The End Is Near By James Goss     No not the end of the world, instead I am in reference to the end of the RC airplane hobby, as we know it today. It is easy to see that in the near future we are going to have some serious problems if something is not done soon. The problem I am referring to is the new park flyers and their frequency allocations being the same as ours. These little electric planes are going to be sold everywhere it looks like and they are advertised as backyard flyers. Many people will eventually have one of these and the average person will not even think about frequency problems with nearby flying fields. So it is coming for sure, a nice RC plane will be shot down because of these park flyers and it could be yours. Even though their receivers are only good for about a thousand feet or less it is the transmitters that is going to get us. These park flyers will operate on your regular RC transmitter. All you need to do is change the crystal in the tiny receiver to match yours and you are ready to fly. Now by using the regular transmitter its signal will reach our planes in the air for a mile or more to bring us down. Now I realize an experienced modeler would not do this, but as the park flyers are swapped and sold at random they will sooner or later get into the hands of the inexperienced. It is just a matter of time before this happens.      Some foolproof system has got to be devised that will allow these two facets of the RC industry to operate in the same community. The backyard flyers use single tuned FM receivers and will accept our regular transmitters. One way to prevent the park flyers from interfering with us is that we use PCM receivers in our planes. Regular FM transmitters will not drive a PCM receiver. Also a transmitter set for PCM will not drive a standard FM (PPM) receiver. Of course the PCM receivers cost a little more but it would solve the problem as long as the park flyer manufacturers did not choose to produce the park flyer with a PCM receiver.