Are you really as evil as they say?
Gosh, sometimes I wish.
I'm not sure the facts really matter, but I'm a 3rd generation pilot (my grandfather and his brother flew in WWI, my father was a project/weapons test/instructor pilot on the CF-104, I was born at cold lake, I've been flying since I could walk) and FWIW I have never, in all the decades and thousands of hours that I've been flying, EVER so much as dented or scratched an aircraft.
When I was young, I was really naive. I believed that if I became the very best pilot I could be, and learned all the rules, and obeyed them, that I would be respected and would do well.
I was such an idiot.
If you have one (let alone two, let alone three, let alone four) beautiful, shiny high performance aircraft, and you spend the years it takes to really learn how to fly them well, you will polarize people into two groups: (1) your fans, and (2) people who are jealous of you.
Not everybody likes Bill Gates, either, and he earned every penny he has.
No one likes Martha Stewart, either. No one likes Conrad Black, either. The politics of envy, as they say.
The Australians have a marvellous saying: "cutting down tall poppies".
Contrast that with a local flight instructor I know. In the last year, he has:
(1) wrecked a homebuilt - he had NO business being in a tailwheel aircraft
(2) wiped the floats right off an ultralight during a "rough" landing
(3) ran out of gas and landed on a road. Completely destroyed. A miracle no one was hurt. Incredibly, he blamed it on the student, saying that the student wanted to do "another circuit".
I am not making this up.
If I had done ANY of the above at any point in my life, I wouldn't have a pilot's licence now - Transport would have seen to it.
But because this accident-prone flight instructor is VERY well connected to the power structure in Tower C, no charges are ever laid.
One of the Transport Inspectors - initials WF - that dislikes me so, and calls airshow operators threatening them that if they hire us, they won't get their SFOC - decided to share what he knows, and do some part-time tailwheel training on champs.
No electrical system. You can see where this is heading.
Of course, he hand-propped it with no one in the seat (violating CARs) and off it went, him hanging on the strut, going around in circles until it hit something and was destroyed.
Keep in mind this is the Transport Inspector that thinks I'm dangerous.
Of course, no charges were laid in that case, either, despite the complete destruction of the aircraft. Transport takes care of their own.
Like I have said in the past, TC has its good guys as well.
