > Would you allow people to fly your plane remotely via such a web
> > service for a fee?
>
> > Amir
>
> You mean sort of like an RC flight simulator, except that when they're
> going to crash I either have to take over the controls or I have to
> watch a whole bunch of work hit the ground hard?
>
> Oooh oooh. I'll sign up. Right after I find a doctor to spend eight
> hours amputating my feet, toe by toe and without anesthesia.
It's a way for people to make money from their hobby.
To make it safer, you might take over the controls whenever the
airplane descends below some altitude, whether or not it seems to be
under control.
Amir
>
> --
>
> Tim Wescott
> Wescott Design Serviceshttp://www.wescottdesign.com
>
> Posting from Google? Seehttp://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/
Robert Reynolds
Reminds me of the Video Phone, an idea characterized by Invention And
Technology Magazine as "a solution to a problem that didn't exist".
More specifically, to answer your questions, I don't think I would be
interested in such a service, either as a user or a provider. It's hard
enough for two guys to agree to meet at the flying field at the same
time. How would you get synchronized with your customers? What if you
wanted to do it Tuesday afternoon but it was too windy? What if there
were too many people on your channel? Would a person who is too lazy or
cheap to get their own airplane hang in there long enough to wait for
the channel to be available? I don't think that most customers would
have the patience to get involved. Anybody with sufficient patience
would probably get their own airplanes. I also don't see how a customer
would find a real airplane in which they have no investment to be any
more entertaining than a high quality simulator of the type currently
available.
As a provider I don't think that I would be interested because you
probably wouldn't be able to charge enough to make it worthwhile.
Amir Michail
Ideally, there would be many providers. So a user would just visit
the site and see which planes are flying or about to fly soon.
What if there
> were too many people on your channel? Would a person who is too lazy or
> cheap to get their own airplane hang in there long enough to wait for
> the channel to be available?
You can have users pay more if they want to wait less.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, you could have a collaborative system
where a large number of people could control the plane all at once.
Depending on skill level, your inputs might have more influence than
those from others. You could even turn it into some sort of game so
that you are rewarded more for inputs that the online audience likes.
I don't think that most customers would
> have the patience to get involved. Anybody with sufficient patience
> would probably get their own airplanes. I also don't see how a customer
> would find a real airplane in which they have no investment to be any
> more entertaining than a high quality simulator of the type currently
> available.
>
It's more accurate than a flight simulator and there's a novelty
factor to it.
Amir
Robert Reynolds
>
> You can have users pay more if they want to wait less.
You'll be hard pressed to squeeze a dollar out of somebody for this
idea. Having users "pay more to wait less" just sounds ridiculous to me.
>
> Also, as I mentioned earlier, you could have a collaborative system
> where a large number of people could control the plane all at once.
> Depending on skill level, your inputs might have more influence than
> those from others. You could even turn it into some sort of game so
> that you are rewarded more for inputs that the online audience likes.
>
You don't fly RC, do you? What you're talking about sounds like one of
those stupid Nintendo games where you push buttons to make a surfer or
skateboarder do stunts, which are all preprogrammed. Flying a real
airplane is nothing like that. If you have ten people flying it, the
decision has to be made which person is actually flying it. In reality,
only one person can fly the airplane until it's passed to the next
person. If one guy tells the plane to turn left, another guy tells it
to turn right, and the other 8 people do nothing (which is a command to
hold the current heading) the plane can't obey everybody.
I'm not the kind of person who likes to say that things are impossible,
but I don't see how you would write a program to determine a pilot's
skill and reward him with more control input based on audience
appreciation. The whole thing sounds ridiculous. You're a programmer,
right? In the world of computers you can do whatever you want to with
programming. But when you're working with a real airplane, that changes
everything. You suddenly have to consider real factors. How do you
define pilot skill? And if the skillful pilot's controls take
precedence, how do the competitors get a chance to demonstrate their
skill?
Amir Michail
> Amir Michail wrote:
>
> > You can have users pay more if they want to wait less.
>
> You'll be hard pressed to squeeze a dollar out of somebody for this
> idea. Having users "pay more to wait less" just sounds ridiculous to me.
>
>
>
> > Also, as I mentioned earlier, you could have a collaborative system
> > where a large number of people could control the plane all at once.
> > Depending on skill level, your inputs might have more influence than
> > those from others. You could even turn it into some sort of game so
> > that you are rewarded more for inputs that the online audience likes.
>
> You don't fly RC, do you? What you're talking about sounds like one of
> those stupid Nintendo games where you push buttons to make a surfer or
> skateboarder do stunts, which are all preprogrammed. Flying a real
> airplane is nothing like that. If you have ten people flying it, the
> decision has to be made which person is actually flying it. In reality,
> only one person can fly the airplane until it's passed to the next
> person. If one guy tells the plane to turn left, another guy tells it
> to turn right, and the other 8 people do nothing (which is a command to
> hold the current heading) the plane can't obey everybody.
No, I don't fly RC, but I've played with X-Plane, which is pretty
realistic from what I understand.
To make this idea work, I would need to find some way to get a large
number of users involved with a single flight in one way or another.
Some could contribute to flying the plane while others might just
watch for example.
Yes, the details to make this work would require lots of thought and
experimentation.
I wanted to see whether there is interest in this idea before spending
a lot of time working out the details.
Amir
Robert Reynolds
If you are serious about this idea your first step should be to get a
plane and learn to fly it. It would be hard to understand what you're
dealing with if you don't know how to fly. Even if it doesn't work out,
flying RC planes is fun.
Abel Pranger
wrote:
A remote VR flying experience with a buddy-box backup for
safety......hmmmmmm.
Very innovative idea, Amir. I'd love to give it a try. Looking
forward to seeing your fee schedule.
Abel
Stefan Pettersen
Step 1:
Learn to fly a plane, see what reaction time you need to be able to fly it.
Step 2:
Ask an experienced programmer if it is possible to even make a program that
will support that kind of reaction time. It is not possible.
Also:
If people can't get out of the door to fly a plane, then they sure are NOT
MA enthusiasts.
How many flying fields have electricity installed?
How many of them have Internet connection?
Nice thought, and its good that you asked, but there are better ways of
making money :)
Stefan Pettersen
"Amir Michail" <amic...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:1179623793.5...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Jennifer Smith
Amir Michail wrote:
> A video camera would transmit live video from the plane and/or the
> ground.
Right there you'll have at the very least a whole bunch of problems:
1. You need relatively high resolution to be able to recognize the plane
and/or ground markers. High resolution means high bandwidth requirements
AND quite a bit of delay encoding the video. I'd reckon you'll lose
about half a sec right there.
2. Transmitting live high-res video reliably and without frame loss from
a plane is not quite as easy as it sounds.
3. Forget "from the ground". You'd need someone to track the plane, or
build an automatic tracking system. If you've ever flown on a sim,
you'll know that ground cam helps zilch, since the window is too narrow
to give any sense of where exactly the plane is in relation to the ground.
> The owner of the plane would be responsible for the safety of the
> plane. If flight inputs coming in via the web put the plane in danger,
> then the owner can override them temporarily.
Uhm. Oke, aside from the video encoding delay, the transmission delay
(from the flying field somehow to the server and then to the customer)
and then the decoding delay... now you add even more lag by sending the
control input back to the site. Do you even realize HOW much lag that is?
> Flight inputs may come in from one person or a combination of people
> via some voting mechanism. Users who would like more control over the
> plane would pay more.
Sorry. You need to start over. VOTING??? Add even more delay? Sheesh.
> Would you allow people to fly your plane remotely via such a web
> service for a fee?
Hell no. My planes aren't THAT fast, and even they are across a football
field in maybe 4-5 seconds. I'd definitely not trust them to a "pilot"
whose skill is at best doubtful, who has to fly with, oh, at least one
second delay between visual and control input... wait, that's not hell
no... that's a HELL NO! :)
There's a rather easy way to test most of that scenario: Take two
computers. Put VLC (VideoLAN Client, free) on both machines. Take any
video you have, and on one machine let VLC play it AND encode it for
transmission. Now set up the other computer to receive the video. Set
the monitors side by side and see what the delay is. Add maybe 1/5th of
a second buffering (and that's very conservative) for some simulated
internet delay and control feedback. See? Now, to get another important
factor into the equation make sure you transmit the video (and
optionally sound) in an encoded signal no more than maybe 300kb/sec ...
notice the loss of detail? Even slow turns will be a blocky blur. Or,
alternatively, look at the various in-flight videos on YouTube to see
the crappy video. How you expect people to fly remotely that way is
beyond me.
Anyway. nice try. Maybe if you find a plane that flies at a snails pace,
takes eons for turns/climbs/dives, has a built-in safety to prevent
oversteering in any direction and probably just puts your customers to
sleep... yeh, then it might work.
Jen
Jennifer Smith
> No, I don't fly RC, but I've played with X-Plane, which is pretty
> realistic from what I understand.
>
> To make this idea work, I would need to find some way to get a large
> number of users involved with a single flight in one way or another.
> Some could contribute to flying the plane while others might just
> watch for example.
>
> Yes, the details to make this work would require lots of thought and
> experimentation.
>
> I wanted to see whether there is interest in this idea before spending
> a lot of time working out the details.
If you already use X-Plane, try this: Use a camera to capture the screen
in realtime, use VLC to send it over a network, write a trivial piece of
software to transmit keyboard/joystick control back to the computer
running X-Plane, and try to fly. Since its for testing only, you don't
need a fancy-shmancy setup. And using X-Plane you won't be losing money
on crashing RC planes.
Jen
Amir Michail
> You can neither be a programer or a model airplane enthusiast.
> Step 1:
> Learn to fly a plane, see what reaction time you need to be able to fly it.
>
> Step 2:
> Ask an experienced programmer if it is possible to even make a program that
> will support that kind of reaction time. It is not possible.
>
> Also:
> If people can't get out of the door to fly a plane, then they sure are NOT
> MA enthusiasts.
They don't have to be MA enthusiasts to want fly a model plane from
their home in a risk-free and relatively cheap way. This would be for
the "casual gamers" of model planes.
> How many flying fields have electricity installed?
> How many of them have Internet connection?
See the technology used in justin.tv:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/19/kiko-guys-back-as-reality-tv-stars/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin.tv
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_devices&articleId=9015558&taxonomyId=75&intsrc=kc_feat
I don't know what sort of lag this has. But even if there is a
noticeable delay, in a few years the situation will likely improve
considerably.
Amir
>
> Nice thought, and its good that you asked, but there are better ways of
> making money :)
>
> Stefan Pettersen
>
> "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> skrev i meldingnews:1179623793.5...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Robert Reynolds
> On May 20, 2:39 am, "Stefan Pettersen" <p...@ninus.no> wrote:
>> You can neither be a programer or a model airplane enthusiast.
>> Step 1:
>> Learn to fly a plane, see what reaction time you need to be able to fly it.
>>
>> Step 2:
>> Ask an experienced programmer if it is possible to even make a program that
>> will support that kind of reaction time. It is not possible.
>>
>> Also:
>> If people can't get out of the door to fly a plane, then they sure are NOT
>> MA enthusiasts.
>
> They don't have to be MA enthusiasts to want fly a model plane from
> their home in a risk-free and relatively cheap way. This would be for
> the "casual gamers" of model planes.
I've always been amazed at people who ask your opinion and then argue
with it.
You're talking to a bunch of model airplane people because you wanted to
know what we think. Now you know.
Amir Michail
You argue that bandwidth and time lag would likely be problems. Maybe
so with today's technology, but the situation is likely to be
different in a few years.
As for voting introducing lag, well that would depend on how the
voting mechanism is implemented: you could count votes as soon as they
are cast.
BTW, some work done on interactive audience participation:
http://www.monzy.org/audience
http://www.cinematrix.com/whatis.html
Amir
DaveH
wrote:
>Hi,
I think it's a very creative and interesting idea, despite the
possibly insurmountable problems as outlined by others.
I don't think anybody mentioned that an audio feed would be necessary,
especially in the case of glow or gas models. Preferably stereo, and
of the highest possible quality.
Dave
David Hopper
<jenn...@you-wish-you-knew.mine.nu> wrote:
>
>Anyway. nice try. Maybe if you find a plane that flies at a snails pace,
>takes eons for turns/climbs/dives, has a built-in safety to prevent
>oversteering in any direction and probably just puts your customers to
>sleep... yeh, then it might work.
>
Seems like this idea would be better implemented on a R/C tank battle
set-up. Anyway, I'm off to the field for some real flying...
David
Jarhead
"Amir Michail" <amic...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1179623793.5...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Hope you have good insurance in case some person is hurt or you cause
property damage. If you are an AMA member I doubt that their insurance
would cover it. You are only allowed one demo flight using a buddy box.
Otherwise the person must be enrolled in a training program with ground
school. Read the safety rules. If you aren't an AMA member, shame on
you! ;=}
--
Jarhead
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
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Stefan Pettersen
Please forget it... lol
Or make it happen and make us all look bad. I dare you :)
Stefan Pettersen
P.S. I can just picture 10 people sitting at their computer around the
world paying a fee to look at a small dot in the sky and voting as to wether
it should go right or left next. That would truly be people with some kind
of disorder.. (remember that after a left turn, you better go left again to
bring the plane back :D )
"Amir Michail" <amic...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:1179671874.0...@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Jennifer Smith
Rather unlikely. If you've ever followed the development of the Internet
in general and video/transmission technology in particular, you'd know
that there are certain factors pretty much putting the nail in the
coffin of anything close to real time video transmission.
If you're really interested in the technical issues, feel free to go to
any university library and look up the various dissertations targeting
this specific issue. The various h.nnn codecs were mainly developed to
combat such issues, but even they simply cannot overcome a rather
fundamental principle of computing: To process ANY data takes time. To
COMPRESS data takes even more time. You've got two conflicting goals:
1. Transmitting high-resolution, high-quality video suitable for
providing a sense of airplane orientation and movement
2. Provide this service to a wide audience, which means limited
bandwidth for transmission.
The two goals are mutually contradicting each other. You're right,
bandwidth will improve over time, making it easier to deal with that
issue. However, with current technology and CPU power I don't see this
happening soon enough to validate your business idea.
The next problem you're facing is much more difficult to overcome:
Latency. Basically, the best latency you could hope for would be a wire
directly from your service to your customer, without switching equipment
in-between. Now, most people erroneously seem to believe electronic
signals (on regular wire, not talking optical at the moment) travel with
the speed of light. That is, unfortunately for you, not even close. Thus
there is ALWAYS transmission lag depending on the distance of the remote
operator. On top of that you don't have a direct wire, there is
switching equipment in-between. While modern switching equipment is
rather efficient, it still introduces processing delays.
Do yourself a favor: Use traceroute and check the latency between you
and a host on the other side of the planet. I'll bet you'll not get much
better RTT than maybe 150ms. You think that's not much? Think again.
There's plenty of ways for you to try out the effects of lag. I've given
you a few possibilities in my last mail. There's plenty more ways to
test this yourself. On top of that keep in mind that even just half a
second is A LOT of time when talking about RC aircraft.
> As for voting introducing lag, well that would depend on how the
> voting mechanism is implemented: you could count votes as soon as they
> are cast.
Correct, you can minimize the impact. Since processing is involved it'll
still be introducing ever so slightly more lag.
> BTW, some work done on interactive audience participation:
>
> http://www.monzy.org/audience
> http://www.cinematrix.com/whatis.html
I'm aware of such systems. They're not new and have been around at least
since the early 1980's. You're missing the point though: All these
projects have comparatively low latency because there is only
comparatively(!) little processing involved. If you happen to have
access to any such systems, try adding 250ms (that's only 1/4th of a
second, a rather optimistic value) lag to the action and see what happens.
However, it's your money going down the drain. Go ahead and see if you
can pull this off. It's certainly doable with a lot of development and
all kinds of safeties built-in, but definitely not nearly as easy as you
seem to believe it is. My suggestion would be to try this with a lot
slower vehicles first (boats on a pond maybe) and then move up to, say,
cars on a racetrack, and only if that works well(!) then try it with
airplanes.
Jen
Robert Reynolds
>
> However, it's your money going down the drain. Go ahead and see if you
> can pull this off. It's certainly doable with a lot of development and
> all kinds of safeties built-in, but definitely not nearly as easy as you
> seem to believe it is.
This comment reminds me of a conversation my brother in law related to
me, between two co-workers. They had just seen an exciting action movie
in the video store where they worked.
"Wow, how did they do that?"
"Special effects."
See? There's always a simple answer.
WhoDat
"Jennifer Smith" <jenn...@you-wish-you-knew.mine.nu> wrote in message
news:35WdnV37yN5NZM3b...@comcast.com...
> seem to believe it is. My suggestion would be to try this with a lot
> slower vehicles first (boats on a pond maybe) and then move up to, say,
> cars on a racetrack, and only if that works well(!) then try it with
> airplanes.
>
> Jen
This is an excellent suggestion! An R/C car on a track would be the way to
develop and prove the technology before moving on to planes.
Dave
Abel Pranger
wrote:
>Hope you have good insurance in case some person is hurt or you cause
>property damage. If you are an AMA member I doubt that their insurance
>would cover it. You are only allowed one demo flight using a buddy box.
>Otherwise the person must be enrolled in a training program with ground
>school. Read the safety rules. If you aren't an AMA member, shame on
>you! ;=}
Why would anybody want to join an org with such dippy rules and
restrictions? No wonder the membership numbers are stagnant while
aeromodeling is growing at a good pace.
Doug McLaren
Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
| > Anyway. nice try. Maybe if you find a plane that flies at a snails pace,
| > takes eons for turns/climbs/dives, has a built-in safety to prevent
| > oversteering in any direction and probably just puts your customers to
| > sleep... yeh, then it might work.
|
| You argue that bandwidth and time lag would likely be problems. Maybe
| so with today's technology, but the situation is likely to be
| different in a few years.
OK, let's assume that all of the technology issues have been
completely resolved -- we now have perfect, hi-res video with no lag
time. This will never happen, but perhaps in a decade or two we'll
get close enough.
How much do you think people will pay for this? Once you take your
cut, who will put their plane up on the block for that price?
Don't forget that this person has to be right there, `flying' his
plane with the unwashed masses to make sure it doesn't crash. So he's
spending his time flying ... but not even flying. I guess he could do
his own normal flying when he has no customers, but then he's not
getting paid.
Looking at the sort of people found on online games, he's probably
dealing with a significant number of people who *want* to crash the
plane. Sure, the owner can stop 95% of the attempts ... but that
other 5% is quite expensive. I guess you could add a system to rate
the users, but then they'd just switch usernames.
Griefing would be taken to a whole new level with people being able to
cost the plane owner real money -- and best of all, it would be his
fault! I can envision communities developing who's sole purpose is to
discuss the best ways they've made these planes crash, and talking
about how to crash certain people's planes. With downloadable videos,
of course.
The owner has to pay for fuel and maintenance. (I'll assume that you
will provide all the needed hardware and gear, though that's a big
assumption.)
Most flying fields don't have Internet access. Many (most?) don't
even have electricity. But with perfect technology, let's assume that
this problem goes away too.
When I work out what I spend on the hobby, each flight costs an
average of several dollars -- for spent batteries, gas, broken parts,
the plane itself, etc. -- and perhaps I spend almost as much time
working on the planes as flying them. You could reduce that a lot by
using a stock, reliable system -- but it won't be much fun for
anybody. People are likely to want to pay only for wildly aerobatic
planes, though you might find a few who think this might be a viable
replacement for learing with an instructor and are therefore willing
to fly a trainer type plane -- but it won't be a good replacement.
I can't imagine you'd find a significant user base willing to pay
more than $10/hr for this (and that's only the die-hards, who really
want to fly R/C but can't. Perhaps they can't handle sunlight, are
under house arrest, who knows?), and I'm hard pressed to think of many
people willing to offer their planes up for less than $20/hr, once
they've done the math and understand what they're getting into.
That's a pretty big disconnect, especially once you take your cut.
It's an innovative idea, yes, but I don't see the economics working
out.
Consider these people -- http://www.rcflightschool.com/ -- they offer
professional flight instruction, which is probably mostly one on one,
very similar to what you'd do. They will provide the plane. One week
to solo, only $629. But these are professionals, and I assume very
good at what they do. Your local club probably provides instruction
as well -- but for free, partially because many students wouldn't even
willingly pay a few dollars per hour. And one on one buddy box time
is still rewarding -- but merely protecting your plane from online
hooligans? Doesn't sound so rewarding.
| As for voting introducing lag, well that would depend on how the
| voting mechanism is implemented: you could count votes as soon as they
| are cast.
I guess if several people could fly a plane at once, you'd have a
better chance at making the economics work, but really -- now you want
us to pay $5/hr to offer suggestions to what the plane does with ten
other people? I think I'd rather poke my eyes out.
I think you'd be better off making a 3D airplane combat MMO game and
do away with the `real planes in the air' aspect entirely.
If the technology improves to where you can have full 3D VR, making it
feel like you're actually at the field flying the plane, then maybe --
but then you'd still be competing with real flight simulators that
have exactly the same capabilties -- and cost a whole lot less.
--
Doug McLaren, dou...@frenzied.us
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
jbre...@uvm.edu
The FCC might have something to say about that!! It sounds like a
crazy idea. Why not buy XTR and allow people to log into your computer
and fly your simulator. Wouldnt there have to be a good video camera
involved that could pan all over the place. You cant be serious.
Jimbo
Jarhead
"Abel Pranger" <abel.p...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ggd253dre1ubqa97p...@4ax.com...
It is worth the money just for the insurance provided. Also, our field
requires AMA membership for that reason alone. Over the years I have
witnessed several accidents that went into the thousands of $$$$ damage.
In one case a guy lost control of his plane and did close to $3,000.00
damage to a motorhome. AMA insurance picks up after your homeowners
coverage (if you have it). In another case a guy put one through the
roof of the house with a lot of damage.
Doug McLaren
Jarhead <baldi...@excite.com> wrote:
| "Abel Pranger" <abel.p...@gmail.com> wrote in message
| news:ggd253dre1ubqa97p...@4ax.com...
| | Why would anybody want to join an org with such dippy rules and
| | restrictions?
#1 reason: because they have to, to fly at the local AMA field.
| | No wonder the membership numbers are stagnant while
| | aeromodeling is growing at a good pace.
That's hardly the AMA's fault. It was stroke of genius for them to
offer insurance as a part of their membership, and this made their
membership grow greatly. But now that technology has advanced to
allow flying at many more non-formal fields, what the AMA offers (to
the individual, anyways) is needed by a smaller and smaller percentage
of the hobby.
It really has little to do with `dippy rules and restrictions' -- most
people don't really care. They care about that $58/year, but that's
the price of flying at their field, so they pay.
| It is worth the money just for the insurance provided. Also, our field
| requires AMA membership for that reason alone.
Your field and lots of others. Like I said, a stroke of genius on
their part, with the goal being to increase the size (and therefore
influence) of the AMA.
| Over the years I have witnessed several accidents that went into the
| thousands of $$$$ damage. In one case a guy lost control of his
| plane and did close to $3,000.00 damage to a motorhome. AMA
| insurance picks up after your homeowners coverage (if you have
| it). In another case a guy put one through the roof of the house
| with a lot of damage.
And none of these accidents are likely to cause anywhere near enough
damage to exhaust primary insurance policies, unless there is no
primary insurance at all.
Really, unless somebody isn't covered by another form of insurance
(homeowners, renters, etc.), the only way the AMA is likely to pay a
claim (I'm talking about the coverage offered to AMA members here, not
AMA clubs -- that's a different beast) is if somebody is hurt.
Otherwise, the damage caused isn't likely to be enough. Sure, it's
possible that your jet hit a house and burned it down, but that's
incredibly unlikely.
But $3000 damage to a motorhome? That's cheap. It could be 100x that
if it hit somebody -- that's what the AMA insurance is really for.
--
Doug McLaren, dou...@frenzied.us
"Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations and
ages it is the rule." -Friedrich Nietzsche
Robert Reynolds
> Your field and lots of others. Like I said, a stroke of genius on
> their part, with the goal being to increase the size (and therefore
> influence) of the AMA.
Which proves once again the old adage that once an organization reaches
a certain size or age its sole purpose is self preservation.
Doug McLaren
It proves no such thing. It's just my opinion.
And even assuming that the AMA started offering insurance with the
express intention of setting their clubs up to require it to fly there
and this was all done with the goal of increasing their membership
(and I've no idea if this is true, though it would be reasonable),
then that doesn't prove or even suggest that the AMA's sole purpose is
it's own self preservation. (It's not even clear that simply
increasing it's membership even contributes to it's self
preservation.)
A large organization does need to have self preservation as a goal,
yes -- otherwise it probably won't survive. So it's an important
goal. Perhaps people even lose sight of other goals pursuing that
one. But *sole* goal? I think that pretty much only exists in the
minds of people who don't like the organization.
--
Doug McLaren, dou...@frenzied.us
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln
Abel Pranger
<dougmc+usen...@frenzied.us> wrote:
>A large organization does need to have self preservation as a goal,
>yes -- otherwise it probably won't survive. So it's an important
>goal. Perhaps people even lose sight of other goals pursuing that
>one. But *sole* goal? I think that pretty much only exists in the
>minds of people who don't like the organization.
Maybe 'overriding' purpose is better?
There may be some that don't like the organization. I know firsthand
there are some that don't care for its leadership, or lack thereof.
Abel
Robert Reynolds
Good choice of words. "Overriding" is a much better adjective in this
case. I don't particularly disagree with their leadership, or any lack
of leadership. What I don't like is the immediate knee-jerk association
between AMA and aeromodeling in general. It reminds me of playing the
saxophone. I don't play jazz, I'm more of a blues guy. But somehow the
saxophone has been associated with jazz to the extent that in most
people's minds "play saxophone" means "play jazz", even though jazz
players don't constitute a clear majority of working saxophone players.
I know, that's a far-fetched analogy, but it makes sense to me because
the same universality is attributed to the AMA for some reason. I just
find it irritating that people pay such deference to a dinosaur
organization that has maneuvered itself into a position to be paid $58
annually by millions of modelers, for a crappy magazine and $6 worth of
insurance that we wouldn't even notice if it was gone.
I'm starting a business, and I plan to start a few more in years to
come. My overriding purpose is to produce something that people want
badly enough to pay me for it, not just to hook people in through clever
maneuvering.
Doug McLaren
Robert Reynolds <rob...@kcnet.com> wrote:
| I know, that's a far-fetched analogy, but it makes sense to me because
| the same universality is attributed to the AMA for some reason.
Only by those who don't know better.
| I just find it irritating that people pay such deference to a
| dinosaur organization that has maneuvered itself into a position to
| be paid $58 annually by millions of modelers
In 2003, the AMA's membership was 175,000 members. Presumably a
significant portion of those 175,000 don't pay the full $58/year,
either due to being minors, or senior citizens, or whatever other
discounts are offered.
| for a crappy magazine and $6 worth of
| insurance that we wouldn't even notice if it was gone.
Out of curiosity, where did your the $6 figure come from?
| I'm starting a business, and I plan to start a few more in years to
| come. My overriding purpose is to produce something that people
| want badly enough to pay me for it, not just to hook people in
| through clever maneuvering.
I suspect that the AMA feels they're providing something that people
want badly enough to pay for too.
--
Doug McLaren, dou...@frenzied.us
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
--Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Jim
"Amir Michail" <amic...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1179623793.5...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Robert Reynolds
> | for a crappy magazine and $6 worth of
> | insurance that we wouldn't even notice if it was gone.
>
> Out of curiosity, where did your the $6 figure come from?
>
I have a friend who enjoys researching legal cases, actuary tables,
statutes, county records, etc. He's the same guy who lobbied the local
park officials to grant flying permits to people with no AMA cards. I
generally have a lot of respect for his information. He's one of those
guys who knows how much it would cost you to get a million dollar
liability rider on your homeowners insurance. I also met an insurance
guy a while back at a blues club who told me it was closer to $4 worth
of insurance. You may not like my sources, but it's a lot closer to
"under $10" than it is to $50.
>
> I suspect that the AMA feels they're providing something that people
> want badly enough to pay for too.
You're probably right, but I suspect that most people pay for it only
because they believe that they have to.
Doug McLaren
Robert Reynolds <rob...@kcnet.com> wrote:
| Doug McLaren wrote:
|
| > | for a crappy magazine and $6 worth of
| > | insurance that we wouldn't even notice if it was gone.
| >
| > Out of curiosity, where did your the $6 figure come from?
|
| You may not like my sources, but it's a lot closer to
| "under $10" than it is to $50.
Well, nobody ever said all $58 went to insurance.
In any event, there's no need to guess. Here's the payouts for 2006 --
http://www.modelaircraft.org/PDF-files/500-C.pdf
$1.5 million, or about $8.35/member. 2005 figures were similar --
http://www.modelaircraft.org/PDF-files/500-D.pdf
And looking at their 2006 financial statement ...
They took in $7.6 M in memberships. $234K in club charter fees.
For expenses, MA was $2M, and brought in about $1M in advertising and
subscriptions. So that works out to about $5/member, though not all
members get the magazine.
If I'm reading this right, they paid $1.2M for membership insurance in
2006. I don't know how that relates to the $1.5M figure given above.
If you are an AMA member, you can view the whole thing at
http://www.modelaircraft.org/MembersOnly/Default.aspx
(The 175,000 members in 2003 figure came from a AMA BPL FCC filing.
They don't seem to advertise just how many members they have very
often, but I doubt it's changed much since then. I imagine I could
work it out exactly from the financial report, as they do give revenue
from each membership class, but it's not worth the effort -- it's
obviously still close to 175K.)
The magazine isn't crappy. It's mediocre, granted, but not really
crappy.
| > I suspect that the AMA feels they're providing something that people
| > want badly enough to pay for too.
|
| You're probably right, but I suspect that most people pay for it only
| because they believe that they have to.
I doubt many people pay for it just because they feel they need an
`AMA license' to fly their plane at the local park. However, if the
local park or flying field *requires* AMA membership, then I'd say
that they really do `have to' join (or not fly, of course.)
Perhaps the rules could be changed so that AMA membership isn't
required, and insurance can be provided in other ways, but that sort
of change tends to be difficult to push through. Not impossible, but
difficult.
The AMA does do good things for the hobby. When dealing the FCC and
FAA (or the government as a whole), they're pretty much seen as the
voice of the hobby, for example, and they seem to try and take care of
everybody as well as possible.
I'm not saying they're perfect, or they don't have some `pork' in
their budget (really, how many millions were spent on the Muncie
facility?), but they're not the enemy either.
--
Doug McLaren, dou...@frenzied.us
Communicating with aliens via the `fire' button
Jarhead
"Doug McLaren" <dougmc+usen...@frenzied.us> wrote in message
news:11799324...@frenzied.us...
One thing the AMA has done, and I failed to mention in my previous post,
is to lobby and work with the FCC for our radio frequencies. Without the
AMA we may not have kept those frequencies from the Crane and other
services. True, Spread Spectrum is here, and if I were to fly in a non
frequency controlled environment, I would be definitely using it.
Stefan Pettersen
Acronym Definition
YGBSM You Gotta Be Spoofin' Me! (polite form)
YGBSM You Gotta Be Stuffing Me (polite form)
Since I'm Norwegian I had to look that up in the dictionary. I LOVE the
sencored translations.
Why on earth do those controlling the media in the U.S. seem to believe
"shit" to be an obscene word? I hear it's quite common...
Stefan Pettersen
"Jim" <j...@slaughter.org> skrev i melding
news:McQ4i.11775$qp5.7057@trnddc03...
ManhattanMan
> Acronym Definition
> YGBSM You Gotta Be Spoofin' Me! (polite form)
> YGBSM You Gotta Be Stuffing Me (polite form)
>
>
> Since I'm Norwegian I had to look that up in the dictionary. I LOVE
> the sencored translations.
> Why on earth do those controlling the media in the U.S. seem to
> believe "shit" to be an obscene word? I hear it's quite common...
>
George Carlin (American comedian) had a record album (round vinyl thing with
a long groove and a hole in the middle) out in the 60's or 70's of his
comedy routine "Seven words you can't say on TV" - it was hilarious and
asked the same question....
Cheers.
Don
Robert Reynolds
>
> I'm not saying they're perfect, or they don't have some `pork' in
> their budget (really, how many millions were spent on the Muncie
> facility?), but they're not the enemy either.
>
It's just a case of maintaining the status quo for no particular reason.
There's almost always a better way to do things.
Morgans
"Doug McLaren" > wrote
> Perhaps the rules could be changed so that AMA membership isn't
> required, and insurance can be provided in other ways, but that sort
> of change tends to be difficult to push through. Not impossible, but
> difficult.
Hard to prove that they have adeqate insurance. If the AMA is required, it
is way easy to have a person show a card, and all questions are answered.
> The AMA does do good things for the hobby. When dealing the FCC and
> FAA (or the government as a whole), they're pretty much seen as the
> voice of the hobby, for example, and they seem to try and take care of
> everybody as well as possible.
They are around, watching our back, so to speak. Sad to say that it is
necessary.
--
Jim in NC
Robert Reynolds
> "Doug McLaren" > wrote
>
>> Perhaps the rules could be changed so that AMA membership isn't
>> required, and insurance can be provided in other ways, but that sort
>> of change tends to be difficult to push through. Not impossible, but
>> difficult.
>
> Hard to prove that they have adeqate insurance. If the AMA is required, it
> is way easy to have a person show a card, and all questions are answered.
Fortunately, there are a lot of guys who don't always look for the "easy
way" to do everything. Ambitious people acquire new flying sites,
coordinate events, raise funds for improvements, etc. It wouldn't be
too great of a leap to do something different and talk to a local
insurance agent about coverage for a flying club and its members. Model
airplanes are a named risk covered by standard insurance policies for
homeowners all over the USA. Our insurance companies are already
covering us for flying model planes.
I'd really like to work on this issue some time in the future. I'm
going to be moving to a new area soon, and I don't know if I'll be
looking for a place to fly with other people, or if I'll just be able to
walk out my back door to fly. If it becomes an issue for me I'll be
very interested in exploring my options for insurance. Your "easy"
verification costs $58 for every member, which is a lot of money when
you add it all up. How much does a club pay on top of that for the
privilege of being an AMA chartered club?
Six_O'Clock_High
"Robert Reynolds" <rob...@kcnet.com> wrote in message
news:1359etb...@corp.supernews.com...
The hidden answer to this is not insurance for the individual pilot, rather
insurance for the club. What is not obvious in that is the insurance FOR
the club is provided TO THE LANDOWNER (as part of the club charter fee) and
in effect even if an AMA member violates every single safety rule we have.
In short, 'we' create environments that attract spectators and risk takers
by the nature of our hobby. Some of those risk takers welcome much more
risk than you or I and the landowner needs the coverage even if you don't.
If the landowners were not insured, I suspect that the existence of 99% of
our 2400+- clubs would be ended.
While you may not like the cost, the management, or the stipulations
involved in AMA membership it should be clear that there is lasting real
value. I know that I am seriously displeased with at least 2 of the
aforementioned items, but I still think the AMA is the absolute best thing
going and needs our support and occasional kick in the pants.
Jim Branaum
AMA 1428
Robert Reynolds
> The hidden answer to this is not insurance for the individual pilot, rather
> insurance for the club. What is not obvious in that is the insurance FOR
> the club is provided TO THE LANDOWNER (as part of the club charter fee) and
> in effect even if an AMA member violates every single safety rule we have.
Yes, that's the point. All of us who own homes, which is probably most
of us, are already covered by our homeowners policies. The idea is to
talk to a real insurance agent about getting a liability policy for a
flying site, to cover the owner of the property. Presumably the biggest
risk is that a passing motorist would be hit by a plane and sue the guy
who allowed the flying, rather than sue the individual pilot.
Realistically, the greatest danger is assumed by those involved with RC
at the flying site, but any landowner would want to be covered as well.
> While you may not like the cost, the management, or the stipulations
> involved in AMA membership it should be clear that there is lasting real
> value. I know that I am seriously displeased with at least 2 of the
> aforementioned items, but I still think the AMA is the absolute best thing
> going and needs our support and occasional kick in the pants.
If it's the best thing going it's only because it's the ONLY thing
going. It couldn't hurt to get something else going. Competition is a
good thing. Sport Flyers Association put together an insurance package
for cheap. It was just as easy as AMA, and it didn't cost as much to be
a member. Their biggest mistake was to tie the whole thing together in
one unit that was susceptible to lawsuits. Why don't people think
outside the box and do things locally? Your club could have its own
site with its own insurance policy. An AMA chartered club with 20
members pays over $1200 yearly in dues. Surely this wouldn't be hard to
beat.
Six_O'Clock_High
> Six_O'Clock_High wrote:
SNIP
>
>
> If it's the best thing going it's only because it's the ONLY thing going.
> It couldn't hurt to get something else going. Competition is a good
> thing. Sport Flyers Association put together an insurance package for
> cheap. It was just as easy as AMA, and it didn't cost as much to be a
> member. Their biggest mistake was to tie the whole thing together in one
> unit that was susceptible to lawsuits.
Sorry, on that one point you are wrong. It turns out that no matter how you
look at it, the AMA did right. It offends me when anyone I do business with
sells my information to another and the SFA not only wanted that information
from the AMA, they wanted it for free and thought they had a right to it and
tried to get the courts to buy into that fallacy. That turned out to have
been one of the worst investments the SFA could have ever made because they
lost and then they lost again by not being ready or able to pay the costs of
the litigation they started. When I heard what the original action was
over, I began to change my views. After that my main beef with the second
action was that the AMA spent lots of my dues dollars on lawyer fees. Then
I found out what it was for and I began to realize that the AMA took what
any reasonable business man would call the proper fiduciary action to
protect the membership from potential fraud and then to recover the costs of
that action.
The biggest mistake SFA made was to sue the AMA in an attempt to get the
courts to order our organization to release our names and contact
information so they could market to us. They lost that suit just as they
lost the suit AMA filed to recover the legal costs taken from the membership
to pay for the first lawsuit. Please read that again carefully because
there are several implied "gotcha's " in it that slip under the radar screen
when we talk about stupid things the AMA has done and assume this was one.
In this particular case I have had to eat shoe leather more than once
because I had the same opinion as almost everyone else.
Robert Reynolds
They were in the right place at the right time to introduce some
competition into the market place, and they should have just left it at
that.
Abel Pranger
wrote:
>Wow, I never heard that story. That was a stupid thing for SFA to do.
>They were in the right place at the right time to introduce some
>competition into the market place, and they should have just left it at
>that.
It doesn't gybe with even AMA's side of of the story, as told in the
pages of MA. SFA 'won' the suit that started the mess when AMA's
insurer settled with them for an amount of $$ that was small enough
that AMA called it a 'pyrrhic victory.' AMA then sued SFA, which by
then was just a name as it had been sold to a new owner, and won a
default judgment because the new owner did not show up in court to
defend. AMA was awarded lawyer's fees by the court in that case. They
ran up a sizable bill for additional lawyer's fees in an attempt to
collect on that judgment. We members paid for AMA's lawsuit and
fruitlessl attempts to collect. If there was a win of any kind, it
was to kill off AMA's competition.
Abel
IFLYJ3
> Wow, I never heard that story. That was a stupid thing forSFAto do.
> They were in the right place at the right time to introduce some
> competition into the market place, and they should have just left it at
>
> - Show quoted text -
Search this group using the search argument of SFA. There are post
over the last 10 years that will educate you. Those that do not know
history are destined to repeat it.
Robert Reynolds
> Search this group using the search argument of SFA. There are post
> over the last 10 years that will educate you. Those that do not know
> history are destined to repeat it.
>
I doubt that I would ever repeat that history, by starting a national
organization. I prefer to do things on a local level.
By the way, I'm not so sure that's what actually happened. I just
belatedly realized that I didn't want to repeat history by going over
the same argument about the SFA-AMA lawsuit.
Jennifer Smith
> Hi,
>
> I've been thinking of a web 2.0 startup that would pair up people with
> model airplanes with people who would like to fly them remotely via
> the web from the comfort of their homes.
>
> A video camera would transmit live video from the plane and/or the
> ground.
>
> The owner of the plane would be responsible for the safety of the
> plane. If flight inputs coming in via the web put the plane in danger,
> then the owner can override them temporarily.
>
> Flight inputs may come in from one person or a combination of people
> via some voting mechanism. Users who would like more control over the
> plane would pay more.
>
> Has anyone done something like this before?
>
> Would you allow people to fly your plane remotely via such a web
> service for a fee?
>
> Amir
I have some more hard data for you.
This last weekend I didn't really have anything else to do, so I built
an... uh... "airplane" for testing. 4'x3' foam sheet, 2mm, taped a few
spare CF rods to it to give it the illusion of stability, taped control
surfaces on and all that... basically "put enough engine on it and it'll
fly" kinda thing.
Used a few bits and pieces of work equipment to rig a wireless cam,
satellite internet transponder (on a reserved channel) and a bit of a
D/A controller hack which I fervently hope my teachers will never see,
they'd rotate at 100rpm in their graves.
Long story short: The plane was built to fly S-L-O-W, and it did. At a
resolution of 640x480, using 768kBit/s video stream and experimenting
with another 128kBit/s audio stream the feed quality was tolerable at
best. Turns still blurred too much, and the latency was the killer. I
tried a few different codecs with pretty much the same result.
I truly doubt that it's possible for any joe schmoe to fly an r/c plane
that way. Adding automatic stabilizing and maybe some sort of
intelligent in-flight oversteering protection might help, but
truthfully: anyone who is able to fly an r/c plane that way will have a
much more satisfying experience flying a real r/c plane. Considering you
can get dirt cheap halfway decent RTFs nowadays... nah, really can't see
anyone shelling out cash for flying a quite boring "internet r/c sim".
Main points:
- The sense of motion is rather disappointing, particularly in the air.
At landing and takeoff it's kinda exciting. Once in the air the sense is
that everything happens in slow motion.
- Considering my controller endpoint was, albeit over the 'net, just off
the runway, I'm not sure it'd be possible to practice for the delayed
reaction without that direct comparison available at first.
- I did fly the plane successfully with only the remote, but... the lag
is awful. At one point I had a hiccup (lost packets I think) and I
almost smashed the plane into the ground. Mind, that's a plane going
maybe 30mph tops and lumbering through the air like a grandma on sedatives.
- Almost 1MBit bandwidth upstream is, in my eyes, excessive. Yet the
video quality was not nearly sufficient. For decent visuals it'd need
significantly higher resolution and thus bandwidth. The catch is simple:
Better compression = more lag. Lower compression = less information per
second, thus crappy picture.
You may have some ingenious new technology up your sleeve, who knows.
But with current technology the idea is DOA.
Sorry.
Jen
IFLYJ3
Thank you for realizing that!
Ed Cregger
be - minimal. None of this, "We know what's best for you" baloney.
I've been in clubs (R/C) where once there was a Board of Directors
(henceforth referred to as the BoD), the BoD went on to endow itself with
ever more expanding powers. At one time we had to vote on expelling an
errant member after the proscribed number of warnings. After the BoD came
into existence, they took it upon themselves to remove whomever they pleased
from the club's roster without so much as mentioning it at the monthly club
meetings. You can imagine how the BoD evolved over time. I finally quit one
of the clubs that I helped start because of this behavior and went on
elsewhere to fly. With SS gear becoming popular along with lighter electric
powered models, do not be surprised if we see the number of R/C flying clubs
and even our national organization decline in size.
I'm not saying that the AMA has gone quite this far, but only because WE,
the membership, would not let them. I'm not pointing a finger at any current
or past serving members - just at human nature.
Ed Cregger
"Doug McLaren" <dougmc+usen...@frenzied.us> wrote in message
news:1179857...@frenzied.us...