| Author | Message | ||
| Macgyver (91flyer)
Rating: N/A |
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20050205/od_nm/odd_ cookies_dc If you ask me, the "neighbor" needs a good flogging, and the "judge" needs to be disbarred. Just my opinion, but this is why I tend not to help or do anything nice for people I don't directly know. No matter what you do, no matter how innocent your intentions may be, there's ALWAYS someone out there looking for ANY REASON to sue you. Better safe than sorry... Too bad the "legal" system is so broken, things like this are not only possible, but common place these days. On a side note... My bus project will be on hold for at least the next year, up to the next 5 years. I intend to take a job with a friend of mine out of the country. The money just can't be turned down, and when I return, I'll have more than enough to do my bus, build my plane, and get my Airline Pilot training and certification! Woot! Hopefully... I'll be leaving in 6 to 8 weeks. Iraq for those who would ask where I'm going.  -Mac | ||
| BrianMCI Rating: N/A |
Yeah, just goes to show what being neighborly can get you when you have the wrong neighbor. Be safe Mac... Brian | ||
| Sean Welsh (Sean)
Rating: N/A |
The problem with news snippets is that they seldom tell the whole story... Before you rush to judgement, the key issue in the case was that the girls pounded on the door several times. The plaintiff asked, through the closed door, who was knocking. The girls refused to answer, and, at some point, ran away. It is the fact that the girls refused to identify themselves or their purpose (thus causing the distress) that caused the fine to be levied. The judge refused to award punitive damages, because he did not believe the girls acted maliciously. The point the court was making is that one can not simply go around the neighborhood pounding on doors. When someone asks "who's there?" one needs at least to answer that question, else she should not have knocked in the first place. All that being said, I do think this woman blew the whole thing out of proportion, and needs professional help if a knock on the door can send her to the hospital. But that did not make the girls' action (refusal to identify themselves) right. BTW, at trial, the girls claimed they did not respond to the woman's many queries because they wanted the cookies to be a complete surprise. -Sean | ||
| John that newguy Rating: N/A |
Like everything in life, there's more to the story than meets the eye: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2005/02/04/920768.html "Wanita Renea Young, 49, said she was at her rural home south of Durango around 10:30 p.m. when she said saw “shadowy figures“ outside the house banging repeatedly on her door. She yelled, “Who’s there?” but no one answered, and the figures ran away. Frightened, she spent the night at her sister’s home, then went to the hospital the next morning because she was still shaking and had an upset stomach. " Now, I think I know "teen pranks", and when they say: "The teens said they did not answer when the woman called out because they wanted the treats to be a surprise. " I would have some serious doubt that the gesture was as pure as they try to tell you. Kids'll be kids and old farts weren't born yesterday. | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
Macqyver, Be careful, do well! I've got a Thorp T-18, what are you planning to build? Marc Bourget CSEL, IA, CROTOCRAFT | ||
| John that newguy Rating: N/A |
You taking the 60' coach with you? | ||
| Macgyver (91flyer)
Rating: N/A |
I plan to build a Cozy Mk IV when I return from wherever I end up. And no... I won't be taking the 60 footer with me. It would be interesting to do so, but I think the shipping would outweigh what I'll make while I'm there! Besides... Why give those freaky wacko's something bigger to shoot at! The Cozy is a nice composite plans-built plane that has a lot of information and a large support group. I like the design, and I like the flight characteristics of it. If the Velocity were a plans-built, instead of a kit-built, I'd go with it instead... but I like the idea of having complete control over costs, and I like the idea of learning how to make the thing from scratch (for repair reasons, should I screw up somewhere along the way)... As far as the story... I still think the "neighbor" is an idiot, and I still think the "judge" is a moron for even letting it into court, much less awarding any "damages". If the "neighbor" is THAT paranoid, then she needs to live in a "secure" gated community with watchmen on duty. The whole episode is just stupid and insanely ignorant. Granted, the girls shouldn't have been knocking on doors at 10:30 at night... But it's still absurd. Perhaps the reason they were knocking on THIS person's door at 10:30 at night is simply BECAUSE the "neighbor" is a complete idiot and a dismal failure at being anything but an anti-social nutball, this just underscores that, and quite frankly... if I had a neighbor like her... I'd be doing some funny pranks to her too. I think people like her need a reality check... As for my bus... I'll have plenty of cash to do exactly what I want to it when I return... 60 feet of pure paradise for me and my family. The plane will add a nice scenic view to vacation spots, and a much cheaper plane ticket than with the airlines... Of course, it's just fun to fly... I'm seriously considering becoming an airline pilot... It'd be a nice change in my career, and a definite answer to my lust to fly! Cheers! -Mac | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
Airliner "driving" has little in common with recreational piloting. Ask FF | ||
| mleibelt
Rating: N/A |
PLUS...the Airline industry sucks... the job isn't what it was 20 years ago....Mac...look for a real job....I went from DC-10 Capt with INternational line to botton of the pilot list on reserve after 10 years with the company... Mark | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
"Airliner "driving" has little in common with recreational piloting". Ask FF Sorry , I can be of little help here , I have over 20,000 in the big iron but almost ZERO in tiny stuff , just a few hundred in Navy T 34 and T 28 to learn to keep the Blue side up. True tho that Airline driving for a Major is far different from the "old" days , now the salereies are being ratched DOWN by the Roach Coach point to point cheapos , and the ability to get from any small town to another small town is disapearing. Although point to point as a sardine is cheaper. Caviat Emptor , but NEVER in an Air Bus!! FAST FRED | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
FF, If you were to go flying just to go flying, would you pick the T-34 Mentor (7 hrs) or a Boeing,Douglas, Lockheed product? Had the privilege, due to my Commercial Ticket, of riding in the check pilot seat in an AirBus. Great View but it wouldn't be my choice! | ||
| DMDave Rating: N/A |
FF might pick a lockheed neptune. | ||
| Macgyver (91flyer)
Rating: N/A |
Pay may not be as good for airliner pilots as it used to be... and it may not be like the old days... but, ya have to realize... I'm not old enough to know what the old days were like... and the pay has to be more than what I make now as a computer tech/network admin! If it turns out I don't like it, or my research shows it just isn't worth the effort (won't do that until I return from Iraq), then I'll switch gears and try something else... But, I do like to fly... and it may not be a Cozy Mk IV, but it is an airplane no less. I'd talk to real pilots before investing any money in education, of course, and get several opinions on their working conditions and pay when I'm ready to make the move... But it's one of the ideas I'm toying around with. Well, off to bed for me... I have a long day tomorrow getting my van fixed. Damn power steering pump imploded or something... heh. I'd replace it myself, but I just don't have the time to muck with it. Cheers! -Mac | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
Of course with your computer you probably wont be away from home and on the job 240 hours a month. You wont have the pleasure of flying 2.5 hours from LGA /ORD sitting in a lounge for 3.5 hours , hopping up to MBS for a 1 hours pay and sitting another 2.5 hours to go back to ORD , another 2.5 and you can finally get another 1 hour , and 7 hours of sleep in South Bend. 2.5+1+1+1 is only 5.5 hours of pay for a rather LONG day.80 hours a month takes many days to get. Yes, it can get better as the geezers leave at 60 , but it can be a decade or more between seats at many majors. Good $$ but long hours. For fun the turboed T34 or 28 look fine , but my first choice would always be the sweet flying Dakota . How bad can it be when Da Book shows a procedure for a SINGLE ENGINE TAKEOFF!! DC3 for me. The OV 10A was fun tho. FAST FRED | ||
| Steve 80 Crown Atomic Rating: N/A |
 Well, I can understand the woman’s fright. Living alone in the country, with no one around for miles, you have to be your own fire dept and police force, because it may be an hour or more before they arrive, and the bad guys know this too. It’s smart to consider any stranger a hostile until proven otherwise. I’m sure she would prefer to live in a gated, high-security community, but probably cannot afford it. A friend of mine was seriously going after an Iraq job, private security, at 120,000/yr mostly tax free. After much digging, he found the contract had a number of objectionable conditions, including no use of personal firearms and he’d be doing VIP protection with nothing more than a pistol. In Iraq? That’s insane. When I got out of the USAF, I looked at the airliner career, but it just wasn’t for me. Kind of got used to yanking & banking small fast jets, it was FUN!. Driving a flying cattle car was like drivin a, uh, er, bus. No thrills, just 1G and don’t spill the coffee. Plus, I had to build time flying trash haulers for several years. And back then, those pilots were making little more than minimum wage and the aircraft were wrecks. I don’t know what they get paid today, but most of the small freighters I’ve worked on in recent years were pretty thrashed. Someone had at least one eye closed when they declared them airworthy. I wouldn’t fly in them for any reason, but I’m not going for an ATP ticket either. Good luck with the homebuilt. I’ve looked at several projects, where the owners wanted to hire me to help them out. Most were hopeless, but the owners refused to accept reality. Biggest problems were builder’s lack of mechanical experience and tools, aircraft design still had flaws, no solid support network for the particular design, and mainly, the owner’s stubbornness to admit a mistake and redo it. I gave a builder a 3-page report of dozens of mistakes in his 75% finished aircraft, and my last sentence read “If you try to fly this aircraft, you will die”. Didn’t change his mind one iota. Err, the basket cases were all plans-built designs. Just because it’s a blueprint, doesn’t mean it isn’t speckled with errors and omissions. I’ve found this to be true even with FAA approved repairs from major aircraft manufacturers. Frustrating as heck when you’ve cut on an aircraft then realize days later the repair will not work as required, and the company will NEVER admit a mistake, no matter how obvious it is, because of liability concerns. Many successful builders I’ve seen had a common thread. The design used ONLY ONE major construction material, metal, composite, or fabric. The EAA books by Tony Bingelis are a good start, but I feel they are a MINIMUM standard because they reduce aircraft building to something akin to building a go-cart. Unfortunately, many builder’s feel Bingelis is the gold standard, and that something considerably less than that will suffice. Bingelis’ ideas are a bit outdated as far as tools and methods go. Most any good GA structural repair guy (hard to find nowadays) can show you better and faster ways of doing the tasks Bingelis explains. Airbus. Ugh. Bleeech. Yuuuuuck. Did I mention Yuuuuck? Last one I played with was a miserable cantankerous pile of parts. About ready to get out the sledgehammer. Didn’t help that the maint had been outsourced to Pakistan and the guy relaying procedures to me had a poor grasp of the English language. An absolute circus trying to get that thing back into the air. Got to play with an Embraer 170 a while ago, straight from the factory. The latest, greatest, state of the art in mid-size airliner. Pretty darn impressive, a “smart” aircraft with computers everywhere. Finally an aircraft that sold me on all-glass cockpits, although I’d still like to see someone effectively using that mousepad to work through a dozen screens while in moderate turbulence. Hey, I’ll bet this post has pi**ed off half the busnuts on this board. What do I win? | ||
| Marc Bourget Rating: N/A |
My respect. Few homebuilts had a designer with the expertise and intellectual honesty of John Thorp. However, even professional plans of an aircraft designed to FAR Type Certificate Standards will result in the predicament you described given the (in)correct builder who lacks either sufficient expertise or intellectual honesty. A T-18 builder, (Al Neutuffel, IIRC) substituted 1/8 Aluminun rivets in an outer-wing attach fitting instead of Huck Bolts or Cherry Rivets (both high strength steel) of a much larger diameter. While at Oskosh someone noted chaffing on the gap strip and was able to wiggle the wing tip up and down a matter of inches. When reported to the owner/builder, Al angrily told him off just before he took a young girl on her "last" ride. I regret her demise, not the builder/pilot's, not so, the impact on his family. Too bad she was part of the price paid for a "final" lesson. I'm lucky the price of the lesson I learned with my trailer was so low! Onward and Upward |