Thoughts on a beautiful spring evening...

I was sitting on a Mississippi River levee this evening, eating a big piece
of home-made pecan pie, watching a tugboat struggle against the current, and
pondering life.

We had flown here in Atlas, our Cherokee Pathfinder -- a flight that took a
whopping twenty minutes. We'd made the flight a hundred times, over the
last eleven years -- it's out default
"rather-go-somewhere-than-fly-the-pattern" flight -- but every now and then
something made it different.

Tonight was different.

We had flown there as a flight of two, with close friends. They had brought
their baby and toddler with them, while we had flown with our daughter, who
has been flying with us since birth. The evening was sublime, with the sun
a low, glowing orb in the sky. The flight had been wondrous.

Instead of eating dinner, we had decided to pick up homemade pies from a
favorite restaurant, milk from a convenience store, and take everything down
to a riverside park. It was decadent and unhealthy, and the kids loved it.

So, I sat, eating pecan pie, watching the river flow by, watching the kids
play...and my thoughts turned strangely to the folks on this newsgroup.
Memories of all the great folks who have taught me so much, all the people
who have shared their flying experiences here...and all the folks who have
so recently brought this great group to its knees.

As I watched the great river roll by, at the end of gorgeous, late-spring
flight, eating home-made pecan pie with family and friends, I thought of the
trolls who have done such damage here, and was overwhelmed with sadness for
them. I realized that these folks would never, ever, feel the joy of flying
over a late spring landscape, of watching the sun low over the Mississippi
River. They would never know what it's like to push the throttle forward
and feel the acceleration pushing you back in your seat, of the wheels
getting light right before the wings take over and the plane arks strongly
into a crystal clear sky.

Later, as I banked over that big river, so different looking from up here,
the water fowl scattering far below, thoughts of this group faded to
insignificance, as they should. Touching down lightly back in Iowa City,
however, taxiing past the Ercoupe that we've offered to buy, pushing the
plane back into the hangar, I realized that these trolls, these wannabe
pilots and former pilots, are quite simply pathetic. They spend endless
hours here, talking about things they'll never know, asking questions they
don't want answered, sniping, hating, filling their days with pointless
personal attacks, and -- worst of all -- drowning out and discouraging all
the good people here.

Something's got to change. Aviation is a tiny, ever-shrinking group, with
diminishing political clout and threats on all sides. This group has, in
the past, represented the best of the piloting community, and we simply
can't waste any more of our time tussling with trolls and malcontents.
Ignore 'em, kill file 'em, do what you gotta do -- but do NOT engage them.

Take the high road, please -- we've simply got to fix this!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Oh what the heck, I'll take the bait...
Had this conversation recently with a patient who is a pilot but not
flying due to money issues... I floated the thought that we are headed
back to the 30's where airplanes (real airplanes, not self loading
cattle haulers) will be an unusual sight... Then only a tiny fraction
of the population was a pilot... Today (up till now) about the same
percentage of the population are pilots as are physicians, as are ham
radio operators, and some others - in other words a small
percentage... Dunno about the docs, but pilots are a shrinking
percentage...

Now we can all rattle off the likely causes - Draconian FAA
enforcement of even minor infractions of those invisible walls in the
sky, nonsensical but dangerous and intrusive HSA security regulations
that seem to multiply daily, rapidly rising cost of insurance, of
hangars, of parts, of maintenance, and of course - of gasoline...
I looked at the cost of gas at Washington National, they didn't have
any but the jet fuel was nearly $8 a gallon!

Chatted with a CFI at my home field yesterday... He has two regular
planes for rental and instruction... He also has an LSA (don't know
the model)... I asked how the LSA was going... He said it was bad...
When I asked why, he commented that the many prospective students for
trianing, and especially for the LSA, can't pass a medical and/or
security check for the instruction phase... That the biggest reasons
are DUI and drug convictions... He says that the vast majority of
younger people out there do not understand that a drug bust
permanently ends their chances of getting any kind of a security
clearance, including an airmans medical certificate... That was a new
thought for me... Even though I deal with drug and alcohol issues
daily I didn't realize how pervasive the criminal record for those
offenses is...

denny

On Thu, 22 May 2008 04:29:53 -0700 (PDT), Denny
wrote:




are DUI and drug convictions... He says that the vast majority of
younger people out there do not understand that a drug bust
permanently ends their chances of getting any kind of a security
clearance, including an airmans medical certificate... That was a new
thought for me... Even though I deal with drug and alcohol issues
daily I didn't realize how pervasive the criminal record for those
offenses is...

denny

denny is that a bad thing?
drugs damage brains, often permanently.
do you really want that in the air with you?
I dont.

I'm never in favour of an exclusive environment in aviation but it is
an environment where death stalks the stupid. there are levels of
knowledge and skill that must be met by participants in the
environment if they are to live to retirement.
they have to reach competence.

Stealth Pilot

Denny,

rapidly rising cost of insurance, of
hangars, of parts, of maintenance, and of course - of gasoline...


I don't buy that. Best selling airplane for years: Cirrus SR22. That's
their offering with the BIG, gas-guzzling engine, not the smaller SR20.
People don't care (enough).

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

I don't buy that. Best selling airplane for years: Cirrus SR22. That's
their offering with the BIG, gas-guzzling engine, not the smaller SR20.
People don't care (enough).

I think that's finally changing. Cirrus' sales numbers are way down, as is
the used aircraft market for big-bore pistons.

Funny how spending $300 to fill your tanks changes your perspective on
things.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Had this conversation recently with a patient who is a pilot but not
flying due to money issues... I floated the thought that we are headed
back to the 30's where airplanes (real airplanes, not self loading
cattle haulers) will be an unusual sight...

Yep, it's already happening. Our flight of two last night represented the
only aircraft flying at Muscatine Muni, on a picture-perfect gorgeous spring
evening.

Iowa City was somewhat busier, with four of us arriving in the pattern at
sunset, but that's always a good time to watch traffic, with everyone trying
to get down before darkness sets in.

It's getting harder to enjoy the warm afterglow of a flight well-done.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote...
Had this conversation recently with a patient who is a pilot but not
flying due to money issues... I floated the thought that we are headed
back to the 30's where airplanes (real airplanes, not self loading
cattle haulers) will be an unusual sight...

Yep, it's already happening. Our flight of two last night represented the
only aircraft flying at Muscatine Muni, on a picture-perfect gorgeous
spring
evening.

Iowa City was somewhat busier, with four of us arriving in the pattern at
sunset, but that's always a good time to watch traffic, with everyone
trying
to get down before darkness sets in.

It's getting harder to enjoy the warm afterglow of a flight well-done.

Our home base is starting to look like a ghost town. The ramp used to be
brimming with aircraft and it's so sparsely populated now it's actually
depressing.

BDS

On May 22, 12:50*am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
I realized that these trolls, these wannabe
pilots and former pilots, are quite simply pathetic.

Trolls always are. But then, we've always had them, for as long as
there has been usenet.
They never mattered much.

Something's got to change.

Something already has. Just not for the better.

Jay, I remember when you showed up here. Things were already well on
their way downhill - all that kept us going was inertia. There was a
time when usenet was different.

There was a time when we all posted with our real names. Now, the
only ones who can safely do so are the retired and self-employed,
those still in school, and those lucky few who work for sparklingly
sane organizations where a complaint that you are posting to usenet
during working hours can't possibly get any traction. There was a
time when making a complaint like that against another poster was
unthinkable - and then came the era of the fish, and even those who
could not see the writing on the wall before went anonymous.

There was a time when conversations were mostly worthwhile here.
People might be wrong, but they were generally not grossly ignorant or
stupid. There might be heated debate, but it was debate, not name-
calling. It's not that trolling, flaming, and other such stupidity
didn't happen - it did - but it was far more rare, and generally done
with more style.

So what changed?

It used to be that there was a barrier to entry. If you wanted to
access usenet, you needed to be able to handle a shell account - unix,
VMS, something. You needed to make an effort - because there were not
commercials all over the place for internet access. There was a self-
selection process, and it selected for those who were comfortable with
computers - and thus with a more logical, less emotional style of
thinking and communicating.

This is absolutely essential to a usenet discussion. In real life
discussion, we have limits on how nasty a discussion can get. There
are time limits - discussions can't usually drag on for hours, never
mind days. There are participant limits - you can't really have an
unmoderated discussion with more than a few people. There are
personal limits - at some point, you risk getting punched in the face,
but long before you get to that point, there will be body language
telling you to back off. Threre are limits to what you can claim -
everyone has met you and knows who you are. Finally, there is the
basic limit - if someone is a pain, you can just not invite him again.

All this is lacking in usenet, and the only way to compensate is a
certain detachment and formalism - which is normal for interacting
with a computer anyway. I am, of course, dating myself when I say
this. These days, most people don't really interact with a computer -
they're not using it to write code, analyze data, etc. They're using
it as mostly a communication tool - think email, word processing, web,
presentation. It's mostly just a way of interacting with other
people. Even the games have gone that way - most of the popular ones
are massively multiplayer. But it wasn't like that back then.

This imposed a certain rigor on the discussion. You were typing into
a computer, so you were less likely to type a poorly considered,
emotional argument. You knew that a computer didn't care what
credentials you held, so you didn't expect your credentials to impress
anyone on the other side of the screen and knew that what you wrote
would have to stand on its own merits. You knew that what you said
would have to be well thought out, internally consistent, logical - or
it would be rejected (as an error by a machine, and by ridicule on
usenet) - and so you tried to think things through logically and
eliminate inconsistency. That's gone now, and without that, usenet
discussion can't survive.

Of course there was always the exception. In September, the new
college students would show up and get accounts on the university
computers. Most were not used to using computers. Many would find
usenet. Most would quickly discover that it wasn't their cup of tea.
They discovered that if they weren't interested in participating in a
logical, civil discussion of the topic at hand, they were in the
minority and could expect to be ridiculed. Most disappeared. A few
stayed, and became part of the usenet community.

And then AOL opened the floodgates - all you needed was an AOL account
with it's point-and-click interface, and you could access usenet.
That was the September that never ended. It's been downhill ever
since.

The degeneration of this particular (aviation) usenet hierarchy has
little or nothing to do with the declining number of pilots. Check
the scuba and skydiving hierarchies - they are in far worse shape, and
their numbers are growing, not shrinking and aging like ours. Most of
the people I know who were serious contributors to the aviation groups
and have since mostly faded out are still quite active in aviation.
They are flying, building, fixing, and restoring aircraft. I know I
am. They have not dropped out of aviation, but usenet - and you can't
even pinpoint when it happened.

Every once in a while, someone will announce - generally by starting a
new thread with that topic - that he is leaving the group. It never
really works that way. When someone does that, you can be sure he'll
be back. People don't leave with a bang, but with a whimper. You
will have a regular and prolific contributor that seems to be less
regular, less prolific. Weeks, sometimes months pass by without a
post - and then the posts are few and far between, and eventually you
realize that he's not a regular anymore - he drops by every once in a
while, but mostly he is gone.

Usenet was once a place where you could have a higher quality of
discussion than you could at the local pilot's lounge in the airport -
the limited access assured that the people here were brighter than
average. But that barrier to entry is long gone, and the people who
preceded that barrier are mostly gone too. Now this is just like the
local pilot's lounge - only with all the problems that the lack of non-
written communication, the remoteness, the open access, and the
effective anonymity causes. Thus, mostly not worth it. Just
something to do when you can't make it out to the airport and hang out
at the pilot's lounge. And thus the appeal to the has-beens and never-
were's. Those still active in GA have mostly moved on.

Michael

Wow..

Lots of words Michael, all of them good..Thanks for posting...

I was going to post as well, but I will be lazy and say "DITTO"

SOME of us still use usenet as we were having a conversation face to
face..

I just MIGHT have the chance to meet some of you some day,

(I would LOVE to see Jay's Inn.., and if Iam ever close enough, I
will ! )

So it may happen, and I don't want to have to duck...

Cheers!

Dave




On Thu, 22 May 2008 06:49:04 -0700 (PDT), Michael
wrote:

On May 22, 12:50*am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
I realized that these trolls, these wannabe
pilots and former pilots, are quite simply pathetic.

Trolls always are. But then, we've always had them, for as long as
there has been usenet.
They never mattered much.

Something's got to change.

Something already has. Just not for the better.

Jay, I remember when you showed up here. Things were already well on
their way downhill - all that kept us going was inertia. There was a
time when usenet was different.

There was a time when we all posted with our real names. Now, the
only ones who can safely do so are the retired and self-employed,
those still in school, and those lucky few who work for sparklingly
sane organizations where a complaint that you are posting to usenet
during working hours can't possibly get any traction. There was a
time when making a complaint like that against another poster was
unthinkable - and then came the era of the fish, and even those who
could not see the writing on the wall before went anonymous.

There was a time when conversations were mostly worthwhile here.
People might be wrong, but they were generally not grossly ignorant or
stupid. There might be heated debate, but it was debate, not name-
calling. It's not that trolling, flaming, and other such stupidity
didn't happen - it did - but it was far more rare, and generally done
with more style.

So what changed?

It used to be that there was a barrier to entry. If you wanted to
access usenet, you needed to be able to handle a shell account - unix,
VMS, something. You needed to make an effort - because there were not
commercials all over the place for internet access. There was a self-
selection process, and it selected for those who were comfortable with
computers - and thus with a more logical, less emotional style of
thinking and communicating.

This is absolutely essential to a usenet discussion. In real life
discussion, we have limits on how nasty a discussion can get. There
are time limits - discussions can't usually drag on for hours, never
mind days. There are participant limits - you can't really have an
unmoderated discussion with more than a few people. There are
personal limits - at some point, you risk getting punched in the face,
but long before you get to that point, there will be body language
telling you to back off. Threre are limits to what you can claim -
everyone has met you and knows who you are. Finally, there is the
basic limit - if someone is a pain, you can just not invite him again.

All this is lacking in usenet, and the only way to compensate is a
certain detachment and formalism - which is normal for interacting
with a computer anyway. I am, of course, dating myself when I say
this. These days, most people don't really interact with a computer -
they're not using it to write code, analyze data, etc. They're using
it as mostly a communication tool - think email, word processing, web,
presentation. It's mostly just a way of interacting with other
people. Even the games have gone that way - most of the popular ones
are massively multiplayer. But it wasn't like that back then.

This imposed a certain rigor on the discussion. You were typing into
a computer, so you were less likely to type a poorly considered,
emotional argument. You knew that a computer didn't care what
credentials you held, so you didn't expect your credentials to impress
anyone on the other side of the screen and knew that what you wrote
would have to stand on its own merits. You knew that what you said
would have to be well thought out, internally consistent, logical - or
it would be rejected (as an error by a machine, and by ridicule on
usenet) - and so you tried to think things through logically and
eliminate inconsistency. That's gone now, and without that, usenet
discussion can't survive.

Of course there was always the exception. In September, the new
college students would show up and get accounts on the university
computers. Most were not used to using computers. Many would find
usenet. Most would quickly discover that it wasn't their cup of tea.
They discovered that if they weren't interested in participating in a
logical, civil discussion of the topic at hand, they were in the
minority and could expect to be ridiculed. Most disappeared. A few
stayed, and became part of the usenet community.

And then AOL opened the floodgates - all you needed was an AOL account
with it's point-and-click interface, and you could access usenet.
That was the September that never ended. It's been downhill ever
since.

The degeneration of this particular (aviation) usenet hierarchy has
little or nothing to do with the declining number of pilots. Check
the scuba and skydiving hierarchies - they are in far worse shape, and
their numbers are growing, not shrinking and aging like ours. Most of
the people I know who were serious contributors to the aviation groups
and have since mostly faded out are still quite active in aviation.
They are flying, building, fixing, and restoring aircraft. I know I
am. They have not dropped out of aviation, but usenet - and you can't
even pinpoint when it happened.

Every once in a while, someone will announce - generally by starting a
new thread with that topic - that he is leaving the group. It never
really works that way. When someone does that, you can be sure he'll
be back. People don't leave with a bang, but with a whimper. You
will have a regular and prolific contributor that seems to be less
regular, less prolific. Weeks, sometimes months pass by without a
post - and then the posts are few and far between, and eventually you
realize that he's not a regular anymore - he drops by every once in a
while, but mostly he is gone.

Usenet was once a place where you could have a higher quality of
discussion than you could at the local pilot's lounge in the airport -
the limited access assured that the people here were brighter than
average. But that barrier to entry is long gone, and the people who
preceded that barrier are mostly gone too. Now this is just like the
local pilot's lounge - only with all the problems that the lack of non-
written communication, the remoteness, the open access, and the
effective anonymity causes. Thus, mostly not worth it. Just
something to do when you can't make it out to the airport and hang out
at the pilot's lounge. And thus the appeal to the has-beens and never-
were's. Those still active in GA have mostly moved on.

Michael

I think Denny's point was... not wanting to put words into the OP mouth, but
to take a different reading.
The youth destroy their life with drugs.. before they realize what they have
done to their future.
BT

"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 May 2008 04:29:53 -0700 (PDT), Denny
wrote:




are DUI and drug convictions... He says that the vast majority of
younger people out there do not understand that a drug bust
permanently ends their chances of getting any kind of a security
clearance, including an airmans medical certificate... That was a new
thought for me... Even though I deal with drug and alcohol issues
daily I didn't realize how pervasive the criminal record for those
offenses is...

denny

denny is that a bad thing?
drugs damage brains, often permanently.
do you really want that in the air with you?
I dont.

I'm never in favour of an exclusive environment in aviation but it is
an environment where death stalks the stupid. there are levels of
knowledge and skill that must be met by participants in the
environment if they are to live to retirement.
they have to reach competence.

Stealth Pilot