Originally Posted by
Airbubba
It's been explained to me by an adjunct law professor (kinda like a pilot who is a 'consultant'
) that it doesn't matter that much whether expert testimony is correct. It matters whether the testimony is persuasive to a judge and jury.
Your adjunct friend is right. The judge is not going to sit there and declare what is right and wrong, he or she is very unlikely to have any clue. Judges are (ideally) experts in evidence and trial procedures and the law of their jurisdiction, but that doesn't mean they know jack squat about flight and VFR and IFR and all these acronyms. And of course juries typically know even less. Whatever an expert can persuade a jury to believe, that generally becomes the "truth" so far as that trial is concerned.
As for dude in ball cap with great sounding talk track, he may have an accurate take or that helicopter may never have hovered over him and he may have been totally delusional about what was happening above. I don't know how pushing levers up and down on one of those sound things in a church qualifies you for much of anything other than setting up the sound in a church. But not my point. The guy would be a great fact witness (non-expert) in court because he sounds so authoritative. Alas, that often trumps truth and competence.