Notify the control tower

It makes no sense. The FAA tells you to follow guidelines that pertain mainly to small aircraft. There is no use of the information for the tower, since they can't see you and can't call you back to give you instructions. Thus there's a high chance they'll just tell you not to mess around. Read the "pilots or operators" thread. We are not pilots until trained and permitted as such.

It is, because all manned aircraft in the airspace are talking to the control tower with some very limited exceptions. If ATC knows there is RC activity in a given area, they will warn pilots, generally by putting the information into the recorded ATIS broadcast that aircraft are supposed to listen to before entering the airspace and/or by directly warning the aircraft whose course will take them near the activity (something like "Use caution; model aircraft in use 3.5nm NE of airport at or below 500ft AGL"). They aren't likely to say no unless you're looking for something crazy like flying 1000ft AGL or want to fly in a really terrible spot (like 0.5 miles from the airport directly along a runway centerline where aircraft are coming in on final approach). If you have a flying field or the like they'll set up a Letter of Agreement with the club or group running it laying out the expected flight areas and simplifying the call to "turn on" that area of airspace.
 
No doubt you'll get plenty of opinions on this, many of which will be along the lines of the regs are what they are and should be followed to the letter. And there is probably no small amount of wisdom in those opinions.

That being said, my own opinion as an ex-commercial pilot and current Phantom enthusiast is that if a fixed wing aircraft is below 100' while still 4.5 miles out from an airport, then both you and that pilot have way bigger things to worry about than the fact that your 3lb plastic quad copter is flying somewhere in that particular chunk of sky.

Now you should note that I said fixed wing. Though its rare, its not entirely unheard of to find rotorwing (i.e. helicopter) traffic down as low as 100' that far out from an airport. Your saving grace here is that down that low, they're probably not going to be moving all that fast and, giving that its a helicopter we're talking about, its going to make a fair amount of noise thus give you lots of warning that something's up in the neighborhood thereby allowing you to get your phantom on the ground long before its likely to be an issue.

There are a few notable and very important exceptions to the above statement. The first is if that particular area, less than 5 miles from an airport though it is, happens to be on a published military training route or otherwise someplace the military conducts operations regularly. Down low and balls to the wall fast is how those folks love to operate. Even if you hear them coming, you might not be able to get out of the way fast enough. Its a risk you don't want to take.

Another exception would be if there are regular glider operations anywhere in the area. You won't hear a glider coming and the glider pilots ability to take evasive maneuvers will be limited at best. And even though your phantom is very light, it could do a nasty job on the plexiglass windscreen of a typical glider and below 100' while presumably setting up for an off airport landing is not the time a glider pilot wants to have their windscreen cracked open and/or have a small remote quad copter, or pieces of it smack them in the face.

And the third exception would be skydivers. Skydivers under canopy do make a bit of noise as the canopy flaps in the wind. But its not a ton of noise and could easily get missed if the winds were right and you were concentrating on other things. But like the glider pilot, a skydivers ability to take evasive maneuvers will be extremely limited.
One more. My buddy fly's lead plane on forest fires. He has expressed his concern about smacking a drone. They are flying way below 500 feet guiding bombers in to the fire. Lots of times literally skimming tree tops. It is about as dangerous as flying can get and that's without worrying some idiot is going to have his quad copter up there taking pics of the pretty smoke.

I have already seen one video from a drone filming "the action" from a local wild fire last fall.

If people actually used their heads all this would be a non issue. Unfortunately common sense and brains seem to be a trait that a lot of people are missing these days.
 
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