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How do you deal with unfair criticism from other pilots?

Silvaire wrote:

Fairly obviously figuring that out is the art of negotiation.

That is a non-answer to me, but ok.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

A friend of mine is a highly skilled and qualified aviator among other substantial things, but has the appearance of being a bar brawling Irish thug with a little man complex, with a glimmer in his eye that indicates he is about to become unhinged and enjoy it. His intelligence quickly becomes obvious but he can be rather direct. That works for him when dealing with more genteel US airport problem children, particularly if they follow the pattern of such people in not being terribly bright, but it might not work for everybody, everywhere

Aeronautical sabotage is posted on the fence as a Federal offense at almost every airport in the US, that is a good point to remember.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 04 Jun 15:36

Silvaire wrote:

unstable, bored people

Viewing it collaboratively, it can help to offer to take complaining neighbours for a local discovery flight over their house free of charge. If you catch them early enough they might say yes, and hopefully they’ll see that you can’t spy into their gardens from 1000 feet and maybe even enjoy themselves. Organising this only really works where the airfield ‘belongs’ to a club.

I’ve been on the receiving end of unfair criticism a few times, but as long as it’s on the ground and constructive I try to stay philosophical. Two funny examples:

1. In France I’d just landed in a tailwheel, and getting out of the aircraft was subjected to a 5 minute lecture about how dangerous it was to wear flipflops while flying. I’d never really thought about it, but took the point on board. Shortly after, someone said to me, “I see you just had a long chat with Roland. For someone who can’t fly he sure has an opinion on everything”.

2. In the UK I joined base leg in front of an aircraft on a wide downwind, which turned out to be one of the based instructors who then came over after landing to reprimand the pilot for not doing an overhead join. Stereotypically he addressed not the shy skinny 20 year old, but his bad-tempered non-pilot father… who had just seen the lunch menu and suffered a severe disappointment. The poor FI didn’t know what hit him.

In Frans’ case I agree with dublinpilot and skydriller: polite and non-committal, then extricate yourself as quickly as possible.Occasionally you get people like this, and whilst it’s unpleasant at the time it’s best to limit your involvement with them. Being charitable, they might have other problems going on in their life.

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Silvaire wrote:

it’s kept this problem from growing in the US.

Sure? I am hearing enough problems which airfields have with exactly those issues. Clearly, they have not gone to this kind of lenght but heck, all of us remember Meighs, most know about Santa Monica just to name 2 very prominent ones but I keep reading about other airfields under attack, particularly in California but also elsewhere. Same behaviour.

I think the many of the small airports around here have really done their homework and the people around that see it. That is why they do get the support they get and that is why the local authorities in many cases will tell the nags to go away as the airfield has more than shown that they are interested in a good relation with the neighbors. So all in all, at least here, it mostly has paid off.

But looking at the project of Dübendorf for instance, which is a historical and convenient aerodrome and was planned to become the GA relief for Zurich, it can easily be seen that it is not so straightforward. Even though that airport has been there since 1903 or so, the communities around it are absolutely rabid about shutting it down and will go to any lenght of legal battle to ensure that anyone trying to develop it is going to run out of money before it will happen. All it takes is a massive effort and the project is dead.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

@Mooney_Driver, yes, I’m sure.

Anything like what you describe in Switzerland would mean I’d be nowhere near aviation.

I recently visited Vilshofen EDMV where the town is located on one bank of the river Danube and the airfield is on the opposite side, both connected via a bridge. From the town you couldn’t hear the departing airplanes over the road noise except for the Mooneys but you could still hear the motorcycles in the hills on the far side of the airfield. Everytime you would think that the motorcycle must now be gone it would slow down for a bend and then accelerate again. That pattern should be much more annoying than a first loud and then slowly fading noise. But I guess the road noise is much more accepted because driving a loud car or a motorcycle is something many people do theirselves or have done so in their youth.

EDQH, Germany

Isn’t it interesting in this thread, that several people here also had the experience of receiving unfair criticism but not a single one seems to have given it?

Germany

Mooney_Driver wrote:

most know about Santa Monica just to name 2 very prominent ones

Santa Monica (KSMO, my home base) is a bad example for unhinged neighbors. Here it’s pure and simple corruption, routed through the – by now standard – ‘environmental’ arguments channel. If people who live close to KSMO really cared about the environment and the air they’re breathing, they wouldn’t chose to live close to two of the most heavily trafficked freeways (I-10 and I-405) in the US.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Isn’t it interesting in this thread, that several people here also had the experience of receiving unfair criticism but not a single one seems to have given it?

I never had that experience either way.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Isn’t it interesting in this thread, that several people here also had the experience of receiving unfair criticism but not a single one seems to have given it?

The question would be what is unfair and how much of the feedback they got really was unfair or simply badly worded.

And why we don’t give it mostly has to do with the fact that not many here have the authority to do that, at least I have not.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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