Mick
January 24th 06, 03:13 PM
Folks,
Thought this was too important to get lost in the past. And I conclude
more than ever that Jim Campbell does bad things, is bad for aviation,
and has no business in the aviation community. The most salient points
are, in my opinion, the references to glowing reviews of unsafe
aircraft by Jim Campbell, who has repeatedly shown that his reviews are
not to be trusted.
Best to all,
Mick
__________________________________________
>From Tony P >
Organization Vincit omnia veritas, vincit qui patitur.
Date Wed, 30 Dec 1998 19:54:43 -0500
Newsgroups rec.aviation.homebuilt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milt:
I assume from your tone that you are sincere, and are simply unaware
of
some of the issues. I hardly intend to educate you in a single
message,
but would refer you to sources like Dejanews and John Ousterhout's page
at http://www.cyberis.net/~jouster for a bit of information. Take a
look at my summary on consumer advocacy and commecial conflicts of
interest at <http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=384796352&fmt=raw>
(There have been a LOT of decent summaries of his history of mental
illness and lying, if you care to look for them. Hell, the transcripts
of the court hearing are available online, along with the judge's
findings of his mental illness.)
If you are saying that Campbell isn't always wrong, of course that's
true. If you're saying that sometimes he espouses views you and I and
others share, that's pretty obvious. Remember his crocodile tears
about
John Denver? Gosh, he was almost as broken up as the family.
I once took the position that if Campbell was good for aviation, I
didn't care whether he beat his wife, was an asshole or had warts. I
figured nobody else was standing up to the crooks in aviation and
somebody had to. (Don't believe me? Go back and look at my late '96
posts around here.) I changed my mind when I concluded that most of
his
attacks on companies seemed utterly untrustworthy and probably
motivated
by personal feuds, and when I observed that the personality he exhibits
now is just as obnoxious, self-centered, dishonest, pusillanimous and
bullying as the one depicted in his mental illness hearing in 1980.
It
wasn't until I saw him in action - saw the way he intimidates and
threatens and manipulates and attempts to silence people, saw the
magnitude of his lies and the untrustworthiness of ANYTHING written in
his magazine - most of which I had assumed true in making my assessment
of his value, that I realized: Jim Campbell's only value in aviation is
TO HIMSELF. Aviation does not benefit from the occasional belated
accuracy of a man who is just as likely to attack a company because of
a
personal dispute as he is for a legitimate reason. Nor does it benefit
from a man who is just as likely to rave about a machine that could be
a
"death trap" as to accurately criticize one (read his rave review of
the
Mini 500 in the magazine - do you see any reference to bad design,
cheap
hardware, etc. ?). And that is EXACTLY what I concluded was the case
with him.
There was once a Frenchman named Chauvin - the man from whom the word
"Chauvinism" comes. This old codger would rise up and shout "Vive La
France" or the equivalent every time it was remotely possible to make
an
expression of patriotism. Hell, it's a common ploy by politicians.
Why
do they do it? Well, WHO IS GOING TO DISAGREE WITH THEM?? And if they
can raise a cheer that everybody else joins in, they can look like a
leader when they haven't generated a single new thought nor made a
contribution of any kind. (Incidentally "male chauvinism" - the
expression inappropriately shortened to "chauvinism" in recent years -
never WAS simply a criticism of sexism. It implied that every time a
sexist male uttered his ignorant opinion, you and I and the rest of the
males cheered him on. It was, in short, anti-male propaganda.)
Campbell has mastered the art of seeing which way the crowd is
running,
pretending to be out front of it and shouting louder than anyone else
"Go that way! Go that way!" in order to seek attention. It was true in
the Bob Hoover case - in which he would have you believe it was HIS
efforts that accomplished a reprieve - and in every other case I see
where he's taken a supportable position. Do you doubt this? Go back
and read the AVWeb piece on the Mini 500, weeks before Campbell posted
his first "notice." And compare the well-researched excellence of that
page with the technical ambiguity and "me-tooism" of Campbell's piece.
THEN go back and read his piece on the Mini 500 in the magazine - in
which he gave it such a ringing endorsement that everybody wanted to go
out and buy one. How many of those now in danger or even killed by
that
aircraft DID SO AFTER READING CAMPBELL'S ENTHUSIASTIC PRAISE? How can
you praise his attacks today and ignore his contribution to the
problem? And how many advertising dollars did he earn as a result of
that glowing report (companies do NOT advertise where they are
criticized).
Campbell is not an engineer, not a scientist nor even a technician.
He
isn't an A&P or an IA. He hasn't even attended a trade school for
airplane mechanics. Ex-associates and significant others claim he
can't
turn a wrench competently. He doesn't write technical articles and I
doubt he reads them either. He has a high-school diploma, and zero
credentials regarding aircraft design of ANY kind, much less
rotorcraft. (And yes, education IS important - CRITICALLY important -
in any technical endeavor. Flying ultralights makes one not at all
qualified to design aircraft or credibly comment on their design. But
Mr. Campbell seems to like the "direct" route to expertise - simply
CLAIM it and most people won't argue; hell if it appears in print, it
must be true, right? And he is the most qualified "aero-journalist" in
the world, because he says it.)
Perhaps none of this matters. Perhaps you don't care that Campbell
failed to deliver an issue of the magazine for ten months, and never
even bothered to send a postcard to us subscribers explaining why.
Perhaps you don't care about the tens of thousands of dollars in new
subscription renewal moneys he solicited and accepted RIGHT BEFORE HE
STOPPED PUBLISHING, when he must have known there would never be a
November, '96 issue. Or the fact that that money -- $30,000 in just
two
checks within a few weeks --- was promptly moved out of the magazine
publishing company and into his book-publishing corporation venture
instead (this stuff is public record - read the Trustee's suit).
Perhaps you don't care about his having accepted tens of thousands of
dollars in advertising money and even book orders for the Sportplane
Resource Guide - due out in '96 and not delivered until '98 -- and
then
a rehash of the original '94-'95 obsolete information.
Hell, maybe you don't care about Mr. Campbell's business ethics at all.
Perhaps you don't care about the string of printers used and then
stiffed and left unpaid for months of magazines printed, or the number
who have had to sue him to get paid even partly, or had to accept
payments over many months and finally got stiffed altogether in the
bankruptcy. Look at the Bankruptcy Court claims, where the last two
who
are out close to $100,000 and nearly $40,000 according to the records
ended up with nothing. Heck, even the guy who printed those little
subscription cards in the magazine didn't get paid. I suggest you take
your stack of U.S. Aviator magazines and separate them into two piles:
(1) Those that were PAID for and (2) Those that WERE SOLD TO YOU and
Campbell's company took the money from you and advertisers, but where
the writers, printers and others got stiffed. #2 would be quite a
stack.
Do you care about his failure to pay everyone from the nonprofit Boys &
Girls Clubs of Lakeland (for BRATWURSTS, for God's sake) - who had to
sue him and threaten his ability to ever have a Sun & Fun party again
--
to the florist who delivered his wife's anniversary and Valentine's Day
flowers, to electricians, personnel agencies, suppliers, and
consultants? Do you want the list of writers he stiffed (and in some
cases never even told them their stories had been run?) and the list of
those who will NEVER write for him again? Worse, how about not paying
even the withholding taxes taken from his employees' paychecks??
Perhaps
you don't care about his treatment of the woman, well actually woMEN he
claimed to care about. Perhaps you don't care about his treatment of
employees and former employees (did you know that THREE of them had
"anonymous" calls made to state children's welfare agencies claiming
they were guilty of child abuse right after leaving his employment on
bad terms?). Perhaps you don't care about the $400,000 in creditors he
left stiffed when dumped Airedale Press, Inc. in bankruptcy and took
all
the assets of the magazine it had published since its inception, the
airplane it had paid for and renovated, the cash from its accounts,
computers, printers and even its chairs and tables and started spitting
out a magazine in the name of a new, nonexistent company. Or his
having
promoted subscription renewals in 1996 when there WAS no November '96
issue in existence and he had to know the magazine wouldn't print an
issue for months, if ever again.
Perhaps you don't care about misrepresentations to advertisers ad
others, about the magazine's circulation and how long it's been
published, even the number of annual parties he's held. Or his use of
the magazine to attack companies owned by those who criticized Mr.
Campbell or argued with him, or his failure to disclose that a company
he scathingly attacked (referring to its principal as a "drug runner"
among other things) was actually owned by his own ex-partner with whom
he had had a vicious dispute? Or that he was in fact involved in a
personal dispute with his own EX-FIANCE when he attacked her employer
for HER actions, describing her only as the company's "employee"?
Perhaps you don't care about his being ejected repeatedly from Sun &
Fun, most recently while screaming obscenities and calling the Lakeland
Police officers "F**king Neo-Nazis." Perhaps you don't care about Mr.
CAmpbell's penchant for calling the homes of his critics or adversaries
and ranting at their children, or calling the wives of their EAA
chapter
officers and threatening to sue them into the ground. Or his endless
threats to sue when criticized. [Or, given your concerns about stupid
litigation, the fact that he's sued fourteen people for nothing more
than doing precisely that - one for nothing more than posting public
COURT proceedings?]
Perhaps you don't care about Campbell claiming to have flown relief
missions in Africa, having thousands of PIC flight hours overseas,
about
testimony and repeated reports of his having falsely claimed to have
been a Japan Airlines Captain, to have flown 747's, to have been a
Hollywood stunt man, a CIA operative, a Vietnam veteran, to have had a
wife die tragically of illness, no, er uh an accident. Or having
harassed poor Laurel Ramey all over the country after she merely tried
to get away from him. I can't even begin to catalog here the list of
former employees, friends, partners and business associates, writers
and
others who describe this man's personality and credibility in emphatic
and negative terms. You have to do the research, wait for court
testimony or read the book.
Here's the stuff on conflicts of interest. I hope the foregoing has
been educational.
From:
"Tony P." >
Subject:
Re: Wingman150
Date:
25 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT
To:
Wingman150 >
Organization:
Vincit omnia veritas, vincit qui patutur.
Reply-To:
Newsgroups:
rec.aviation.rotorcraft,
rec.aviation.homebuilt
Okay, Wingperson, you're not convinced Campbell is a bad man. And as
long as you want videotapes of Campbell robbing a bank, you won't be.
Just hang around and keep paying attention. Time is what's convinced
others. Don't take offense, but I don't think ANYONE at 15 is much of
a
judge of credibility even if it's worthwhile to try. It's hard to let
go of heroes -- even some of us old geezers have trouble with it. I
defended him for many months myself before I saw him in action.
I frankly don't believe that whether or not one person thinks
Jim
Campbell is a "nice guy" merits much comment. It certainly isn't what
I
am interested in. Like whom you want, but that's not the issue.
And I also agree that the rancor needs a rest.
Angry emotions are unnecessary to a debate of fact and issue.
I
am
always appalled when some new, previously-unheard-of Campbell advocate
begins hurling insults in response to factual debate, then others decry
the nastiness. That scenario has repeated itself again here.
This isn't a matter of emotions, and the fact that you LIKE
Campbell
and find him charming is nice, but meaningless. Hell, the shrinks in
the mental illness hearing found him likeable and charming too. But
whether we LIKE him isn't important.
I suspect you've (and many others have) misperceived the entire
issue.
Certainly you misperceive my point. The question isn't whether you or I
believe Campbell is a good person, a bad person or a nut. That's why I
continued to defend him even after learning he had a mental illness
history and a lousy personality (as reported by those close to him).
THE
QUESTION IS SOLELY WHETHER HE HAS THE CREDIBILITY AND INTEGRITY AND
OBJECTIVITY TO PASS JUDGMENT ON OTHERS -- ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE
AVIATION
BUSINESSES TO WHOM HE LOOKS FOR MONEY TO SUPPORT HIS MAGAZINE. When a
magazine purports to pass judgment on products and companies, it has a
fundamental dilemma -- magazines make their money on advertisers
(subscriptions cover only a minor part of the costs). Advertisers who
get bad press don't buy ads. Advertisers who get good press, do.
Let's put aside the obvious offputting stuff -- like the fact
that
Campbell's company didn't send out a magazine to its subscribers from
October, 1996 to July, 1997, and that it never so much as mailed its
subscribers (including myself) a postcard explaining why, or the
conflicting stories it told during that time (including concealing the
fact that his wife had simply left him back in July, 1996, for good).
Ignore the fact that Campbell continued to sell subscriptions the whole
time, or that an affiliate meanwhile sold not-yet-existing books for
perhaps 1 1/2 years without delivering them or returning the money. Or
that when a mag finally was sent out, it had the name of a new,
nonexistent company on it. Let's ignore that obvious, curious stuff
and
focus on the big picture.
There's an important ethical principle involved here. We don't
allow
sexual harrassment at work, and officers can't "fraternize" with
subordinates in the military. Priests and psychiatrists aren't allowed
to have personal relationships with those they counsel. We don't
subject our children to exploitation by adults or authority figures.
Government regulators can't have financial relationships with the
companies they inspect or regulate. Judges can't have financial
relationships with law firms. Why? because persons in power ought not
to be able to take advantage of those over whom they HAVE power. Power
makes the dominated person treat the empowered person with favor and
advantage, and that treatment -- be it money, advantage, sexual favor,
whatever -- influences the person in power. Ever hear the saying
"POWER
CORRUPTS"? Or heard that some people seek power like others seek air
and food?
This is why ANY legal or social institution HAS A RIGID CODE OF
ETHICS
FOR THOSE WHO ARE PLACED IN POSITIONS OF POWER. And rigid scrutiny by
others of any person in such a position. Public servants regularly go
to
jail for conflicts of interest. Even respected journalists have a
thoroughly-documented set of standards that are accepted in the
industry. Respected newspapers place rigid policies in place to
oversee
the judgments of any individual, with publishers and editors with
authority to overrule writers, with committees overseeing the ethics of
editors and with peer-oversight mechanisms when something goes wrong
anyway. (Forget for now that NONE of that ever existed in Campbell's
one-man-in control operations.)
Note that Consumer Reports, the ONLY truly respected
publication
in
general product evaluation and consumer protection, takes NO
advertising. Similarly, Aviation Consumer takes none, just like Light
Plane Maintenance (which is why the latter are so damned expensive --
$70 or $80 a year if I recall my last renewal).
Consumer Reports has a large nonprofit foundation behind it.
It
spends
millions of dollars on testing, engineering review and
information-gathering. It has numerous experts, with numerous degrees,
on its staff. Its reputation is based on total objectivity and
integrity.
Note that in experimental aviation, we have a "small pond."
One
suggestion of insolvency, bad design or dishonesty is enough to kill
almost any company. Heck, almost all kit companies are marginal --
even
some big ones. Any publisher holds life or death power, if he's
unprincipled enough to wield it selfishly. The cancellation of a few
contracts based on an inflammatory article can -- and in one case
clearly DID kill a company and leave its builders unsupported.
Now compare Campbell's operation to Consumer Reports. Campbell
makes
grand claims of integrity similar to theirs. He literally purports to
be the oversight and conscience, the judge and jury of sport and
experimental aviation morality. HE claims the honor of telling you,
the
aviation consumer, what to buy and what NOT to buy; to whom to send
your
money and even whom to believe and NOT believe. Read his own Web page
and other descriptions of what he does! "No Bravo Sierra" (i.e. no
B.S.) he proclaims. But he sells advertising, and sells it
aggressively, from the stories former advertisers tell. In fact, so
aggressively, some have said, that they found his repeated calls and
pressure, ominous in itself. In fact, he has a tiny publication (as
aviation magazines go) that is desperately dependent on the trickle of
money from advertising to get from issue to issue. [Compare the
hundreds of thousands of subscribers of Kitplanes, Flying, Private
Pilot, AOPA Flyer, EAA Sport Aviation to the 10 or 11,000 subscribers
of
U.S. Aviator at its peak -- of which MANY were free, not paid for.]
In short, Campbell tells you to listen to him in order to learn
what to
buy and not buy, as a consumer advocate. Then you open the cover of
his
magazine and he tells you what to buy and NOT buy based on the money
sent to him in order to put that picture of an aircraft on the inside
cover. AND HIS ONLY EXPLANATION OF HOW HE ALONE CAN DO THIS IMPOSSIBLE
THING IS THAT HE IS UNIQUE AND SPECIAL. HE, THE "ZOOMER" HAS SO MUCH
POWER OR CREDIBILITY OR AUTHORITY THAT HE CAN UNIQUELY "GET AWAY" WITH
CRITICIZING HIS OWN ADVERTISERS. (Hey, I'm not making this up --
that's
what articles have said -- things like "only Zoomer can get away with"
etc. -- though I haven't read where he actually did so). In short, it
all depends on his OWN personal power, influence, integrity and
credibility. On HIS PERSONALITY. Not his employees, not his company's,
or his consultants' and certainly not MINE -- just HIS.
Consider this. A small publishing company's success or failure
may
depend on an extra couple of thousand dollars a month, or per issue.
>From tax returns and bankruptcy filings, it seems clear that Campbell's
company lost money from its inception (returns all show no income
despite supposedly paying him nothing and leaving perhaps $500K in
debts). Now a single ad monthly can add $1000 or more to revenues.
Similarly, an unpaid bill can deprive the company of that $1000 each
month. Campbell had serious collection problems with a large number of
advertisers (several hundred thousand dollars in uncollectible, mostly
old, receivables, mostly companies out of business). Demonstrating the
frailty of the sport aviation business, many of his advertisers simply
went under. Lots of staff time, including Campbell's time, went into
chasing those ad revenues.
Now, how much pressure does this put on a company to treat
loyal
and
PAYING advertisers well? Especially a company that clearly has had cash
flow problems almost throughout its existence? And against this
background, when a publication obsessively and redundantly attacks the
same small group of companies OVER and OVER and OVER, patting itself on
the back about its crusade and rewriting the same stories repeatedly,
what can you deduce? Maybe that it's trying to get the maximum mileage
out of safely flogging a few companies that will never advertise anyway
-- because they detest him and he them? That it's trying to sell
ITSELF
as the protector of aviation consumers, even though it has only a
single
high-school-educated editor/publisher/primary writer/"test
pilot"/reviewer who won't let others really edit his work at all (read
it and ask yourself if anyone else checked the grammar, spelling and
style). And even though it has never created the organization,
facilities, funds, expertise, programs or ethics oversight policies to
actually fulfill that role?
Just how much consumer testing is getting done by a company
operated
out of the principal's rented house, with no budget for testing, no
engineers or aeronautical design experts on staff? Just what kind of
analysis of the financial solvency, stability and prospects of these
hundreds of companies is getting done, without an economist,
accountant,
financial or legal expert or similar on staff, and without even a
financial investigation of the companies for them to review? Just how
much monitoring of customer satisfaction and service is getting done,
without a staff of investigators, survey people, statisticians and
evaluators? Without access to the information on these hundreds of
companies regarding their treatment of customers, how can ANY
publication claim to judge their merit -- or to compare that of the few
upon which it focuses while ignoring the rest?
Consistent with that, just how much consumer advocacy IS there
in a
magazine that's published for 8 or 9 years (well, we lost a year of
issues in the middle there but still --) and repeatedly just flogs 8 or
9 companies?? Is there only one company a year taking money from unwary
customers? Surely our aggregate experience tells us that dozens of
companies annually take the money and run, through dishonesty or just
bad business judgment, stiffing the customers with no warning from
anybody. (Forget for a moment that the company publishing U.S. Aviator
itself did exactly that -- took the subscription money and folded
without prior warning to those who were sending their money for
subscriptions.)
Then we find that a couple of those companies attacked have
absolutely
stellar ratings by customers? And excellent aircraft? And despite
great customer loyalty and products, are constantly flogged anyway ---
one over a customer who lost $2700 in 1984 on a deposit be paid to a
DEALER of a predecessor company??? Do you know HOW MANY customers lost
money to kit manufacturers, how many companies sold nonexistent kits
and
then went under, how many customers were left with half-kits or
unflyable aircraft by dozens of companies in that time? (I hardly need
to mention Bede,Bede,Bede -- I personally was amazed at the Wheeler
yoyo, Prescott Pusher dilemma, the mini-Skymaster and a half-dozen
others -- and by numerous companies purportedly manufacturing auto
conversion engines with impossible power ratings, most of which have
long since failed). And do you know how many current companies are
owned by people who have failed in this business in the past leaving
customers and creditors in the lurch? (I won't mention names here
because many are good people, except to say that some of Campbell's
best
advertisers and, from his writing, closest friends are among them?)
Yet Campbell flogs the same few companies, over and over and
over,
angrily attacking their principals and supporters in print, on the
Internet and verbally, engaging in endless intemperate rants?
Then you find that company after company rates as good or
excellent or
worthwhile have numerous vocal, disgruntled customers. Many have
lawsuits and controversies over their designs, their advertising
claims. Many have repeatedly delivered partial kits after payment in
full. Heck, one had stiffed a bunch of consumers and failed due to
court judgments against the principal even before his 1985 edition, yet
still appears without a warning. Many are out of business. And you
find that the few companies he attacks range from excellent, good,
average to bad, but almost all seem to have one thing in common --
disputes with him that he didn't mention, from an ex-fiance who left
him
to advertising disputes, to lawsuits against him that never appeared in
print, to disputes over circulation that seems exaggerated. And that
several seem to have bounced from the highly-praised column to the bad
guys instantly after the disputes? But all seem TO HAVE BEEN
ADVERTISERS AND NOT A NEGATIVE WORD WAS SPOKEN UNTIL THEY NO LONGER
WERE??
No, none of this is about whether you or I LIKE James Richard
("Zoom")
Campbell. If ability to make a good impression on the telephone were
all that was important, Campbell would be a multimillionaire. Instead,
it's all about credibility. And plead as he may that all this
inconvenient personal stuff is irrelevant and vicious, the fact IS that
it's relevant PRECISELY because HE HAS MADE HIS OWN HONESTY ABSOLUTELY
CENTRAL TO THE WORTH OF HIS PRODUCT, AND TO THE WORTH OF HIS WORDS. HE
has put his integrity in issue. HE has put his judgment in issue. HE
has asked all of us to suspend our judgment and research and to trust
his honesty and decency and integrity, and to risk tens of thousands of
dollars on the companies he chooses in doing so.
Then he complains when the fact that he has consistently
FABRICATED
credentials and history and experience is brought up. And he complains
when it's mentioned that he was diagnosed as having a mental illness --
lifelong in its nature and prognosis as described by the psychiatrists
-- that compels its victims to chronically and continuously lie about
themselves and their behavior and history. And he complains when it's
mentioned that his ex-employees, ex-partners, ex-fiance, ex-wife and
others repeatedly attest that the dishonest, unbalanced personality
depicted in that mental illness hearing -- an illness which was serious
enough for his pilot privileges to be revoked, and serious enough to
compel him to impersonate a physician -- STILL EXISTS AND IS A PART OF
THE DAILY EXISTENCE OF THIS SELF-DECLARED PARAGON OF AVIATION
INTEGRITY.
IS IT irrelevant that people close to him attest that he still
constantly lies about his history and experience, claiming for example
that he was a Boeing 747 pilot at 21 for Japan Airlines (read the NTSB
transcript, for heaven's sake -- he was just in training as an
instructor for 6 or 7 weeks and never returned the blazer). Or that
his
assertions of 13000-plus PIC hours, flying in Ethiopia and 1000+
different aircraft flown are utter nonsense? Or that they claim he is
still vindictive, vengeful and retaliatory and tries to injure or
destroy those who've angered him? Or that his repeated flying into
rages
and loss of control, as when he was AGAIN ejected from Sun&Fun, is
consistent with this personality disorder? Is the fact that the
personality and behavior described by these people is PERFECTLY
consistent with one who would intentionally attack a person or business
out of a spirit of vengeance and retaliation, IRRELEVANT -- when
victims
repeatedly present evidence that this is EXACTLY what he has done?
Each person must judge for him- or herself. Judge carelessly if
you
don't have anything at stake -- who cares? Judge CAREFULLY if you
intend to put tens of thousands of dollars on the line -- OR if you're
a
kit manufacturer and intend to stay in business. But this is NOT about
whether you "like" Jim Campbell, or whether he sounds like a "nice guy"
on the phone to a 15-year-old -- no matter how bright or well-meaning
that 15-year-old may be. It's about "who will judge the judge" and
Campbell's answer seems to be "nobody" while mine, and that of others
is
"we all must, and we must have the truth in order to do so."
Tony Pucillo
Thought this was too important to get lost in the past. And I conclude
more than ever that Jim Campbell does bad things, is bad for aviation,
and has no business in the aviation community. The most salient points
are, in my opinion, the references to glowing reviews of unsafe
aircraft by Jim Campbell, who has repeatedly shown that his reviews are
not to be trusted.
Best to all,
Mick
__________________________________________
>From Tony P >
Organization Vincit omnia veritas, vincit qui patitur.
Date Wed, 30 Dec 1998 19:54:43 -0500
Newsgroups rec.aviation.homebuilt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milt:
I assume from your tone that you are sincere, and are simply unaware
of
some of the issues. I hardly intend to educate you in a single
message,
but would refer you to sources like Dejanews and John Ousterhout's page
at http://www.cyberis.net/~jouster for a bit of information. Take a
look at my summary on consumer advocacy and commecial conflicts of
interest at <http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=384796352&fmt=raw>
(There have been a LOT of decent summaries of his history of mental
illness and lying, if you care to look for them. Hell, the transcripts
of the court hearing are available online, along with the judge's
findings of his mental illness.)
If you are saying that Campbell isn't always wrong, of course that's
true. If you're saying that sometimes he espouses views you and I and
others share, that's pretty obvious. Remember his crocodile tears
about
John Denver? Gosh, he was almost as broken up as the family.
I once took the position that if Campbell was good for aviation, I
didn't care whether he beat his wife, was an asshole or had warts. I
figured nobody else was standing up to the crooks in aviation and
somebody had to. (Don't believe me? Go back and look at my late '96
posts around here.) I changed my mind when I concluded that most of
his
attacks on companies seemed utterly untrustworthy and probably
motivated
by personal feuds, and when I observed that the personality he exhibits
now is just as obnoxious, self-centered, dishonest, pusillanimous and
bullying as the one depicted in his mental illness hearing in 1980.
It
wasn't until I saw him in action - saw the way he intimidates and
threatens and manipulates and attempts to silence people, saw the
magnitude of his lies and the untrustworthiness of ANYTHING written in
his magazine - most of which I had assumed true in making my assessment
of his value, that I realized: Jim Campbell's only value in aviation is
TO HIMSELF. Aviation does not benefit from the occasional belated
accuracy of a man who is just as likely to attack a company because of
a
personal dispute as he is for a legitimate reason. Nor does it benefit
from a man who is just as likely to rave about a machine that could be
a
"death trap" as to accurately criticize one (read his rave review of
the
Mini 500 in the magazine - do you see any reference to bad design,
cheap
hardware, etc. ?). And that is EXACTLY what I concluded was the case
with him.
There was once a Frenchman named Chauvin - the man from whom the word
"Chauvinism" comes. This old codger would rise up and shout "Vive La
France" or the equivalent every time it was remotely possible to make
an
expression of patriotism. Hell, it's a common ploy by politicians.
Why
do they do it? Well, WHO IS GOING TO DISAGREE WITH THEM?? And if they
can raise a cheer that everybody else joins in, they can look like a
leader when they haven't generated a single new thought nor made a
contribution of any kind. (Incidentally "male chauvinism" - the
expression inappropriately shortened to "chauvinism" in recent years -
never WAS simply a criticism of sexism. It implied that every time a
sexist male uttered his ignorant opinion, you and I and the rest of the
males cheered him on. It was, in short, anti-male propaganda.)
Campbell has mastered the art of seeing which way the crowd is
running,
pretending to be out front of it and shouting louder than anyone else
"Go that way! Go that way!" in order to seek attention. It was true in
the Bob Hoover case - in which he would have you believe it was HIS
efforts that accomplished a reprieve - and in every other case I see
where he's taken a supportable position. Do you doubt this? Go back
and read the AVWeb piece on the Mini 500, weeks before Campbell posted
his first "notice." And compare the well-researched excellence of that
page with the technical ambiguity and "me-tooism" of Campbell's piece.
THEN go back and read his piece on the Mini 500 in the magazine - in
which he gave it such a ringing endorsement that everybody wanted to go
out and buy one. How many of those now in danger or even killed by
that
aircraft DID SO AFTER READING CAMPBELL'S ENTHUSIASTIC PRAISE? How can
you praise his attacks today and ignore his contribution to the
problem? And how many advertising dollars did he earn as a result of
that glowing report (companies do NOT advertise where they are
criticized).
Campbell is not an engineer, not a scientist nor even a technician.
He
isn't an A&P or an IA. He hasn't even attended a trade school for
airplane mechanics. Ex-associates and significant others claim he
can't
turn a wrench competently. He doesn't write technical articles and I
doubt he reads them either. He has a high-school diploma, and zero
credentials regarding aircraft design of ANY kind, much less
rotorcraft. (And yes, education IS important - CRITICALLY important -
in any technical endeavor. Flying ultralights makes one not at all
qualified to design aircraft or credibly comment on their design. But
Mr. Campbell seems to like the "direct" route to expertise - simply
CLAIM it and most people won't argue; hell if it appears in print, it
must be true, right? And he is the most qualified "aero-journalist" in
the world, because he says it.)
Perhaps none of this matters. Perhaps you don't care that Campbell
failed to deliver an issue of the magazine for ten months, and never
even bothered to send a postcard to us subscribers explaining why.
Perhaps you don't care about the tens of thousands of dollars in new
subscription renewal moneys he solicited and accepted RIGHT BEFORE HE
STOPPED PUBLISHING, when he must have known there would never be a
November, '96 issue. Or the fact that that money -- $30,000 in just
two
checks within a few weeks --- was promptly moved out of the magazine
publishing company and into his book-publishing corporation venture
instead (this stuff is public record - read the Trustee's suit).
Perhaps you don't care about his having accepted tens of thousands of
dollars in advertising money and even book orders for the Sportplane
Resource Guide - due out in '96 and not delivered until '98 -- and
then
a rehash of the original '94-'95 obsolete information.
Hell, maybe you don't care about Mr. Campbell's business ethics at all.
Perhaps you don't care about the string of printers used and then
stiffed and left unpaid for months of magazines printed, or the number
who have had to sue him to get paid even partly, or had to accept
payments over many months and finally got stiffed altogether in the
bankruptcy. Look at the Bankruptcy Court claims, where the last two
who
are out close to $100,000 and nearly $40,000 according to the records
ended up with nothing. Heck, even the guy who printed those little
subscription cards in the magazine didn't get paid. I suggest you take
your stack of U.S. Aviator magazines and separate them into two piles:
(1) Those that were PAID for and (2) Those that WERE SOLD TO YOU and
Campbell's company took the money from you and advertisers, but where
the writers, printers and others got stiffed. #2 would be quite a
stack.
Do you care about his failure to pay everyone from the nonprofit Boys &
Girls Clubs of Lakeland (for BRATWURSTS, for God's sake) - who had to
sue him and threaten his ability to ever have a Sun & Fun party again
--
to the florist who delivered his wife's anniversary and Valentine's Day
flowers, to electricians, personnel agencies, suppliers, and
consultants? Do you want the list of writers he stiffed (and in some
cases never even told them their stories had been run?) and the list of
those who will NEVER write for him again? Worse, how about not paying
even the withholding taxes taken from his employees' paychecks??
Perhaps
you don't care about his treatment of the woman, well actually woMEN he
claimed to care about. Perhaps you don't care about his treatment of
employees and former employees (did you know that THREE of them had
"anonymous" calls made to state children's welfare agencies claiming
they were guilty of child abuse right after leaving his employment on
bad terms?). Perhaps you don't care about the $400,000 in creditors he
left stiffed when dumped Airedale Press, Inc. in bankruptcy and took
all
the assets of the magazine it had published since its inception, the
airplane it had paid for and renovated, the cash from its accounts,
computers, printers and even its chairs and tables and started spitting
out a magazine in the name of a new, nonexistent company. Or his
having
promoted subscription renewals in 1996 when there WAS no November '96
issue in existence and he had to know the magazine wouldn't print an
issue for months, if ever again.
Perhaps you don't care about misrepresentations to advertisers ad
others, about the magazine's circulation and how long it's been
published, even the number of annual parties he's held. Or his use of
the magazine to attack companies owned by those who criticized Mr.
Campbell or argued with him, or his failure to disclose that a company
he scathingly attacked (referring to its principal as a "drug runner"
among other things) was actually owned by his own ex-partner with whom
he had had a vicious dispute? Or that he was in fact involved in a
personal dispute with his own EX-FIANCE when he attacked her employer
for HER actions, describing her only as the company's "employee"?
Perhaps you don't care about his being ejected repeatedly from Sun &
Fun, most recently while screaming obscenities and calling the Lakeland
Police officers "F**king Neo-Nazis." Perhaps you don't care about Mr.
CAmpbell's penchant for calling the homes of his critics or adversaries
and ranting at their children, or calling the wives of their EAA
chapter
officers and threatening to sue them into the ground. Or his endless
threats to sue when criticized. [Or, given your concerns about stupid
litigation, the fact that he's sued fourteen people for nothing more
than doing precisely that - one for nothing more than posting public
COURT proceedings?]
Perhaps you don't care about Campbell claiming to have flown relief
missions in Africa, having thousands of PIC flight hours overseas,
about
testimony and repeated reports of his having falsely claimed to have
been a Japan Airlines Captain, to have flown 747's, to have been a
Hollywood stunt man, a CIA operative, a Vietnam veteran, to have had a
wife die tragically of illness, no, er uh an accident. Or having
harassed poor Laurel Ramey all over the country after she merely tried
to get away from him. I can't even begin to catalog here the list of
former employees, friends, partners and business associates, writers
and
others who describe this man's personality and credibility in emphatic
and negative terms. You have to do the research, wait for court
testimony or read the book.
Here's the stuff on conflicts of interest. I hope the foregoing has
been educational.
From:
"Tony P." >
Subject:
Re: Wingman150
Date:
25 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT
To:
Wingman150 >
Organization:
Vincit omnia veritas, vincit qui patutur.
Reply-To:
Newsgroups:
rec.aviation.rotorcraft,
rec.aviation.homebuilt
Okay, Wingperson, you're not convinced Campbell is a bad man. And as
long as you want videotapes of Campbell robbing a bank, you won't be.
Just hang around and keep paying attention. Time is what's convinced
others. Don't take offense, but I don't think ANYONE at 15 is much of
a
judge of credibility even if it's worthwhile to try. It's hard to let
go of heroes -- even some of us old geezers have trouble with it. I
defended him for many months myself before I saw him in action.
I frankly don't believe that whether or not one person thinks
Jim
Campbell is a "nice guy" merits much comment. It certainly isn't what
I
am interested in. Like whom you want, but that's not the issue.
And I also agree that the rancor needs a rest.
Angry emotions are unnecessary to a debate of fact and issue.
I
am
always appalled when some new, previously-unheard-of Campbell advocate
begins hurling insults in response to factual debate, then others decry
the nastiness. That scenario has repeated itself again here.
This isn't a matter of emotions, and the fact that you LIKE
Campbell
and find him charming is nice, but meaningless. Hell, the shrinks in
the mental illness hearing found him likeable and charming too. But
whether we LIKE him isn't important.
I suspect you've (and many others have) misperceived the entire
issue.
Certainly you misperceive my point. The question isn't whether you or I
believe Campbell is a good person, a bad person or a nut. That's why I
continued to defend him even after learning he had a mental illness
history and a lousy personality (as reported by those close to him).
THE
QUESTION IS SOLELY WHETHER HE HAS THE CREDIBILITY AND INTEGRITY AND
OBJECTIVITY TO PASS JUDGMENT ON OTHERS -- ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE
AVIATION
BUSINESSES TO WHOM HE LOOKS FOR MONEY TO SUPPORT HIS MAGAZINE. When a
magazine purports to pass judgment on products and companies, it has a
fundamental dilemma -- magazines make their money on advertisers
(subscriptions cover only a minor part of the costs). Advertisers who
get bad press don't buy ads. Advertisers who get good press, do.
Let's put aside the obvious offputting stuff -- like the fact
that
Campbell's company didn't send out a magazine to its subscribers from
October, 1996 to July, 1997, and that it never so much as mailed its
subscribers (including myself) a postcard explaining why, or the
conflicting stories it told during that time (including concealing the
fact that his wife had simply left him back in July, 1996, for good).
Ignore the fact that Campbell continued to sell subscriptions the whole
time, or that an affiliate meanwhile sold not-yet-existing books for
perhaps 1 1/2 years without delivering them or returning the money. Or
that when a mag finally was sent out, it had the name of a new,
nonexistent company on it. Let's ignore that obvious, curious stuff
and
focus on the big picture.
There's an important ethical principle involved here. We don't
allow
sexual harrassment at work, and officers can't "fraternize" with
subordinates in the military. Priests and psychiatrists aren't allowed
to have personal relationships with those they counsel. We don't
subject our children to exploitation by adults or authority figures.
Government regulators can't have financial relationships with the
companies they inspect or regulate. Judges can't have financial
relationships with law firms. Why? because persons in power ought not
to be able to take advantage of those over whom they HAVE power. Power
makes the dominated person treat the empowered person with favor and
advantage, and that treatment -- be it money, advantage, sexual favor,
whatever -- influences the person in power. Ever hear the saying
"POWER
CORRUPTS"? Or heard that some people seek power like others seek air
and food?
This is why ANY legal or social institution HAS A RIGID CODE OF
ETHICS
FOR THOSE WHO ARE PLACED IN POSITIONS OF POWER. And rigid scrutiny by
others of any person in such a position. Public servants regularly go
to
jail for conflicts of interest. Even respected journalists have a
thoroughly-documented set of standards that are accepted in the
industry. Respected newspapers place rigid policies in place to
oversee
the judgments of any individual, with publishers and editors with
authority to overrule writers, with committees overseeing the ethics of
editors and with peer-oversight mechanisms when something goes wrong
anyway. (Forget for now that NONE of that ever existed in Campbell's
one-man-in control operations.)
Note that Consumer Reports, the ONLY truly respected
publication
in
general product evaluation and consumer protection, takes NO
advertising. Similarly, Aviation Consumer takes none, just like Light
Plane Maintenance (which is why the latter are so damned expensive --
$70 or $80 a year if I recall my last renewal).
Consumer Reports has a large nonprofit foundation behind it.
It
spends
millions of dollars on testing, engineering review and
information-gathering. It has numerous experts, with numerous degrees,
on its staff. Its reputation is based on total objectivity and
integrity.
Note that in experimental aviation, we have a "small pond."
One
suggestion of insolvency, bad design or dishonesty is enough to kill
almost any company. Heck, almost all kit companies are marginal --
even
some big ones. Any publisher holds life or death power, if he's
unprincipled enough to wield it selfishly. The cancellation of a few
contracts based on an inflammatory article can -- and in one case
clearly DID kill a company and leave its builders unsupported.
Now compare Campbell's operation to Consumer Reports. Campbell
makes
grand claims of integrity similar to theirs. He literally purports to
be the oversight and conscience, the judge and jury of sport and
experimental aviation morality. HE claims the honor of telling you,
the
aviation consumer, what to buy and what NOT to buy; to whom to send
your
money and even whom to believe and NOT believe. Read his own Web page
and other descriptions of what he does! "No Bravo Sierra" (i.e. no
B.S.) he proclaims. But he sells advertising, and sells it
aggressively, from the stories former advertisers tell. In fact, so
aggressively, some have said, that they found his repeated calls and
pressure, ominous in itself. In fact, he has a tiny publication (as
aviation magazines go) that is desperately dependent on the trickle of
money from advertising to get from issue to issue. [Compare the
hundreds of thousands of subscribers of Kitplanes, Flying, Private
Pilot, AOPA Flyer, EAA Sport Aviation to the 10 or 11,000 subscribers
of
U.S. Aviator at its peak -- of which MANY were free, not paid for.]
In short, Campbell tells you to listen to him in order to learn
what to
buy and not buy, as a consumer advocate. Then you open the cover of
his
magazine and he tells you what to buy and NOT buy based on the money
sent to him in order to put that picture of an aircraft on the inside
cover. AND HIS ONLY EXPLANATION OF HOW HE ALONE CAN DO THIS IMPOSSIBLE
THING IS THAT HE IS UNIQUE AND SPECIAL. HE, THE "ZOOMER" HAS SO MUCH
POWER OR CREDIBILITY OR AUTHORITY THAT HE CAN UNIQUELY "GET AWAY" WITH
CRITICIZING HIS OWN ADVERTISERS. (Hey, I'm not making this up --
that's
what articles have said -- things like "only Zoomer can get away with"
etc. -- though I haven't read where he actually did so). In short, it
all depends on his OWN personal power, influence, integrity and
credibility. On HIS PERSONALITY. Not his employees, not his company's,
or his consultants' and certainly not MINE -- just HIS.
Consider this. A small publishing company's success or failure
may
depend on an extra couple of thousand dollars a month, or per issue.
>From tax returns and bankruptcy filings, it seems clear that Campbell's
company lost money from its inception (returns all show no income
despite supposedly paying him nothing and leaving perhaps $500K in
debts). Now a single ad monthly can add $1000 or more to revenues.
Similarly, an unpaid bill can deprive the company of that $1000 each
month. Campbell had serious collection problems with a large number of
advertisers (several hundred thousand dollars in uncollectible, mostly
old, receivables, mostly companies out of business). Demonstrating the
frailty of the sport aviation business, many of his advertisers simply
went under. Lots of staff time, including Campbell's time, went into
chasing those ad revenues.
Now, how much pressure does this put on a company to treat
loyal
and
PAYING advertisers well? Especially a company that clearly has had cash
flow problems almost throughout its existence? And against this
background, when a publication obsessively and redundantly attacks the
same small group of companies OVER and OVER and OVER, patting itself on
the back about its crusade and rewriting the same stories repeatedly,
what can you deduce? Maybe that it's trying to get the maximum mileage
out of safely flogging a few companies that will never advertise anyway
-- because they detest him and he them? That it's trying to sell
ITSELF
as the protector of aviation consumers, even though it has only a
single
high-school-educated editor/publisher/primary writer/"test
pilot"/reviewer who won't let others really edit his work at all (read
it and ask yourself if anyone else checked the grammar, spelling and
style). And even though it has never created the organization,
facilities, funds, expertise, programs or ethics oversight policies to
actually fulfill that role?
Just how much consumer testing is getting done by a company
operated
out of the principal's rented house, with no budget for testing, no
engineers or aeronautical design experts on staff? Just what kind of
analysis of the financial solvency, stability and prospects of these
hundreds of companies is getting done, without an economist,
accountant,
financial or legal expert or similar on staff, and without even a
financial investigation of the companies for them to review? Just how
much monitoring of customer satisfaction and service is getting done,
without a staff of investigators, survey people, statisticians and
evaluators? Without access to the information on these hundreds of
companies regarding their treatment of customers, how can ANY
publication claim to judge their merit -- or to compare that of the few
upon which it focuses while ignoring the rest?
Consistent with that, just how much consumer advocacy IS there
in a
magazine that's published for 8 or 9 years (well, we lost a year of
issues in the middle there but still --) and repeatedly just flogs 8 or
9 companies?? Is there only one company a year taking money from unwary
customers? Surely our aggregate experience tells us that dozens of
companies annually take the money and run, through dishonesty or just
bad business judgment, stiffing the customers with no warning from
anybody. (Forget for a moment that the company publishing U.S. Aviator
itself did exactly that -- took the subscription money and folded
without prior warning to those who were sending their money for
subscriptions.)
Then we find that a couple of those companies attacked have
absolutely
stellar ratings by customers? And excellent aircraft? And despite
great customer loyalty and products, are constantly flogged anyway ---
one over a customer who lost $2700 in 1984 on a deposit be paid to a
DEALER of a predecessor company??? Do you know HOW MANY customers lost
money to kit manufacturers, how many companies sold nonexistent kits
and
then went under, how many customers were left with half-kits or
unflyable aircraft by dozens of companies in that time? (I hardly need
to mention Bede,Bede,Bede -- I personally was amazed at the Wheeler
yoyo, Prescott Pusher dilemma, the mini-Skymaster and a half-dozen
others -- and by numerous companies purportedly manufacturing auto
conversion engines with impossible power ratings, most of which have
long since failed). And do you know how many current companies are
owned by people who have failed in this business in the past leaving
customers and creditors in the lurch? (I won't mention names here
because many are good people, except to say that some of Campbell's
best
advertisers and, from his writing, closest friends are among them?)
Yet Campbell flogs the same few companies, over and over and
over,
angrily attacking their principals and supporters in print, on the
Internet and verbally, engaging in endless intemperate rants?
Then you find that company after company rates as good or
excellent or
worthwhile have numerous vocal, disgruntled customers. Many have
lawsuits and controversies over their designs, their advertising
claims. Many have repeatedly delivered partial kits after payment in
full. Heck, one had stiffed a bunch of consumers and failed due to
court judgments against the principal even before his 1985 edition, yet
still appears without a warning. Many are out of business. And you
find that the few companies he attacks range from excellent, good,
average to bad, but almost all seem to have one thing in common --
disputes with him that he didn't mention, from an ex-fiance who left
him
to advertising disputes, to lawsuits against him that never appeared in
print, to disputes over circulation that seems exaggerated. And that
several seem to have bounced from the highly-praised column to the bad
guys instantly after the disputes? But all seem TO HAVE BEEN
ADVERTISERS AND NOT A NEGATIVE WORD WAS SPOKEN UNTIL THEY NO LONGER
WERE??
No, none of this is about whether you or I LIKE James Richard
("Zoom")
Campbell. If ability to make a good impression on the telephone were
all that was important, Campbell would be a multimillionaire. Instead,
it's all about credibility. And plead as he may that all this
inconvenient personal stuff is irrelevant and vicious, the fact IS that
it's relevant PRECISELY because HE HAS MADE HIS OWN HONESTY ABSOLUTELY
CENTRAL TO THE WORTH OF HIS PRODUCT, AND TO THE WORTH OF HIS WORDS. HE
has put his integrity in issue. HE has put his judgment in issue. HE
has asked all of us to suspend our judgment and research and to trust
his honesty and decency and integrity, and to risk tens of thousands of
dollars on the companies he chooses in doing so.
Then he complains when the fact that he has consistently
FABRICATED
credentials and history and experience is brought up. And he complains
when it's mentioned that he was diagnosed as having a mental illness --
lifelong in its nature and prognosis as described by the psychiatrists
-- that compels its victims to chronically and continuously lie about
themselves and their behavior and history. And he complains when it's
mentioned that his ex-employees, ex-partners, ex-fiance, ex-wife and
others repeatedly attest that the dishonest, unbalanced personality
depicted in that mental illness hearing -- an illness which was serious
enough for his pilot privileges to be revoked, and serious enough to
compel him to impersonate a physician -- STILL EXISTS AND IS A PART OF
THE DAILY EXISTENCE OF THIS SELF-DECLARED PARAGON OF AVIATION
INTEGRITY.
IS IT irrelevant that people close to him attest that he still
constantly lies about his history and experience, claiming for example
that he was a Boeing 747 pilot at 21 for Japan Airlines (read the NTSB
transcript, for heaven's sake -- he was just in training as an
instructor for 6 or 7 weeks and never returned the blazer). Or that
his
assertions of 13000-plus PIC hours, flying in Ethiopia and 1000+
different aircraft flown are utter nonsense? Or that they claim he is
still vindictive, vengeful and retaliatory and tries to injure or
destroy those who've angered him? Or that his repeated flying into
rages
and loss of control, as when he was AGAIN ejected from Sun&Fun, is
consistent with this personality disorder? Is the fact that the
personality and behavior described by these people is PERFECTLY
consistent with one who would intentionally attack a person or business
out of a spirit of vengeance and retaliation, IRRELEVANT -- when
victims
repeatedly present evidence that this is EXACTLY what he has done?
Each person must judge for him- or herself. Judge carelessly if
you
don't have anything at stake -- who cares? Judge CAREFULLY if you
intend to put tens of thousands of dollars on the line -- OR if you're
a
kit manufacturer and intend to stay in business. But this is NOT about
whether you "like" Jim Campbell, or whether he sounds like a "nice guy"
on the phone to a 15-year-old -- no matter how bright or well-meaning
that 15-year-old may be. It's about "who will judge the judge" and
Campbell's answer seems to be "nobody" while mine, and that of others
is
"we all must, and we must have the truth in order to do so."
Tony Pucillo