Why?

[Colonel]

re: kernel programmer ... my day job:



decent slew rate ...

English tack

Yupper ... this is Ontario, after all!

[HiFlyChick]

I'm Queen's University, Mathematics & Engineering.  You?

Engineering and computer science actually

1)  I find it fascinating that you think the "name calling"
applies to you.  Are you sure it does?  If so, well, then
I guess you have a problem.  People shit on "cowboy
pilots" all the time, too.  Doesn't bother me in the least.

2) Grow a thicker skin.  Not everyone loves me, either,
I have seen some nasty corporate politics in my life
and TC Inspectors have been trying to kill me for years,
and I don't cry myself to sleep every night over it.  I
find it fascinating that you think it is important (or even
possible) for everyone to love and admire you.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not up late bothered by anything said on this board, and no,
I don't think your name calling is aimed at me - I guess I just think that people who
find it necessary to belittle large portions of a certain group should not go unchallenged.

I don't care who does or does not like me on the internet - I'm just an idealist who wishes
that civility could at least be maintained amongst the "brotherhood of pilots"

My bad

[HiFlyChick]

As to your snide remark about the Colonel and me thinking we are better than everyone else you are doing what you are ranting about, you are labeling someone you have never met with your own myopic label.

Actually, I'm making an assumption based on your posts.  Perhaps it was not your intent to come across that way, but they sure give that impression.

Incidentally, to be classified as a rant I believe I would need to use more caps, exclamation points and rude words...

We do however have the self worth to post without hiding behind a made up name..

Colonel is his real name?  Interesting... like Prince....

Welcome to the internet - I wish that the world was a friendly and safe place, but it isn't.  When I feel comfortable on a forum, I use my real name in PMs to people with whom I develop a measure of trust.  I am selectively vague about personal details because there is no controlling whatsoever who reads posts.  People get in trouble all the time because they treat forums like they would a party at a friend's house - it isn't.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

It is nice we can discuss these little differences civilly  HFC so let me continue. 

Colonel is his real name?  Interesting... like Prince....

The Colonel is quite open regarding his true identity, hell he is uber open about it. 

Welcome to the internet - I wish that the world was a friendly and safe place, but it isn't.  When I feel comfortable on a forum, I use my real name in PMs to people with whom I develop a measure of trust.  I am selectively vague about personal details because there is no controlling whatsoever who reads posts.  People get in trouble all the time because they treat forums like they would a party at a friend's house - it isn't.

I agree the world is not a friendly place if you do not know your way around the unfriendly parts.

I have spent many, many years working in some of the most dangerous places on earth, such as two years flying for TF1 ( The biggest TV network in France. ) filming in war zones. Obviously I survived but the learning curve was steep.

My self and four partners worked all over the planet for a few decades and always used our real names when posting on Pprune the biggest aviation forum in the world, it worked just fine and we actually got a lot of excellent free advertising by using our real names.

In fact there is an example of free advertizing from Pprune.

Old 3rd Sep 2014, 02:25   #24 (permalink)
PBY

Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Around the corner
Posts: 114

Chuck was the only guy I met in my flying carrier who could properly teach landings. Before you stone me on this forum, realize, that I am not saying that he is the only guy who can teach landings properly. I only said he is the only guy I met in my 10000 hrs of flying who could do it. Thanks to him I can relieve the suffering of many post-traumatic-airline-training-department-disorders.
Airline instructor, unless he she has a previous instructing background, is just trained to recognise somebody's mistakes, but is not equipped with the tools
How to fix them. Airline instructor was not even trained to give instrument rating or a licence. Just renew it.airline instructor can only give a type rating to pilots, who are supposed to know how to fly. And now we get the co pilots with 150 hrs total (60 hrs actual flight time). Coming in. They don't even have a license to take their mother up in a Cessna on a nice Sunday afternoon. And these guys are the future instructor pool. So that is the reason we have all these "arrivals". Of course everybody makes mistakes sometime and that is normal. But to many airline guys the last 50 feet of flight is a mystery even more compounded by the educationally non-equipped training departments. So they know only firm landing as opposed to long greaser. Not too many seem to know you can still land nicely right at the touch down zone.
Who is gonna cast the first stone?

Of course it would stand to reason that if I am not afraid to work in the shit holes I worked in and deal with the constant danger of being killed ( Which we almost were several times. ) posting on these forums using my real name would not put me in a state of pure terror would it? 

Anyhow if you are ever in Smith Falls you should visit Andy ( The Colonel. ) you will be very glad you did, especially if you can get to fly with him.

I don't fly much any more because I am to busy enjoying what ever years I have left.....

.....but I often think about the past sixty two years since I first started flying.

By the way if I were to have the choice of one airplane for a fun toy it would be a Stearman with the six hundred H.P. P&W in it. That would give the Colonel such an erection he would go blind. 

The most impressive helicopter I flew was the Russian MI 8....in Africa of course. 

[Colonel]

belittle large portions of a certain group

Civility aside - are the observations accurate?

Have stick & rudder skills deteriorated over
the decades?

Sometimes tough love is what is called for,
even if hurt feelings sometimes result.

You should have met my fanged fighter pilot
father in his prime.  Compared to him, I have
the people skills and bedside manner of Mother
Theresa.

Or, read "The Great Santini" for some historical
perspective.

I might suggest that you get a horse.  Or horses.
Personally, I have found that dogs are much
easier to housetrain than horses, and don't hog
the bed nearly as badly:

a Stearman with the six hundred H.P. P&W

Good Lord!  It's already nose-heavy (and
powerful enough) with the 450hp Wasp Jr!

I've told this story before, but ...

I checked myself out on the R-985 Stearman
by pushing all the knobs forward and leaving
them there.  I like them like that.  On downwind,
it was indicating 180 mph (!) which in retrospect
I attribute to a leaky static system.  So, up goes
the nose and over goes the stick, and we do a
pretty roll on downwind.  Power gently back,
curving base, wheelie.

Knobs forward again, again the ridiculous 180 mph
indicated on downwind.  Ok, says I.  Stick back
for +4G and we loop.  Back comes the throttle,
curving base to final, another wheelie.

A 450hp Stearman is a bit of a cartoon character.

A 600hp Stearman would be insanely nose-heavy
and powerful!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

A 600hp Stearman would be insanely nose-heavy
and powerful!

I have flown a lot of aircraft both fixed and rotary wing and when I am dieing ( from being shot in the saddle. ) I want to hear a 600 H.P. Stearman doing aerobatics while I breath my last.

The sound is incredible, just incredible.

Jets are for kids.

By the way Andy, I can go up the vertical line higher than you in the Pitts. 

And I can hover in ground effect in a light helicopter at a lower power setting than you..

[HiFlyChick]

Civility aside - are the observations accurate?

Have stick & rudder skills deteriorated over the decades?

I guess that's the $64,000 question...

I think the invention of GPS has seen a deterioration in map reading skills, but in the young pilot population as a whole, not necessarily for all youngsters.  While I have flown with some people whose skills were sadly lacking, I have seen others that had skills surpassing their apparent experience.  I haven't really noticed an overall downward skill trend, but then again, I haven't instructed in years, so do not have a wide exposure flying with other pilots in recent years.  Sometimes there's a temptation to romanticise the past and see only the good times (or good pilots) and gloss over the bad - are you sure you don't have selective memory in that regard...?

While some of the circumstance surrounding recent accidents (especially amongst supposedly experienced pilots) are appalling, I have a DVD set of Mayday episodes, and it seems that seemingly silly mistakes are nothing new.  Maybe the increase in world-wide aviation accidents is due more to the increase in flights...?  (But I digress - was just thinking about something you said about tens of thousands of hours not guaranteeing skills)

I might suggest that you get a horse.  Or horses...

I would be in seventh heaven if I had my own horse!  Sadly, I have not had the time/money in later years to get any riding in.  When I worked as a programmer I had both a regular schedule and a regular paycheque.  I also had excessive stress and eventually ended up spending money as a means of coping with being miserable in my job.  While flying has given me much more enjoyable experiences, it has made it difficult to get riding.  Since I live in the burbs, owning my own horse would require boarding it a fair distance away, and I'm not sure I'd want to own one without being able to have it nearby and spend a fair bit of time with it each day.  But now that you've mentioned it, you have re-ignited my interest and I just may wander by the local riding stable and see if there's any chance to pick up a ride or two here or there.  Heck, just spending time grooming a horse would be a treat...

I agree wholeheartedly with that quote from Churchill:
There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man
(and yes, I cheated and googled it to get it right )