Model aircraft pilot; who is also a private pilot; discovered that he has been operating his model a...

Narrative:

I discovered yesterday that I have been flying model aircraft 4.02 miles from shenandoah regional airport without first notifying them. I had previously measured the distance as over five miles but while listening to my scanner heard an aircraft on approach to runway five report four miles out while abeam my location. I then used GPS on my phone to precisely determine my location relative to the airport and found I had made a measuring error in my initial location check. At no time have I flown models above 400 feet AGL and at no time have I ever flown while full scale aircraft were visible in the area; but I take regulations seriously and consider this a serious breach of etiquette in addition to a regulatory error. I will visit the airport and determine the best way to notify them of my intention to fly models at any time in the future. There was never a real safety issue here; but this incident certainly points out the need for more readily available fly/don't fly information for model aircraft operators. I understand the FAA has a system that provides the necessary information in beta test now and very much look forward to seeing it go live.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Model aircraft pilot; who is also a private pilot; discovered that he has been operating his model aircraft 4 SM from SHD airport while believing he was outside 5 SM previously.

Narrative: I discovered yesterday that I have been flying model aircraft 4.02 miles from Shenandoah Regional airport without first notifying them. I had previously measured the distance as over five miles but while listening to my scanner heard an aircraft on approach to runway five report four miles out while abeam my location. I then used GPS on my phone to precisely determine my location relative to the airport and found I had made a measuring error in my initial location check. At no time have I flown models above 400 feet AGL and at no time have I ever flown while full scale aircraft were visible in the area; but I take regulations seriously and consider this a serious breach of etiquette in addition to a regulatory error. I will visit the airport and determine the best way to notify them of my intention to fly models at any time in the future. There was never a real safety issue here; but this incident certainly points out the need for more readily available fly/don't fly information for model aircraft operators. I understand the FAA has a system that provides the necessary information in beta test now and very much look forward to seeing it go live.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1307339
Time
Date	201511
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	SHD.Airport
State Reference	VA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	UAV - Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Total 100
Events
Anomaly	Airspace Violation All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural FAR
Miss Distance	Horizontal 15840 Vertical 1500

Model aircraft pilot; who is also a private pilot; discovered that he has been operating his model aircraft 4 SM from shd airport while believing he was outside 5 SM previously.