RC airplanes, kites a ‘no no’ at RAF Mildenhall

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Austin M. May
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  OK, so we all know unmanned aerial vehicles are awesome. Maybe not everyone is willing to admit it (pilots, I'm looking at you,) but deep down inside, we can't deny they rock.

And they've rocked for a long time. People have been flying remote-controlled aircraft for decades as a hobby, and the field is getting more and more accessible every day.

You can go down to the local hobby shop and pick up a beginner's park flyer and be airborne in less than an hour having spent no more than about $150. You can buy a helicopter, a scale warbird or a trainer for starters. You can go with electric or liquid fuel. But there is something you can't do.

You can't fly at RAF Mildenhall.

RC planes, as fun as they are, can destroy an engine quicker than, well, something that could destroy an engine really quick. The skies around this base are busy enough without tiny, barely visible aircraft buzzing around in the pattern. It's just not safe.

Kites fall under similar restrictions, and although they aren't exactly prohibited on base, the guidelines say how high they can be flown in certain areas. They can't be flown higher than 100 feet in most places within the fence, and never above 200 feet no matter where you are on the installation. So unless your kite has an altimeter, your best bet is to just take it off base and away from the airplanes.

Luckily, all is not lost. RC flyers can still take to the skies at RAF Feltwell, which has plenty of open air, grassy landing areas and best of all, no full-size airplanes.

As an RC hobbyist myself, rest assured I'm not making this up. The restrictions are well-documented in regulations, specifically Civil Aviation Publication 658, which can be accessed at http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/cap658.pdf. For information on kites, check out the British Air Navigation Order, Article 93, which can be found at http://www.bmfa.org/ANO/ano_97.html.

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