Rubbish.

People ask questions here all the time. It is very rare they dont get the correct answer - assuming there is one.

The problem, I would agree is sometimes sorting out the correct answer from those who dont know what they are talking about. However, even that can usually be deduced.

I have learnt as much about flying here by trying out some of the answers as anywhere.

That said, obvioulsy the forum will not teach you how to fly an aero routine or an IAP - it tends to be a bit more specific than that.

Thank you for your confidence!

A breath of fresh air and common sense amidst the smoke of a upside down crazy small-mindedness.

Bjornhall's comments have great value, and I appreciate them.

In an attempt to recongnize the need to combat complancency, and the risk of creeping toward "self determined god likeness" (I try not to be there, I'm only a PPL), I took more flight training in the last two years. I had two first solos, thirty years apart. I now have two licenses.

With one license, I owe a debt to help others, if I can, with the other license, I am obligated to listen a lot (as I was told more than once during training). I have fresh recollection of being a mere newbie student pilot, and feeling the foolishness of screwing up, and actually causing the need for an inspection - Boy, I felt dumb that day! I did ask a question on PPRuNe about my screwup.....

However, I have a moral obligation to my fellow human, to the extent that they are willing to consider my opinion, to help them prevent a safety failing, even if it means pointing out they seem to be failing. If you saw someone taxiing out for takeoff with the control locks on, how much effort would you put into stopping them? I once actually stood between a pilot I knew, who was having a bit of a fit, and his plane. I told him that he was not mentally fit to fly at that moment, and a danger to himself. He stopped, thought for a moment, and agreed. In that instant, his fit 75% disappeared, and he said, "you're right, I'll calm down before I fly". With that I let him pass, and he flew very successfully a few minutes later. Perhaps I helped him, you judge....

If I read a poster presenting his attitude as being unwilling to consider a safer way of (attitude toward) flying, I may post back in an effort to help. If I see a poster fight with dozens of posts to object to what many obviously experienced pilots are presenting to help him, I will post back out of an obligation to "help". When that poster said [I've had enough, I don't want any more] I stopped, though he came back with more fight....

We can each get tangled up in ourselves from time to time. When this happens, help from the outside is warranted. If it comes from an unknown person from another continent, via the internet, that does not necessarily make it not worthwhile.

I was thinking about the several references in the posts to "publications" as an authoritative place to gain wisdom and answers. One must choose the "publication" wisely to assure that it is appropriate, and seems authoritative. I've seen magazines which contained errors, I've seen textbooks, which were limited in their presentations, perhaps due to liability concerns. (I have seen a Cessna publication in the distant past titled "Getting the maximum performance out of the Cessna 150". I suspect the reason that you can no longer find that publication is based in liability concerns - Cessna would know how to write that book!)

I have read a lot of excellent and appropriate wisdom here. Perhaps those valuable writers chose to write here, instead in a magazine or text book, that day....

There are poster on PPRuNe who I ask first, before I pick up their, or another book.

Is this not a "publication" in our new world of instant communication?

Pilot DAR

Yes, if you like, but keep it all in it's proper and complete context....

... by the way, who among the posters offered David free flying to demonstrate what was being stated in the post?.... It was not a hollow offer...

Say again s l o w l y said:


Final 3 Greens said:

It may be fair comment, but it is also rude and defamatory.

I'm sure it's very frustrating when someone says something you think (or know) is b$ll$cks, but to tell them they're an idiot is is unlikely to persuade them the error of their ways.

As Fuji said:

Maybe Final 3 Greens is right, and the best thing is to tell people they're idiots; maybe that works in some circumstances (in authoritarian organisations, perhaps) but I think the gentle approach is usually more effective.

Can you libel an anonymous person?

I don't think he could sue because, being anonymous, no damage to his reputation could have been done.

If you got a stall warning horn as you gently touched, you probably had a great landing too:

David Houl52 then said:

Quote:
My instructor would kill you if she heard you say this!:

And therein lies part of the problem, as long as there are flight instructors teaching such rubbish we shall forever be saddled with " Davids " believing such rubbish.

So how do we weed out such instructors? ( Assuming of course David is being truthful here. )

Pilot DAR and others,

Thank you for your kind offer for free flying lessons! Not very practical as we live on different continents.

I hear what you are saying about my coming back again and again with my postings. The reason for this was that I really didn't feel I had an adequate response that made sense to me. One of the best arguments which made me think again actually came from another new PPL!

What made it a fight was the rudeness and the patronising attitude. I wouldn't like to fly with someone like that no matter how experienced. And it means that I don't take you seriously on this forum either.

Telling me I'm going to kill myself, I'm incompetent, I need re-training, I need to be retake my skills test. Are you implying that you know better than the CAA? Careful! How helpful is that in any case? What right do you or any one else have to make that kind of statement? (You don't)

You also give the impression that I need to earn my right to be heard on PPRune. Let me be quite clear. PPRune is not something I need to be able to fly. I do not need the approval of anybody in this forum. If the CAA says I'm safe to fly no one else can take that away. I am able to hire aircraft because my flying club does not have any concern whatsoever about my flying. Other clubs will hire me aircraft on the strength of a check-out - not by what is written in an internet column.

If you want new pilots to join you in discussion then be a decent human being and welcome them. If they say something you disagree with then answer from your experience and in a respectful way. Being sarcastic, rude, patronising is not the way to do it.

It is YOU who needs to earn the right to be heard. And you have to do that with each and every person you encounter.

It's also a lot of nonsense that I wrote stuff that indicated I was unsafe to fly - so why did you have to exaggerate like you did? Standing between a pilot in a fit of rage, drunk or whatever is not in the same category at all.

On the subject of publications - well one realises that they may not be 100% accurate - but at least they have been through a screening process and that can be held libel for what they write. The internet is responsible to no one.

Another dangerous comment. You have no right to say such a thing. How dare you!

Your ego is much too bloated for your own good. A pilot with an inflated ego is not a safe pilot.

David - I think that you might be a troll?

If not you are a freaking idiot.

I shan't be offering to fly with you.

And I post on here far more infrequently than I used to because it seems to be full of bottom-feeders.

Stik

Not big enough to apologise then?

Libel laws being as they are. I think you are pretty immune from being dragged into the courts if you call someone an idiot on an internet bulletin board. Especially if they blatantly are being one!

Mind you, these forums aren't that anonymous. Are they David........

You do need a good filter with many of the posts on here, but there is some gold. I've learnt quite a bit from here, not much about the specifics of flying an aircraft, but more what people want from clubs and schools. I've tried to incorporate much of what I've read in my teaching.

This place has, I think, made me a better instructor.

Personalities being what they are, you will always get arguments over semantics, but when someone is spouting rubbish and won't listen to freely given advice, it does grate a bit and you get people reacting.

Inexperienced argumentative know it alls are nothing new in flying. Most of us have been a bit guilty of being a bit of that at some points in our flying careers, especially those of us that qualified at an early age. I was a teenager when I got my CPL and very early 20's when I started instructing. Now I look back and see how different my attitude is.

I scared myself senseless a couple of times and definately have a fair few ILAFT stories. My goal now is to try and help others avoid the mistakes I made. I got through my first thousand hours withou nailing myself to a tree, sometimes through luck rather than judgement.

I'm totally open to all my students about the things I did and why I was such a pratt. Hopefully they and others might not repeat the mistakes I made and won't rely on their luck as I did.

So David, you won't be the first or the last to come out with a load of old gubbins without the knowledge to back it up, but do try and realise that it is never good to go and antagonise people and continue to come out with totally wrong statements.

I have no problem if you asked a question "I've been told this by my FI, is that correct or is there another method?" but when you present statements as fact without thinking about them, you will get people rolling their eyes and going "oh god, here we go again...................."

Don't worry about David's FI Chuck.

A little word of warning. Whilst the CAA can't take your licence away for what you post here. It is hard to fly without an aircraft and unless you own your own, making an utter tit of yourself here can count against you.
As I mentioned before, lots of people have read these threads and judging by the number of calls and e-mails I've recieved about them. You may find yourself finding it more difficult to hire than you would have previously.

Just a bit of friendly advice there.

I wonder how much longer the mods are going to allow this to go on?

Perhaps BRL could comment on this?

Didn't the owners of OBA threaten to sue (PPRuNe?) over a some of the stuff that had been written on here?

Thanks Say Again Slowly.

I don't think I said MANY things that were wrong. I'm very concious that I'm being portrayed as this naive new pilot who thinks he knows it all. I'm not like that at all! But I'm also not the sort of person just to accept statements without good reason. Somebody praised me (????) for thinking for myself when it came to what my FI told me. Yet that same person expects me to believe everything they say without question?

The question I posed at the beginning of THIS thread is relevant here. The general consensus was that the purpose of this column was to throw ideas around as in a flying club bar. Everyone knows that a whole lot of rubbish comes up there. I've already been warned not to take any notice of it.

And really - you all ganging up on one person like that - really - are we school children or what?

Surprising! Bit late now, isn't it Must say I'm very disalusioned with GA if that is the case. Small wonder most PPLs give up before they get to 100 hours

A very, very different situation. OBA were getting a real slagging. Hoever they didn't initiate it.

Think about it in this way. Calling someone a plonker or an idiot in the street wouldn't get you sued, so why would it make a difference here? Especially as the other person has the right to reply and is making full use of that.

David. I don't need to earn the right to do anything and nor does Chuck, DAR or anyone else.

You can choose not to listen if you want. That is your perogative. A silly one in my eyes, but there you go.

I have no idea what job you do for a living, but imagine I walked into your office and as someone who had no experience started to spout nonsense and pontificate to people with a whole load of experience. Well, you are doing the same. You are coming in and telling people whose profession and passion it is to fly and to teach that they are wrong.

At what point would you get annoyed if I came into your office and did that? Pretty sharpish I reckon.

Ganging up on you? What are you twelve?

You have a whole load of experienced people telling you the same thing and yet you disregard it and cry "foul".

You seem to have an inability to look at what part you've played in all of this and take stock of why you have had the reaction you have.

All the e-mails and calls I've recieved have been spontaneous. I haven't initiated any of them and I have to say, it is the first time anything like this has happened.

This is a small industry and once you've been involved in it for a while, you tend to know most it!

This is more a reflection on the attitude displayed than anything else. Flying skill can be taught, what goes on between the ears cannot. We can try and influence it, but that is all.

If I promise not to make any more categorical statements (about flying that is), is there any chance you will all go way and leave me alone?

I understand your point Say Again Slowly, but as I said before, I had no idea that it would be taken that seriously. I thought this was supposed to be "Private Flying"

I think I have enough support from those who consider I've been unfairly stomped on in this. I'm more than happy to apologise for upsetting people and for saying things about flying that I couldn't back up.

If one or more of the my main detractors could apologise for unnecessary attack on my good self and flying skills then maybe we could call this a day?

David, you are holding onto the odd comment that agrees with the odd point you've made, but disregarding anything negative.

To get better, you need to listen to stuff that is sometimes unpalatable. Suspend your ego and take the comments constructive as much as possible.

Sometimes you need to hold your hands up. Apologise for being a plonker and get on with it. I've certainly had plenty of kicks up the bum in my flying life. Some seem harsh, but now with the benefit of hindsight I realise that they were well deserved.