Grumpy Pilot Problem

Spawned from a drifting thread on the death of a gliderport:

On Friday, January 24, 2014 9:57:39 PM UTC-5, wrote:

When pilots drive 125 miles to a hot desert "middle of nowhere" location to fly gliders, they don't expect to receive lectures and condescending attitudes from the FBO and staff.

This rings very true. A few years back, the place that I learned to soar realized that it had GPP (Grumpy Pilot Problem) and that Grumpy Pilots were killing the operation. When I got there, a deliberately friendly and encouraging new deal had come to fore, but every so often a GRUMP would make an ASS of himself. The experienced people, who had seen it so many times before, would shake their heads and laugh. But some of the younger and newer people took that bad behavior to heart. Score...minus one for gliderport.

The problem is two-fold:

1)TRUE GRUMPS - pilots who are in the habit of boosting their fragile egos by treating student pilots and "ride people" poorly. There are so many ways to do this and we have all seen it.

2)FALSE GRUMPS - pilots that (rightly so) adopt a pre-flight focused-on-the- mission steely gaze. They either say nothing to a newbie or respond in grunts. Their vacant gaze looks to be a scowl to the bubbling beginners in their post-flight euphoria. Experienced people know that the steely gaze is purposeful.

Newbies have a very hard time sorting Grumps from False Grumps. Both kinds of grumps do great harm to the sport.

The real Grumps should be more self-aware and behave better, or just stay away from the newbies. The False Grumps should excuse themselves from the group and stand off 50 feet or so when they are ready to enter their pre-flight meditation phase.

And then there is that rare and priceless creature, the Anti-Grump. That congenial pilot who sits and waits for the lift to improve. With practiced skill, he graciously extends himself to guests and students, without overbearing. He does the sport a world of good.

On Saturday, January 25, 2014 9:12:47 AM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
Spawned from a drifting thread on the death of a gliderport:



On Friday, January 24, 2014 9:57:39 PM UTC-5, wrote:



When pilots drive 125 miles to a hot desert "middle of nowhere" location to fly gliders, they don't expect to receive lectures and condescending attitudes from the FBO and staff.



This rings very true. A few years back, the place that I learned to soar realized that it had GPP (Grumpy Pilot Problem) and that Grumpy Pilots were killing the operation. When I got there, a deliberately friendly and encouraging new deal had come to fore, but every so often a GRUMP would make an ASS of himself. The experienced people, who had seen it so many times before, would shake their heads and laugh. But some of the younger and newer people took that bad behavior to heart. Score...minus one for gliderport.



The problem is two-fold:



1)TRUE GRUMPS - pilots who are in the habit of boosting their fragile egos by treating student pilots and "ride people" poorly. There are so many ways to do this and we have all seen it.



2)FALSE GRUMPS - pilots that (rightly so) adopt a pre-flight focused-on-the- mission steely gaze. They either say nothing to a newbie or respond in grunts. Their vacant gaze looks to be a scowl to the bubbling beginners in their post-flight euphoria. Experienced people know that the steely gaze is purposeful.



Newbies have a very hard time sorting Grumps from False Grumps. Both kinds of grumps do great harm to the sport.



The real Grumps should be more self-aware and behave better, or just stay away from the newbies. The False Grumps should excuse themselves from the group and stand off 50 feet or so when they are ready to enter their pre-flight meditation phase.



And then there is that rare and priceless creature, the Anti-Grump. That congenial pilot who sits and waits for the lift to improve. With practiced skill, he graciously extends himself to guests and students, without overbearing. He does the sport a world of good.

True. Were we all such good ambassadors for soaring.

Recalling some anecdotal examples, there are a couple of different things that come to mind. From watching clubs and chapters more closely than commercial operations, there are certain choke points which may affect long term viability. Airport access is one, but in the club world, it's too often loss of a private airport due to land values, death or retirement of land owner, and sometimes unfriendly airport boards and managers deciding that gliding doesn't fit with their master plans. (In a few cases it's been loss of the club's towing services which were not club owned). It's doubly frustrating when those in charge of airport planning at any level are not pilots. However, among soaring pilots, there are those that don't stay with the sport. I've seen the president of a Corvette owners' club quit after a week because he hadn't gotten his license. Not quite the same turn key experience as a Vette I guess. We churn through SSA members at the 2-3 year levels due to lack of achievement I suspect. Those leaving in five years often represent a change in family, job location, or some other life event. Some of those may find their way back once the kids are a bit older, or when they change locations again. Those that get the soaring disease as youth may make life decisions that keep them in soaring. Another bump seems to be the 15-year participant. Some of these have been intensely involved in the sport, private-owners, racing pilots, record setters, writers, and at the soaring site every weekend. At that point, perhaps another interest takes precedence, there's a family change, or a big career change, or perhaps they've either achieved or not achieved their goals, or their original cadre of soaring friends have moved on or retired from the sport so the overall fun factor is no longer there. This seems to be where PeterKW (Private Glider only rating and apparently active/interested 1993-2007) might be. Yes, the local soaring environment/culture may have changed and with it the fun factor. Intense professionals like him tend to be Type A but also have to be highly empathetic. Never met the man, but understand his critiques though they may be overstated or do not reflect current reality. Last time I checked, at least three or four operations were based at Krey. Not sure which have a pulse, nor do I know if they are considering the long term impact of John Krey's exit from soaring someday as a possible choke point to soaring. This is an interesting link, but see the disclaimers at the bottom. https://sites.google.com/site/kreyfieldflyers/

Crystalaire has the Southern California Soaring Academy http://www.soaringacademy.org/

PeterKW perhaps needs to visit and see if his critiques match current reality. Can't speak to the situation at California City apart from what has been presented online. Where prudent and possible, involvement with the airport board is a good idea. There are certainly good relationships out there.. Then there are interim airport managers and career builders that have entirely different agendas of growth and expansion and all too often they see gliding activities as an impediment to those career advancement plans. They seem to sway the board and even make trouble for gliding at the ADO level. Makes it tough on everyone.

My $0.02,

Frank Whiteley

On Saturday, January 25, 2014 9:49:40 AM UTC-7, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Saturday, January 25, 2014 9:12:47 AM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:

Spawned from a drifting thread on the death of a gliderport:







On Friday, January 24, 2014 9:57:39 PM UTC-5, wrote:







When pilots drive 125 miles to a hot desert "middle of nowhere" location to fly gliders, they don't expect to receive lectures and condescending attitudes from the FBO and staff.







This rings very true. A few years back, the place that I learned to soar realized that it had GPP (Grumpy Pilot Problem) and that Grumpy Pilots were killing the operation. When I got there, a deliberately friendly and encouraging new deal had come to fore, but every so often a GRUMP would make an ASS of himself. The experienced people, who had seen it so many times before, would shake their heads and laugh. But some of the younger and newer people took that bad behavior to heart. Score...minus one for gliderport.