"Wallace Berry" wrote in message ...
In article ,
"Bill Daniels" wrote:

What is it about flying, and gliding in particular, that seems to attract
the attention of so many paranoid control freaks?

This thread is about an ignorant airport manager who feels an overpowering
need to "control" the gliding activities at his airport to insure "safety",
but these same people can be found inside our sport serving as officers and
board members of clubs and associations. They rarely actually fly gliders
or show any talent for doing so. Instead, they spend their energy
controlling the activities of others who do fly.

This unfortunate combination of arrogance, ignorance, paranoia and a type A
personality is deadly for the enjoyment of our sport. These individuals
contribute little to actual safety since they don't understand the problem.
They take the position "just don't fly" or "fly less - it'll be safer" or
"only fly basic trainers" since this is the only "solution" that they can
comprehend. They will often be heard espousing the bizarre idea that
handling qualities are inversely related to performance so the "safest"
gliders always have the lowest performance.

Sorry for the rant. I hope you don't know anyone resembling the
description above.

Bill Daniels



What Ray Cornay has written with regards to the situation with our
airport management is no exaggeration or skewing of the facts.

Could be. Usually when you hear one side of a story, that's exactly
what you get -- one side of the story. Maybe mr anonymous rjciii
laid all the facts on the table and maybe he didn't. Hard to tell on
the internet, isn't it?


What Mr. Daniels has written is an exact description of the psychology
of the individuals we have to deal with. Mr. Daniels, your rant is
appreciated. I'm sorry that anyone else has had to deal with people with
the mindset that you describe. However, I've seen enough of it to
suspect it is the case at many of the "public" airports.

Umm, Mr. Daniels is ranting about a glider-club owned airport.


Which leads me to a rant of my own:

I am absolutely convinced that the one critical problem for soaring
today is airport access. We can sell the sport anyway we want, but what
will that help if we can't even keep the people who have taken the time
to seek us out? In the last 20 years, I've seen dozens (maybe a hundred
or more) people drop out of soaring primarily because they couldn't
stand the hostile atmosphere of the "public" airport. One answer is what
the best clubs have done: Buy land and establish a glider field.

I belong to one such club, the Colorado Soaring Association. Through
hard work and financial sacrifice over the years, we own and operate
a private airport. It used to be a great place to fly.

Then one day a Mr. Daniels shows up. He made a point of telling people
he just wanted to fit in. Over the three years that we've been blessed
with his presence, he's misused club equipment and club property,
he's created as much chaos as he possibly can, and he's invoked the
hatred of virtually the entire membership. He's being eased out of the
club currently, which explains why he's in such a bad mood. He's
driven away club members, towpilots, and instructors. He's been
thrown out of other clubs before, so the process should come as no
great surprise to him.


Even
this doesn't end all the access problems such as noise complaints or
TFR's or someone installing Class B over your head.

Or putting up with nutcakes like Mr. Daniels. Mr. Daniels is
to 2-33's what Lennie the Lurker is to 1-26's.


However, we have
already bought and continue to pay for the "public" airpots and it makes
me absolutely furious to have a psychotic glorified gas station
attendant tell me I can't use "his" airport.

Mr. Daniels always tries to run the show. People who try to get him
to pay his bills are "control freaks". Telling him to follow club rules
makes you another "control freak" in his warped little mind. Anytime
he doesn't get his way, he starts his ranting again. Speaking of people's
enjoyment of the sport, there's about 50 members of Colorado Soaring
Association who are going to be wildly cheering when he's gone.

He says he's going to start his own glider club, winching of course,
open by invitation only to the most elite glider pilots in the state.
Anybody who wants to follow this moron out to a cow pasture is
more than welcome. I'm sure his buddy Frank will be right there.

Dave Kinsell