For PPRuNers who want to hear from Dr Pleming, may I remind you that I have the text of a briefing he gave to the media at a conference at the Royal Aeronautical Society on 11 Feb - the same day the multi-signature letter appeared in the Telegraph. His briefing is about 1500 words long, so I’m inclined not to post it on the thread in full. But I’m happy to email it to anyone who PMs me. Several people have done so already. Dr Pleming also took questions afterwards - but sad to say, the media turnout was not great, and there wasn’t as much national coverage as we’d hoped.
Also on the same day, we had had high hopes of appearances on ‘Today’ (Radio 4), and ‘Breakfast’ (BBC1), but in the event, neither materialised. That’s live media for you. We were also due on FiveLive’s ‘Breakfast’ - but that fell down when a BBC car failed to materialise, and by the time that was sorted out, we’d fallen off the end of the programme. These things happen.
As far as getting Dr Pleming on this thread again is concerned, I think we can forget it. Does anyone suppose that someone who is so scurrilously vilified is likely to dignify his detractors with a reply? I think not. Does no one realise how personally hurtful these anonymous, cowardly barbs are? I have even heard from Mrs Pleming. She tells me she’s saddened that a few detractors are so infantile that they have resorted to name calling and telling lies. She also believes that the personal nature of the abuse has actually hindered her husband’s recovery from his recent serious illness.
A lot of people seem, to this perhaps not impartial observer, to be forgetting just what an extraordinary achievement it has been to get this far. Have you all forgotten how many people were saying it could never be done?
I note that Dr Pleming does says that the prospects for flight in 2009 are poor. But we have been in that situation before. Up till now, poor prospects in this amazing project have turned into commendable, and often unlikely, success.
airsound