RC Drones versus RC Helicopters

The AMA CD should have coordinated an airport closure for the event and NOTAM issued for the airport and surrounding areas since they were doing some XC. I've been to several events where that works well. IMAA(defunct) Castle event is kind of an exception where the main airport remains open but NOTAM is still issued and airspace carefully controlled.

The 500 ft rule is hard to enforce and hard for a pilot to self enforce without telemetry. I fly both models and full scale. I've been to a lot of meetups and the guys that are into the hobby year after year are really responsible. I would feel comfortable sharing a thermal with one of their monster 55 lb 10 meter ships. They know what they are doing and can avoid aircraft.. Flying with them in Maryland on the ridge we have shared thermals with hang gliders. Sailplanes passed high above. No problems. VFR traffic.

It's the people that buy the Chinese made foam plane and take off by the airport that are going to ruin it for everyone. You can't make laws to prevent that because they are too hard to enforce. I'm not sure what to do about this phenomena.

One thing I don't understand is making separate rules for the drones, even if they have to abide by the visual line of site and max 500 ft altitude just like the rest of the model traffic.
I'm glad the AMA was able to get the FAA to leave model pilots out of the mess. I think as a whole, people that actually join the AMA and fly at clubs, are responsible and no other laws are needed.

We get a lot of converts from the AMA to the SSA (I'm one of them) so we all need to back each other. A sailplane flying below 500 ft is rare and a model airplane flying above 500 ft is also rare, hopefully that will keep us safe. Remember, it's all VFR traffic right?