gboulton
Posts: 1862
Joined: 5/28/2005
From: La Vergne,
TN, USA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Stickbuilder
Gee, Gordon,
I guess I qualify for at least two of the things that whizz you off. Sorry bout that.
Not at all, Bill. Don't misunderstand...low AMA numbers and the like don't "whiz me off" in the least. It's when they're the sole justification for an opinion that I tend to get a bit peeved.
I've never seen you insist something was right just because you say it is, or just because you've always done it that way. You and I have talked NUMEROUS times about the fact that there are dozens of ways to skin a cat, and so long as the cat stays skinned, it's all good.
Now, to be sure...experience is valuable....and there's no replacement for it at all. No book, no "degree", no ANYTHING will replace 20 years in this hobby, or 1000 hours in a cockpit, or a dozen kits built. But what experience brings is, imo, just that...experience. It doesn't change facts.
Consider an example....let's say someone's "always built wings this way". He's been building wings by "method A" for 10 years, on 23 different models, and never had one fail. When he tried method X and Y, they both failed in flight.
His experience can be valuable to a newer hobbyist, who wants to try method X. He can say "I have seen Method X fail for the following reasons." Or, if someone says "Hey, will method A work?" he can say "I've had great success with method A, when done this way".
Absolutely, that kind of thing has TREMENDOUS value. And I'll NEVER argue with that. That is precisely the sort of wisdom YOU bring to this community, and from which I and this build personally benefited.
But here's the thing, Bill...DESPITE your low AMA number...DESPITE your years of experience and wisdom...when you and I discussed DIFFERENT ways of building wings, we did so from the foundation of FACT. HOW do wings fly, WHAT stresses do they undergo, WHAT will this plane do in that case, etc. And ya know what? YOU LISTENED AND LEARNED just as I did. To be sure...I have a TRUCKLOAD more to learn than you do, but you didn't let your "old ways" get in the way of accepting that there might just be an alternative, and it might work just fine. heck, it might even have BENEFITS. As a result, the charity Bulldog is going to have some VERY strong, VERY light wings.
THAT's the sort of thing I'm talking about. YOU respond to ideas outside of your own framework with openness and logical fact-based discussion. You defend what's right tenaciously, but you've never claimed to be or acted like you were the be-all and end-all of RC knowledge.
The same can not be said of others.
And hey...I never said Wacos were bad things...I love them! I'm just given ya grief cuz YOU said it was a better brotherhood than this one. *heh*
< Message edited by gboulton -- 9/13/2007 4:31:05 PM >
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The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. - Milton Friedman
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All Forums >> RC Airplanes >> Giant Scale Aircraft - General >> RE: Jim LeRoy Pitts Bulldog - Scratch Build Thread 
RE: Jim LeRoy Pitts Bulldog - Scratch B... - 
What about Mike Dunphy. He deserves at least an honorary number, don't you think? 
