Of course I can land in your front garden
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: North
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Well, this my first and probably only posting on pprune, (I do not particuly like computer let alone the internet). I hope as a newcomer some of the posters above may have a little more respect for my offering than they did for other fellow aviators. I think a few of you would do well to take a CRM course - urgently if you are flying with other crew or passengers!
Until last week I had never even heard of pprune, a friend of my son suggested that I might have a look at a series of posting which might interest me. So here I am in the Private Pilots Forum and reading this series of postings. Please bear with me as it has taken some time for me to compose this and some points may have been answered already as I wrote this off the internet first.
My initial impressions of pprune were good then I found this part of the site. The attitude, behaviour of some posters and their treatment of another pilot who has differing opinions to them is the very reason I gave up club flying, over 11 years ago. It reminds me of the playground of a primary school. Is it any wonder the general non-flying public seems to be so full of misconceptions about aviation and pilots. Would you treat a child, spotter or potential recruit at your club or field the same way? I really hope not. I believe normal schools call ithis sort of behaviour bullying or a workplace would probably class it as harrassment.
Pilotwolf's face doesn't seem to fit here and several of the posters have, I feel attacked him/her for having different views to them, I also found the other series of posting I think he/she refers to, again he/she was targetted for differening views. Several other people in the posting also seemed to think the behaviour described in the first post was irresponsible, as probably do others who having seen the treatment one person receives for offering his/her views, chose to remain silent. I think based on the way the event was described I too feel the pilot may have not exercised the maximum amount of airmanship expected of him/he based on the available information.
Before I also get attacked please read my 'qualifications' for feeling I can comment on this.
1. Approximately 11000 hours total time, about 3400 of that was in helicopters, so I am not biased to either type of flying.
2. Approximately 8000 hours of the total has been spent flying into grass and unprepared strips, some in South Africa and some on my own farm.
3. I have flown singles, twins, piston, turbine/ turboprops, etc. I used to own a C152 until the foot and mouth problems when we nearly lost the farm - unfortunately the C152 was the first thing which I couldn't justify keeping. I have now lost the farm, but see below for the reason.
4. I had a prepared strip, which planning permission was granted for, including a small hangar. I maintained the strip after I sold the C152 as I hoped one day to get another.
5. My nearest neighbour was 2 miles away, unfortunately though he was only just about a mile from the preferred final approach.
6. I can't say where I lived but suffice to say it was pretty remote but close enough to some of our offshore islands to be of interest to Special Branch and Customs, in the first few months of use.
The previous neighbour wasn't anti flying and tolerated my 2 -3 excursions a week on average, without complaint. Within the week of a new neighbour moving in I had a letter from his solicitor complainin about the noise, my overflight of his house and his belief that I was breaking the low flying laws. While I can't be too precise about the times and places as I am still in a legal battle for damages I will be as accurate as I can.
Well the letters, (about 2 or 3 a month), kept coming and I kept polity answering them accurately and explaining the Regs, in particular Rule 5. I even tried inviting him and his wife for a free pleasure flight - which was declined along with more threats.
I made the effort to use the opposite approach when possible, shortening my downwind, flying very short finals and if unavoidable to approach overhead his house stay as high as possible until the last moment and drop in and land well down the strip, but this wasn't good enough for him. He then started calling the house after he had seen me leave and rant at my wife or son. On my solicitor's and the police's advice I started recording every detail of his abuse, the police, (a old fashioned non politically correct village Bobby), paid him a visit and the calls and letters stopped. Instead old tyres and strange holes began appearing on the strip - unfortunately I could never seem to catch anyone 'at it'. The hangar had CCTV and was alarmed but never approached at anytime. The problems stopped immediately I had sold the plane. This all took place over about 7 months.
Anyway a friend, who knew the strip well and had used it many times in the past, returned to the UK after several months aboard, knowing no details of the 'friendly' neighbour decided to pay me a surprise visit in his sporty little number!
He arrived overhead, flew a low level recon, and then made a sort of run and break type manoeuvre onto finals. The neighbour took offence at the 'aerobatics' over his house and decided to call the emergency services and report a plane crash. Fortunately my friendly Bobby knew I no longer owned a plane so called me on the phone immediately, and was fortunately able to stop the mass attendance of the police, fire, rescue, ambulance, CAA, AAIB, etc. before it all got too out of hand.
Unfortunately the local press arrived, presumably called by the neighbour too, and it took a considerable amount of convincing them that my friend hadn't crashed. Well he flew the aircraft out the next morning and the letters started again with vengence, along with a SB visit as my friend's aircraft was on the N register.
Now I fell out with my friend over his behaviour and was actually quite worried that someone I considered a sensible and responsible pilot had done what he had without even a call to ask me about the state of the strip. What if there had been one of the strange holes there, which he may have missed on his recon?
A few weeks after this, the neighbour presented me with a petition to close my strip, including several names who I thought were my friends and who had never objected to my flying before, some had even been on trips with me. Well this was the final straw, I decided I didn't need this sort of hassle or expense nor was it fair on my family so I sold up, barely breaking even, and moved away from what was our dream home and lifestlye.
At no time did I or my friend do anything illegal, and I went out of my way to sort things out amicably with the neighbour - all to no effect whatsoever.
While my friend's actions weren't the sole reason for my losing my dream, it was the final nail in the coffin. Well thats my sermon over except to say...
... please consider what effect your actions might have on others even if you are doing nothing illegal. Please respect other peoples' views, especially when they share the same hobby/interest/career as yourself. Enjoy flying - I no longer can - but please be sensible, safe and exercise good airmanship - EVERYTIME YOU CLIMB INTO ANY AIRCRAFT.
Until last week I had never even heard of pprune, a friend of my son suggested that I might have a look at a series of posting which might interest me. So here I am in the Private Pilots Forum and reading this series of postings. Please bear with me as it has taken some time for me to compose this and some points may have been answered already as I wrote this off the internet first.
My initial impressions of pprune were good then I found this part of the site. The attitude, behaviour of some posters and their treatment of another pilot who has differing opinions to them is the very reason I gave up club flying, over 11 years ago. It reminds me of the playground of a primary school. Is it any wonder the general non-flying public seems to be so full of misconceptions about aviation and pilots. Would you treat a child, spotter or potential recruit at your club or field the same way? I really hope not. I believe normal schools call ithis sort of behaviour bullying or a workplace would probably class it as harrassment.
Pilotwolf's face doesn't seem to fit here and several of the posters have, I feel attacked him/her for having different views to them, I also found the other series of posting I think he/she refers to, again he/she was targetted for differening views. Several other people in the posting also seemed to think the behaviour described in the first post was irresponsible, as probably do others who having seen the treatment one person receives for offering his/her views, chose to remain silent. I think based on the way the event was described I too feel the pilot may have not exercised the maximum amount of airmanship expected of him/he based on the available information.
Before I also get attacked please read my 'qualifications' for feeling I can comment on this.
1. Approximately 11000 hours total time, about 3400 of that was in helicopters, so I am not biased to either type of flying.
2. Approximately 8000 hours of the total has been spent flying into grass and unprepared strips, some in South Africa and some on my own farm.
3. I have flown singles, twins, piston, turbine/ turboprops, etc. I used to own a C152 until the foot and mouth problems when we nearly lost the farm - unfortunately the C152 was the first thing which I couldn't justify keeping. I have now lost the farm, but see below for the reason.
4. I had a prepared strip, which planning permission was granted for, including a small hangar. I maintained the strip after I sold the C152 as I hoped one day to get another.
5. My nearest neighbour was 2 miles away, unfortunately though he was only just about a mile from the preferred final approach.
6. I can't say where I lived but suffice to say it was pretty remote but close enough to some of our offshore islands to be of interest to Special Branch and Customs, in the first few months of use.
The previous neighbour wasn't anti flying and tolerated my 2 -3 excursions a week on average, without complaint. Within the week of a new neighbour moving in I had a letter from his solicitor complainin about the noise, my overflight of his house and his belief that I was breaking the low flying laws. While I can't be too precise about the times and places as I am still in a legal battle for damages I will be as accurate as I can.
Well the letters, (about 2 or 3 a month), kept coming and I kept polity answering them accurately and explaining the Regs, in particular Rule 5. I even tried inviting him and his wife for a free pleasure flight - which was declined along with more threats.
I made the effort to use the opposite approach when possible, shortening my downwind, flying very short finals and if unavoidable to approach overhead his house stay as high as possible until the last moment and drop in and land well down the strip, but this wasn't good enough for him. He then started calling the house after he had seen me leave and rant at my wife or son. On my solicitor's and the police's advice I started recording every detail of his abuse, the police, (a old fashioned non politically correct village Bobby), paid him a visit and the calls and letters stopped. Instead old tyres and strange holes began appearing on the strip - unfortunately I could never seem to catch anyone 'at it'. The hangar had CCTV and was alarmed but never approached at anytime. The problems stopped immediately I had sold the plane. This all took place over about 7 months.
Anyway a friend, who knew the strip well and had used it many times in the past, returned to the UK after several months aboard, knowing no details of the 'friendly' neighbour decided to pay me a surprise visit in his sporty little number!
He arrived overhead, flew a low level recon, and then made a sort of run and break type manoeuvre onto finals. The neighbour took offence at the 'aerobatics' over his house and decided to call the emergency services and report a plane crash. Fortunately my friendly Bobby knew I no longer owned a plane so called me on the phone immediately, and was fortunately able to stop the mass attendance of the police, fire, rescue, ambulance, CAA, AAIB, etc. before it all got too out of hand.
Unfortunately the local press arrived, presumably called by the neighbour too, and it took a considerable amount of convincing them that my friend hadn't crashed. Well he flew the aircraft out the next morning and the letters started again with vengence, along with a SB visit as my friend's aircraft was on the N register.
Now I fell out with my friend over his behaviour and was actually quite worried that someone I considered a sensible and responsible pilot had done what he had without even a call to ask me about the state of the strip. What if there had been one of the strange holes there, which he may have missed on his recon?
A few weeks after this, the neighbour presented me with a petition to close my strip, including several names who I thought were my friends and who had never objected to my flying before, some had even been on trips with me. Well this was the final straw, I decided I didn't need this sort of hassle or expense nor was it fair on my family so I sold up, barely breaking even, and moved away from what was our dream home and lifestlye.
At no time did I or my friend do anything illegal, and I went out of my way to sort things out amicably with the neighbour - all to no effect whatsoever.
While my friend's actions weren't the sole reason for my losing my dream, it was the final nail in the coffin. Well thats my sermon over except to say...
... please consider what effect your actions might have on others even if you are doing nothing illegal. Please respect other peoples' views, especially when they share the same hobby/interest/career as yourself. Enjoy flying - I no longer can - but please be sensible, safe and exercise good airmanship - EVERYTIME YOU CLIMB INTO ANY AIRCRAFT.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: North Uist, Outer Hebrides
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Blimey!! Good on you, Cattle Driver....My internet connection would have timed out long before I'd finished an epic post such as yours. You obviously type quicker that I do...
The Original Whirly
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Belper, Derbyshire, UK
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Cattle Driver,
You probably won't even read this, but what the hell; I like posting.
As for credibility, my 500 hours TT can't compare to your thousands of hours, but I wasn't planning to flame you anyway. However, I do know about PPRuNe - you have to be on here a lot to have over 1000 posts (sad person that I am 
). There are a huge number of people registered, and like people everywhere, they vary a lot. As has been said on other threads, some post in a hurry, when tired, when annoyed, or without thinking - and some of us post to personal friends things which could be easily misconstrued by anyone else. For instance, I know Pilotwolf personally - and he comes over as very different in posts to in person, for some reason or another. So I think you may have jumped to conclusions rather quickly. CRM, primary school, bullying? Come off it!!!! A bunch of us meet twice a year for bashes, several times for fly-ins, and on other occasions too, and I don't even need the fingers of one hand to count the ones I don't get on with. And I run out of fingers and toes if I count the ones who've become personal friends. And I'm by no means unique - a fairly average ppruner in fact.
This thread was deliberately started to stir things up on what had become a fairly boring forum... and by God did it work!
Good on ya Hairyplane; this has been a lot of fun...but it's harmless fun, isn't it.
If you wanted to, I'd suggest you stick around and see for yourself. But since you say you don't like computers or the internet...well, byebye then, and thanks for your opinions. Er...any chance you could make them a little shorter next time though, for those of us with a short attention span.
(Note the smiley; Whirly is known to have a warped sense of humour and that's a JOKE!!!!!)
You probably won't even read this, but what the hell; I like posting.
As for credibility, my 500 hours TT can't compare to your thousands of hours, but I wasn't planning to flame you anyway. However, I do know about PPRuNe - you have to be on here a lot to have over 1000 posts (sad person that I am ). There are a huge number of people registered, and like people everywhere, they vary a lot. As has been said on other threads, some post in a hurry, when tired, when annoyed, or without thinking - and some of us post to personal friends things which could be easily misconstrued by anyone else. For instance, I know Pilotwolf personally - and he comes over as very different in posts to in person, for some reason or another. So I think you may have jumped to conclusions rather quickly. CRM, primary school, bullying? Come off it!!!! A bunch of us meet twice a year for bashes, several times for fly-ins, and on other occasions too, and I don't even need the fingers of one hand to count the ones I don't get on with. And I run out of fingers and toes if I count the ones who've become personal friends. And I'm by no means unique - a fairly average ppruner in fact.This thread was deliberately started to stir things up on what had become a fairly boring forum... and by God did it work!
Good on ya Hairyplane; this has been a lot of fun...but it's harmless fun, isn't it. If you wanted to, I'd suggest you stick around and see for yourself. But since you say you don't like computers or the internet...well, byebye then, and thanks for your opinions. Er...any chance you could make them a little shorter next time though, for those of us with a short attention span.
(Note the smiley; Whirly is known to have a warped sense of humour and that's a JOKE!!!!!)
