NH Town Debates Designated Drone Field

With so much negative media attention polluting the otherwise clear skies of the commercial done revolution (and much of it overblown), a New Hampshire town may provide a unique solution to diffuse the tension building between ground-pounders and UAV fans – a quiet, safe place to fly.

The Tyngsboro Conservation Commission is working with a hobbyist group to offer up a conservation tract designated for drone flying.

According to the Lowell Sun, the commission is working with the River Bend RC Flyers to locate a parcel just months after the group thought they had sealed a deal on an eight-acre tract, despite strong neighborhood opposition.

However, that plan crashed and burned in August after the Conservation Commission was overruled by the town’s Board of Selectmen, which decided to suspend flights for the time being in order to review the plan – a decision that miffed Flyers president Ken Pappas.

“That to me was like an entire setup against us because we were not asked to be at that meeting,” Pappas said in media reports. “I was told that it wasn’t going to be a discussion, the Conservation Commission was simply going to hand over the field-use rules that we came to an agreement with to town council and that was it.”

So for now, the club will work with the town to develop a list of possible fields designated for UAV hobbyists even as Conservation Director Matt Marro reviews how other towns in the region are balancing neighborhood concerns with the needs of drone hobbyists.

For twelve-year-old Alex Brown, the now-suspended field helped spark his interest in drones – so much so that he wrote a letter to officials following the land suspension.

“Now I feel discouraged from going there because of your decisions on the matter of the RC Club,” Alex wrote. “All I want is a spot to fly my new RC plane and continue learning from my fellow RC club members.”

“It’s really, really nice, it’s big, it’s pretty hard to crash,” he added. “I talked to a bunch of them and they really taught me a lot, even in the two or three times that I met the people.”