"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:gY6Zj.120326$TT4.686@attbi_s22:

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!


You are an idiot.

And you engage me all the time, fjukkwit.

You just don't know it.



Bertie