Originally Posted by
Delmonico
This is actually quite illuminating by itself. I saw nothing in the registration that required someone to be a professional pilot in order to comment or ask questions. I would suggest you contact the administrator to make your forum invite only. This way you may be able to hide what is apparently a shared and very deep, almost paranoid defensiveness from the general public.
First; how, exactly would a "media hack" get a reliable source off an anonymous board? Make up a name of, or ascribe it to someone's nickname.
Second; if I was some nefarious professional reporter, why would I have admitted right off that I was not a pilot? Believe me, by not doing so and with a little "pushing", a good reporter could have gotten some really juicy "quotes".
Pilots and the work they do has long been a source of admiration to me. I had always hoped that without the physical problems that made me unable to fly, I might have been able to fly. But you really need to thicken your skins a little bit. That way maybe you could provide those outside the brotherhood (or sisterhood) with a viewpoint other than paranoid defensiveness and general overall arrogance.
If you knew how many brand new accounts pop up after every crash, all by "someone who has had an interest in aviation and am asking a few questions," and then having our answers quoted by the media, you would realize our "paranoia" is justified.
Also, if ever you are at a bar or party and want alienate a pilot, ask him/her about "that one crash a while back." Better yet, tell him why you know 9/11 was an inside job and that "chemtrails" are part of a government mind control experiment. If I had a dollar for every one of those questions, I could retire at 50.