MSG to Grant P

[poadeleted7]

Grant,
I tried to respond to you over in the medical thread but it was closed so I will try here. My apoligies if this is not the correct place. First, my opening post was meant to be tonge in cheek but I guess that got past a few people. Second, I was actually in agreement with Dr Bruce Chein (SP?) before he started verbally abusing me. I would sugest to the OP that he get the "Expert" advise more from the legal side than the medical side at this point.
I know what I am about to say will put me at odds with Bruce and his fan club , but I firmly believe that people who have physical (And even mental) challenges that do not impose a safety of flight issue should be allowed to fly airplanes. Back in the 80s when I was a full time instructor I had two physically limited students. Both of these people (one refered the other to me) were told by AOPA to give up flying and find another hobby. Well, through some hard work by an AME that I knew at the time both of these people sucsesfully obtained third class medicals and completed PPL training. One of them still owns and operates a Bonanza to this day.
4 years ago I attended the retirement party of a captain budy who had limited use of one of his hands since childhood. When the guy was a teenager he was told by an AME (Probably someone similar to Bruce's mentality) to give up flying and find something else to do with his life. The guy retired off of the 737 with nearly 26000 hours and somehow (Sarcasm here) never put a scratch on an airplane. I flew the line with him on several ocasions (Including a recurrent) and he was always a capable individual.
Let me give you a little more backround. I started flying at 14 and I am 45 now so I have been at this a little while. I have done the cases mentioned above and one of my best friends is a senior AME who is handling two ground breaking cases at the moment. I have done various commitee work for ALPA (Mostly involing legal stuff) . This doesnt make me an AME by any strech but I do consider myself a somewhat informed end user of the system.
So I figure we can sit out on the back porch and talk flying , ooooooor we can flaunt our qualifications (Like Doc Bruce and his fan club) and call each other names =)))))
Frank

 

[KennyFlys]

Frank, I think the thing that set folks off most was your initial advice to Daniel. It certainly didn't give me any warm fuzzies. Admittedly, I don't know your background or experience. But, that one piece of advice sets a trend in my thinking about what to expect in your posts. I doubt I'm the only one that affected.

That being said, I hope we can put it aside and share the passion I know we both have about flying. Heck, if I can forget some of the silly things said by Scott, Rev and William... it should be a breeze.

Digs outside the SZ for grins and giggles.

 

[gprellwitz]

Frank,

First, welcome to the board!

Generally, if you want to talk directly to another member you can use the "Private Message" function that shows up if you click the member's name. That said, I'll respond in public because I really do want to welcome you to the community, and I'm afraid that you've unintentionally gotten off to a rocky start.

To be honest, I took the opening message as "tongue in cheek" until things started to heat up, then I thought that maybe you were trying to give us fair warning! It's not so much that "Dr. Bruce" has a "fan club" as that he's made significant contributions and donated his time and effort selflessly. I can only hope to come close to them.
He works tirelessly to get people special issuances if there's a chance that they can fly safely. OTOH, he doesn't pull any punches, and if he thinks someone shouldn't be flying, he'll tell them so. These are my impressions of him, and he's perfectly capable of sticking up for himself. I hope that you recognize that the upswelling of support for him is what he's earned in our eyes over years of knowing him. Believe me, it's not a matter of someone dropping a few accomplishments and saying "look at me, I'm great."

And, if you're interested in physically challenged individuals learning to fly, I recommend you take a look at Able Flight (www.ableflight.org). Kate Bernard (skyflyer8) instructed one of their first students and helped him get his Sport Pilot certificate. She, Dr. Bruce, and a few others talk about the physically challenged on the CFICast episode 9 (http://pilotcast.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=316550)

Spend some time around here and you'll start to get a sense of personalities and to understand what people mean. Unfortunately, the ASCII interface while all that we have, really isn't ideal for expressing the nuances of human interaction. I try hard to take peoples' comments in the best possible light, and it's served me well.

Edit:
I just saw Kenny's post, and find that I agree with much of it, even though he and I may disagree on many things