Giorgio:>>There are a lot more possibilities to hit an weather balloon .or that a big transatlantic boat can it a small sail boat. In the late 70's as a Jr Officer on a large ship I went up to the bow after a rather nasty night in the Bay of Biscay to check that nothing had worked loose in the bad weather. Jammed in the hawsepipe was about 4 feet of broken aluminium mast.A couple of years later, entering the English Channel at night in a storm, I managed to 'just' miss a sailboat that was lying to with sails down waiting for daylight to go deeper into the channel. Neither the radar nor the manual lookout saw the boat until it was VERY close. With his sails down and engine off, he couldn't dodge, and with our large turning circle we managed to just miss him, but closely enough that we swamped him with our bow wave and had to stop to do a rescue - risking the lives of our boats crew.Every year, dozens of small boats vanish in the open sea. A large percentage of those are run down by big tankers, container ships etc that never even feel a bump. Richard

>If only we could get most VFR pilots to check Notams each time>they fly!AMEN!I live near KGYY (Chicago-Gary Int. Apt.) and listen to the tower all day long, as I know Scott and the rest of the tower crew well. Scott is one of the most 'entertaining' controllers I've ever heard...Anyway, nearly every day there's at least ONE VFR pilot asking "what is the freq. for Meigs," not realizing that it's been CLOSED now for over a year! :)I'm forced to wonder what planet these pilots live on...

GiorgioYesterday a TV news helicopter crashed onto an appartment building in Brooklyn while filming a shootout between someone and the police (no serious injuries from the crash). Every MONTH in the US about 3,000 people are killed in motor vehicle accidents (about the same as were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks) and no one seems to care much, the traffic laws are barely enforced. The world is a dangerous place. You seem to be taking reasonable safety precautions, so go out and enjoy your very unique hobby and good luck with setting new records.DavidPS Your son is very lucky to have a dad that involves him in something like this.

"You seem to be taking reasonable safety precautions, so go out and enjoy your very unique hobby and good luck with setting new records."People should be able to choose when to be safe and when not to be.I think Giorgio is in the midst of a great project. But it is not alarmist to ask him to fly in an area a bit less congested, is it? Even ultralights are restricted from flying over congested areas. I am not talking about the GA Traffic issue--that's been beaten to death and I do think the risk is low there. But if some piece of that aircraft blows off--especially a bearing or something similar--it will fall at terminal velocity from the flight levels and hit the ground--or a person--with the same speed as a bullet. An in flight breakup could cause many such pieces to rain down.Yep--the same can happen from an airliner, a falling helicopter, or a motorist. But they at least have a good chance of being able to provide for a man's family, either through insurance or through a settlement. Can Giorgio provide that? If someone ends up dead, can Giorgio support--and does he plan on supporting--that person's family for the rest of his life?The fact that bad things happen is an issue different from people taking accountability for it happening. He's already lost control of his aircraft once. Yet he still flies in the same place. What is the problem with him driving for an hour or two to a less congested part of Florida... Seems little to ask considering those on the ground don't get a say in his project.Many see us write about such issues, and we're told of the Wright Brothers, or of Lindburgh, etc... But can you imagine some police officer telling a wife her husband was killed--by someone's model airplane? If they are trying to prove man can fly, that's already been done... Pretty crazy way to die when risk could have been reduced next to 'nil by a tank of gas in the SUV and a drive away from those with no say in his project...'Nuff said....