If many recognize the Wright brothers as authors of the first successful flights with a powered aircraft in 1903, many are unaware of how this dream of flying in a heavier-than-air machine was made possible by many experiments and approaches by those who believed it was possible to fly. .
This was the case in 1871, more than 30 years before the achievement of the Wright brothers, the Frenchman Alphonse Pénaud who managed to put into flight a small unmanned model (46cm wingspan) powered by a rubber band engine. The way was thus opened for the practical demonstration of the flight and stability principles of a heavier-than-air aircraft.
It is easy to understand that model aircraft has played and continues to play a fundamental role in the technological progress that has allowed and continues to allow the development of technical innovations, based on tests with small-scale unmanned models.
Model aircraft, involving the design, construction and flight of small-scale models, in addition to its relevance in the development of aeronautics, soon also became a recreational or sporting activity with high educational and training potential for young people. This sporting practice has constituted a true aeronautical initiation school, due to the knowledge required in different areas ranging from materials, mechanics, aerodynamics as well as meteorology. Most model aircraft are flown by sight and require their own training in construction, assembly and piloting, mainly provided by model aircraft clubs and associations without having any record of serious safety problems.
Aeromodelling, however, is currently experiencing difficult times.
The emergence of drones, widely introduced on the market during the last two decades, easily purchased ready to fly, has had several consequences, including unruly individual flying, particularly over concentrations of people in public or private spaces, in the vicinity of airports and sensitive infrastructures. For this reason, its use began to be the subject of concern and specific legislation regarding the safety of both aviation and people and goods on the ground. The confusion established by legislators and regulators between model aircraft and drones, which all appear in recent European legislation under the generic classification of unmanned aircraft, has placed model aircraft under largely unjustified restrictions. If model aircraft are mostly flown by sight and require their own training in construction, assembly and piloting, mainly provided by model aircraft clubs and associations that maintain a history without serious safety problems, drones are purchased ready to fly by any person without the need for specific training since they fly practically autonomously and even out of the pilot’s visual range, which is why they have been the cause of the safety problems that have arisen in recent years.
Despite this mix between drones and model aircraft, model aircraft, which was recognized for its importance and a history of high safety, was somehow protected in recent European legislation, through the deliberate introduction of articles to allow, when practiced within clubs or associations, , could have its activity continued without disruptions and major restrictions. However, the application of this legislation at national level was largely subject to the regulators of each country. In Portugal, such application has taken on very restrictive and arbitrary interpretations by our regulator (ANAC – National Civil Aviation Authority), unparalleled in any other European country and which defy any rational justification.
If ANAC’s concern regarding safety is understandable and commendable, what is not acceptable is the confusion it continues to create between drones and model aircraft, the lack of knowledge of the practical reality of model aircraft and its inability to listen and dialogue with representatives of the aviation community. model aircraft, namely clubs and their Federation.
The result of ANAC’s interpretation of European rules has been the emasculation of model aircraft in Portugal. Lovers of this sport see their activity severely limited as has not happened in any other European country. For many sports it has been impossible to hold competitions or even simple training. There were clubs that had operating authorizations previously recognized by ANAC suspended arbitrarily and without justification. The overwhelming majority of model aircraft clubs and associations were unable or even gave up trying to approve their flight sites with ANAC in the face of a set of demands and criteria arbitrarily introduced and which any ordinary citizen does not hesitate to classify as absurd and the ridiculous. A paradigmatic example of this is the requirement for clubs to have an elaborate and complex management system complying with the NP 9001:2015 standard of the IPQ (Portuguese Quality Institute) or detailed data regarding the airspace occupancy rate. There are other clubs that have even decided to close their doors, thus paving the way for the unregulated practice of model aircraft.
Meanwhile, we all continue to witness, in the face of the authorities’ indifference, a growing record of security incidents involving drones, whether involving companies or ordinary citizens, which indiscriminately fly over crowds in public places and the increase in drone sightings by manned aircraft.
Model flying organized in clubs, which have always maintained a culture of high safety, pays for drones flown anarchically and irresponsibly. None of this seems to worry our regulators who, when it comes to drones, feel alienated from what they consider to be simple police cases and relatively model aircraft are happy to demand what they consider to be the highest safety standards no matter how absurd the rules they impose.
