Here's the text of the email Faradair sent me- lightly redacted, as there isn't much information that couldn't be gleaned from my PPRUNE posts.
Some clarity- my "Trolling on social media" consisted of exactly three comments on Facebook (the only "Social media I do- I'm old!). I pointed out a small solar panel was a waste of time and that their power-recovery turbines (air driven turbines generating electricity to run the electric motor) simply defied physics. The reply was "All BEHA technologies will be proven". I re-iterated they couldn't work and was blocked. Ironically both have been left off the latest iteration (by which I mean drawings) of the proposed aircraft.
In six years I've left three comments in the comment section of articles about the company, absolutely all negative, but with justified criticisms- like they are saying they are going to make an autonomous water bombing version, which is just ridiculous. They have taken investors money, including Government funds. They are not nor should they be immune from criticism.
I've used their contact form on their website I think three times.
So that's it- maybe 8 comments in six years, which I think qualifies me as the worlds laziest troll!!!
And here's the response-
Dear Mr Wizofoz,
We often question what it was behind the most vindictive, malicious and downright nasty spirit that motivated our only troll?
We had hoped you had grown out of that, yet here you are again, with nothing but petty snide to offer and an unwillingness to recognise the facts and data, clearly validated and approved by talents greater than yours and that you might have been wrong. We guess you have missed the flight testing we have been carrying out of various systems in the US for the last two years? Or in fact the numerous elements and components in testing that we intend to put on the aircraft, but because we have not shared those details with you personally, you come to our website with yet another snide post.
Is it just so you can spout bile and petty anger toward a programme you know nothing about? The Irony of your surname, in the fact that Sir Frank had to endure similar in his day, really does perplex us.
For years we put up with your infantile tirades to the point we had to block you on social media and yet here you are again, now coming direct via the website! Having read the file of your ranting’s which Neil had collated in the past, including your numerous postings on different aviation forums under names like the Wizard of Oz, etc, it is clear that it is not just us you aim your petty barbs at, but anyone who dares to question you and frankly, it was not the behaviour of an Emirates 777 training Captain, it appeared more like the ravings of a lunatic.
The fact that engineering talent is helping us to shape the aircraft, sadly without hundreds of millions in budget yet, to develop the aircraft over six years, is ignored by you. The scale models, the CFD work, the partners secured and the systems testing, all irrelevant to your personal need to vent unfounded venom at a project which for whatever reason you chose to target.
Is the programme where we had intended it to be at the start of all this? No, sadly due to the funding market and financial culture in the UK, it is not. But it is progressing well and next year we will break ground on our prototyping facility, which is already funded and planning permission approved in case you were wondering.
However we assume you have never attempted to start an aircraft manufacturer yourself, so trying to explain all the challenges of bringing a clean sheet design aircraft to market, may be a fruitless task, especially looking at your past record in failing to hear that which you were being told.
Fortunately, despite your best desire to see the programme fail, the company is growing, the aircraft is developing, components are being worked on as we speak and yet it would not matter what announcements we make or the progress we make (slower than we would like), it will never be good enough for you.
We have come to accept that, but we do all remain curious as to where the origins of this bile came from?
Did you happen to know someone who knew Neil? a little chum or pal from Ansett and then in Dubai who set you on this vindictive course? As considering you have no connection to this programme whatsoever, it really is a puzzle as to your obsession to the point of stalking.
Imagine if someone went after your daughter on her Youtube page with the level of bile that you did to our programme over several years, frankly you should be embarrassed.
However, your past actions aside, one day, when the aircraft is flying and it comes down to Australia, we will come to your gliding club and we’ll let you and its members see just a fraction of the hard work and effort that has gone into this project and the considerable personal cost of everyone involved and we’ll invite you to take a flight in the aircraft, because unlike you, we don’t hold petty vindictive personal vendettas and having been proven wrong on practically every point you made about our programme, you really do need to move on.
Can we give you an exact time of when this will be? No sadly not, it really is down the funding and the considerable work ongoing, but we do hope for it to be around 2025. If we had been given the funding requested back in 2015, the aircraft would be on the ramp today and all the things that we forecast then about this coming market, having been proven by many others, really validates that which we stated back then and highlights why you managed to get so much, so wrong.
Building a whole new aircraft from scratch is not easy, it takes vast sums of money, resources and an awful lot of goodwill and talent of those involved and having to put up with people like you, screaming from the sidelines while having done nothing even vaguely close in your own life, it really does depict what the ‘Internet’ of today has become, a void of egotistical, slightly unhinged elements who shout spurious claims and insults for what? Vanity? A need to feel good about yourself?
In all honesty, after six years development and coverage received which counters everything you believe to be true, we look at your inane ranting’s and frankly horrible manner and feel sorry for you, not only in your actual technical ignorance but more importantly, as a human being and supposed aerospace enthusiast. What would your daughter think of your internet rantings? Do you think she knows her father likes to take pleasure in the challenges others face and then hopes they fail? Not exactly model behaviour is it.
Fortunately other’s believed differently and for that we are thankful, which makes people like you, very much in the minority.
We of course hope you can get on with your life and whilst we find your personal attention flattering, we look forward to seeing you in person one day, when hopefully, at that point, you might even offer a fair ‘well done, it could not have been easy’… because with people like you around, it certainly is not and sadly, the aerospace sector is worse off because of it.
Alternatively, simply wish us luck as we do your daughter in her singing career.
Best Wishes
The Faradair Team
I feel this rose to the level of a veiled threat. Thoughts?
In any case, a cowardly and thin skinned attempt to intimidate a critic.
Last edited by Wizofoz; 15th Nov 2020 at 22:59.