ORIGINAL: FalconWings
BTW,
There was a guy in our club that charged something like $20 an hour to teach how to fly. True, no one else charges anything.
Well, I saw officers from my club yell what sounded like profanity to this guy becaue he charged for flight lessons.
Turned out, this guy was Paul Metz........TEST PILOT OF THE F-22 RAPTOR. I thought that he was charging a very reasonable fee, and he had customers willing to pay it.
I'd pay that fee just to hear his flight test stories. Then again we would end up with the $1500 lawyer because it's probably all classified. [8D]
I met Paul in our shop at Lockheed a while back and I thought that he was a pretty nice guy. But nice guy or not, he shouldn't be charging people to teach them how to fly. The thought of making it even MORE expensive for someone to get started in this hobby is absurd. If he feels that because he's a fighter aircraft test pilot he can get compensated for his 'knowledge' at the flying field then he has some ego issues that ought to be left at the gate. Just think of how many people are flying R/C and how many of them were taught how to fly by others for free compared to the ones that make you pay for it. It kind of takes the personal friendship / camaraderie out of the hobby.
Les