There was an incident at IVC on Friday – luckily no one was hurt. There were relatively few club members there as it was a bit breezy.
On arrival a small group of boys were playing football half way along the edge of the field near the hospital. As there was relatively little flying activity we did not approach them and they kept well away. Despite us having booked the field we have noticed an increase in this sort of unauthorised use of the field on Friday evenings.
Towards the end of the evening an experienced modeller was flying control line when he noticed a 7 year old boy well inside his circle retrieving a football. He thinks he must have flown just over the boys head before he noticed him. As soon as he noticed the boy he pulled up and flew high till the boy was clear.
After the incident he spoke to the boys and they were made aware of the dangers. They were not the usual boys, but were newcomers to the field. Perhaps this was an example of Natural Selection at work, but luckily no one was hurt this time!! It goes without saying that this could have been a very serious injury if the plane had hit the boy or the wires had wrapped round his neck.
The club safety officer and I have discussed this, and with immediate effect, no RC or CL activity is to take place if there are boys playing football near our activities. They must be spoken to and given the option of either clearing off as we have booked the field, or going up to the far North West end of the field where they will be well out of our way. We don’t want to have a massive set to with them so the option of letting them continue at the far end seems a sensible compromise.
Committee members will ensure that this is adhered to and I have updated the website event information accordingly.