EridanMan writes:

The problem is that you do not know what you do not know ...

A greater problem is that a lot of pilots here don't know, either, although
many think that they know it all once they have a license (and that,
conversely, anyone without one knows nothing). The truth is considerably less
extreme.

... and lack of
practical experience has left your knowledge with a great number of
holes that you refuse to acknowledge.

The "holes" pointed out to me consist almost exclusively of physical
sensations of flying. The mistake made by pilots here is to think that these
sensations are 99% of flying, when in fact their importance varies with the
type of flying under consideration.

This is a consequence of many pilots here being tin-can, seat-of-the-pants
pilots, with little or no experience or knowledge of other types of aircraft.
They see everything from the cockpit of a Cessna, and they think that's all
there is.

That is a GROSS generalization.

It's also a very accurate one. It's painfully obvious that many of the pilots
here are low-time, small-aircraft pilots. Everything they say reflects this
viewpoint.

Yes, some pilot's only care about the planes that they fly... I would
say that is actually the exception rather than the rule, however.

Most of them only _know_ about the plane(s) they fly. They don't know about
other planes, so they don't care about them.

They think that knowing the fine details of control pressures in a Cessna is
vitally important, but when I point out that many large aircraft don't work
this way at all, they dismiss that as unimportant. But it's not unimportant
to an Airbus pilot.

The rest of us have just as much a passion for aviation as yourself
AND we fly.

Some people have resources, and others don't.

When we're not spending our spare time in a cockpit, we
spend it learning about aircraft and aircraft systems... Aircraft
design (A particular favorite topic of mine) and other aviation
related topics... and hell, even flying sims...

Some do, some don't. Some stop half-way and then pretend about the rest.

Your explanation of the cause of the roll oscillations was utterly
wrong ...

Provide the correct explanation, then.

... and your desire to attribute ultimate aircraft stability to
autopilot design is also largly incorrect (Except in a few isolated
(almost always military) cases of relaxed stability aircraft.

See above.

This might be a low blow but...

Isn't that the fundamental definition of Simulation?

Not really. Pretending depends on imagination alone. Simulation removes part
of the need for imagination, so simulation is much less pretending than
non-simulation.

One of the aggravations I have had, however - is you do not seem to
respond to anything BUT the personal attacks ...

Many posts contain nothing else, and in fact I let most personal attacks drop,
as they are unrelated to the discussion at hand. It's hard to get people to
discuss the topic, rather than me.

This post is a case in point. You say I was wrong, but you provide no further
information and no corrections, which I find odd. You spend the rest of the
post talking about me, rather than the topic at hand.

I have seen MANY knowledgeable, polite corrections and responses to
your assertions go un-heeded while you chose only to argue with those
who attacked you.

The fact that I do not reply to a post doesn't mean that I haven't read it or
understood it. It usually just means that I have no quarrel with it and no
further questions about it.

Those who engage in personal attacks also tend to be those who give wrong
answers or incomplete answers or no answers, and so I press them for answers.
People who are aggressive in this way are often being defensive because they
know that their opinions were adopted wholesale from someone else and are
fundamentally baseless. I press them for answers in order to compel them to
look at their opinions and decide whether they are really worth clinging to
when they cannot be substantiated. I consider this a public service.

It gives the impression that you seek the negative attention over
actual helpfulness.

I'm not worried about the impression I create. I've found that people have an
enormous tendency to believe what they want to believe, and it's an exercise
in futility to try to make them think more critically. But I try to err on
the side of optimism and so I still do the above.

I still wish you'd take some time to get your information from sources
OTHER than public forums however ...

Most of my information comes from other sources, since it is hard to find
people here who actually know what they are talking about. USENET is just one
of many sources.

So many of your questions could be
answered so much easier and faster via a quick Google search.

I do Google searches regularly, although I don't have as much faith in them as
you might.

And It would also be nice if you added an occasional "my understanding
is" disclaimer to some of your more authoritative-toned posts...

Why? To spare the overinflated egos of a minority? Why would I say something
that is _not_ my understanding? How could anything I say (or anything anyone
else says) be anything _other_ than an understanding?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.