Whose was 411A and what happened to them?

Bose - 411A was an L1011 captain of some note and a wealth of aviation experience, sardonic, very dry wit, and could in one sentence drop a bomb in a thread. Highly amusing:ouch::ouch:

He was extremely knowledgeable, and I for one sought out his posts, a bit like Guppy and Big Pistons - possibly real aviators?????

411A died at the end of April

Ditto.

I did always chuckle at his Swiss Tony thing with guns, but he certainly knew his onions.

ISTR there were suspicions that all his knowledge and (assumed) wisdom had been plucked from casual talk, probably on the internet, and little if any came from actual flying. Indeed the amount and quality of flying experience he reported here seemed incongruent with the, err, shall I say "enthusiast" style of writing that is usually associated with tenderer age.

Well, sorry to play the old schoolmaster, but it shouldn't require a person banned for whatever reason to teach us to post accurately.

You haven't lived until you have been banned on pprune!

His flying posts were out of my realm but as an engineer, I'd say he certainly knew what he was talking about in technical discussions and didn't come across in any form as a cut 'n paste pretender.
He sometimes seemed high-handed to those that disagreed with him but mostly went out of his way to provide extremely detailed explanations or advice.
The older I become, the more I appreciate characters like Guppy.

The accounts of his lifestyle were at times surreal. He was everything from a present-day 747 pilot, to some James Bond character flying in Afghanistan while being fired on, and everything "aviation-job" in between. He also had a fantastic number of major accidents. Individually he was very technically knowledgeable but it simply did not hang together. He was much discussed off the forum and nobody I know thought he was anything other than a Walter Mitty, albeit one with a totally encyclopaedic knowledge of technical aviation matters. There are / have been other WM characters here and elsewhere and they invariably meet the same end because one has only the one life, one has to sleep some of it, and the sum total of stuff claimed just does not hang together if you read the person's posts in its entirety.

Of course we will never know, but I have a 15 year old son who can talk accurately about just about every single type of aircraft ever made, down to different versions of a 747, etc. And he has been at it for only about 5 years, while doing model flying. So it can be done.

I still don't know why exactly he got banned (I have never known anybody getting banned from a forum for being a WM) but it did not suprise me.

I do astrophotography as a hobby. I have a nice semi pro scope and motorised mount and have been doing it cack handedly for some time. I used to inhabit a well known astronomy forum and one of the resident experts there turned out to be a 14 year old lad with a pair of binoculars. Nothing wrong with that at all in itself but he had an immense knowledge of astrophotography, all of it gleaned off the net and gave the impression he had a 20'' Richey-Chretien in his garden. We started to wonder why he never posted any photographs............

If you, me, disagreed with him or proved him wrong he was very fond of calling you a liar. More the kind of reaction you'd get in a playground.

He did used to get rather wound up and shouty. Very doubtful that anyone could do everything he claimed he did in one lifetime.

Used to give me endless mirth.

People have mentioned 411A and he could be an old git on the forums.

The thing was, if you PM'd him, he'd respond really helpfully and with kind words.

Pace - sorry, no I can't.

G

I suspect it was of a perceived racist comment he may have posted! Probably wrong though! Plenty Walter Mitty's on here, one very well known...

Anonymous forums, don't you just love them.

Any one of you may not be who you claim to be. There are but a very few whose credentials survive investigation..

What if Guppy was not who he claimed to be? There are dozens of others on the boards who do similar. Why is his a crime? But he may be real!

I was/am banned from one board because I stepped over an imaginery Moderator line. Don't get me wrong the Mods have a tough job here, but in the end they are just human and their decisions can be in error.

Will I get banned for casting doubt on Moderators rule? Quite possibly but lets get things into perspective. I know 10 times the number of aviation personnel in REAL LIFE than I know on here. This is not reality guys it is a bunch of people who hide behind aliases and feel safe to post whatever they want because of that. Just like me now!

The rules in here should be that you use your real name.....and I do not go along with the idea that remaining anonymous lets individuals 'blow the whistle' on bad practice without fear of retribution. Whenever did comments on here actually result in a regulator taking action?

Go on ban me for speaking out of turn. I have numerous IP addresses.

Bring back Guppy! (if I was him I would say s^d the lot of you.

Of course SNS3Guppy is real; he's not a computer-generated figment of our imaginations. Behind each user name is a real person and some of us do know each other in real life as well.

Some make an effort to hide their indentity or may make themselves out to be someone they're not; others don't but this forum is not as anonymous as you might think.

Cheers

Whirls

Vino Collapso, if it were only pilots, or potential pilots, reading this it probably wouldn't be a problem. Unforetunatly with all them villans out there it pays to be a bit vague about yerself at times. e.g. when poster Fred Nerk posts that he's flying south fer the next two weeks that's just the sort of info the local housebreaker likes to read.


...anyway, nuf fer now. Time to pack me bag and get to school..:)







.

An often overlooked reason to remain anonymous is so that if someone googles your name they don't find out that you're into aeroplanes, must be making too much money and so are someone whom one must be jealous of.

I have to admit that PPRuNe was my first and only forum. When I joined, I understood (perhaps wrongly) that it was intended that we remain anonymous, so I tried to comply. After a slagging match a while back, I strted a thread for posters here to honour up their credentials. Few takers... There are enough PPRuNers whom I have met in person, that I'm not at all worried about being suspected as a fake or Walter Mitty (yes, we do know him in Canada too!).

As for my opinion about Guppy, he or she ( see "Fraternity", I'm not getting caught in the sexist thing again!). obviously articulates a lot of knowledge. As IO, and a few have pointed out, the ability to articulate knowledge can come from more than one background. I have no idea about Guppy's. I know nothing more about him/her than what can be read here.

What makes me suspect that Guppy's basis for knowledge might not be what is first perceived, as that every pilot I have met (and there have been many) who have the vast experience which Guppy would have us believe he/she had, was very mellow about it. I have never had a slagging match with a truly hightime pilot, they have nothing to prove - they've done it all. If you don't flow in with them, they just quietly walk away.

Guppy's posts were different, there were often slagging, chest thumping sessions, and for what? It's not really possible to actually win or loose here, you just post for whatever reason motivates you, and hope that someone takes an interest in what you've written. I can say that there were threads which I stopped reading once Guppy got going.I read and post for my entertainment, and I hope, to the benefit of others. I am not entertained by slagging matches, so I just don't play. From my clubhouse experience of past, this reminded me of a lesser experienced pilot, who was very well read, trying hard to impress everyone else, and railing against any challenge to their standing in aviation. I do recall one poster trying to ""meet in the middle" on a topic with Guppy, and Guppy stating that he/she never compromizes a point - must make two crew cockpit relationships challenging!

Guppy offered lots of knowledge, but the price was higher than other knowledgable posters.

Is Guppy gone? What stops him/her rejoining under another personna, and going 'round again?

"It's not really possible to actually win or loose here, you just post for whatever reason motivates you, and hope that someone takes an interest in what you've written"


Leaving aside this comment was made in respect of Guppy, I think these words are the wisest I have read and can apply to every PPRune post.

Extremely erudite

I have also met a few posters from these boards and regularly keep in contact with them in my day to day life. A regular topic of conversation and amusement was had discussing Guppy and that other very well known and prolific walter mitty on this private forum with a penchant for gross exageration and fantasies. Anybody with any sense can see right through them. I suspect Guppy probably was an experienced Pilot with a lot of useful knowledge to offer, but his incredibly aggressive style made it impossible to respect him. 411A was completely different, he rarely if ever attacked people on a personal level, also his credentials have been confirmed as correct, he was the 'real deal.' Guppy also made his feelings about Britain and the Brits very well known, it appeared he had some serious issues regarding our lack of enthusiasm for blowing people away with handguns and hollow point bullets. Big knives were also another little perversion of his.:uhoh:

On balance I really cannot see a place in a modern day airline cockpit for a man with such a huge ego, pent up aggression, love for weapons and a completely dogmatic and dominearing personality.

You're right.

On the other hand, that would seem to be the perfect personality type to be CEO of a modern low-cost airline.

O'Guppy, you've been rumbled.