Interesting how everyone in the thread essentially agrees that there was no validity to the older gentlemens observations without any details of what he's pointing out.
Could it be he's truly interested in eliminating unsafe practices that have become commonplace, or acceptable at your field? For example, some of the practices that I have seen that I would stop that might be considered to be "fun police":
[*]Starting a plane without it being restrained.[*]Taxiing in the pit area[*]Flying over the pit or parking area[*]Smoking while fueling or defueling a plane[*]hovering over the runway when other planes are on approach[*]Flying outside the field boundaries[*]Children or pets unsupervised and running around the pit area[/list]I would be curiuos to hear some examples of his nit-picking before I offered my judgement.
BTW, as the President of my local club for the past 4 years now, I've heard members complain about the "nitpickers", but when it came down to it, there was a valid observation in the nit.
Brad
Ihave to agree with the above statement. It seems people are jumping to conclusions without fully understanding the circumstances. If the individual is being "annoying" by reciting safety rules appropriately then there isn't much to say. Traffic cops can be annoying too, but rules are rules.
There was an incident afew years ago in my club where a plan hit a person on the side of the head resulting in the loss of one eye (it amazes me that the individual is alive.) I wasn't there that day, but by all accounts the pilot was flying recklessly over the parking & pits area until he lost control of the plane. Theperson who got hit was sitting in the assigned area having a conversation;he had not broken any rules. After than incident, the club implemented a comprehensive safety policy that wasrigorously enforcedby all members (you wouldn't even think about putting a plane on the ground without first restraining it.) So back to the original question: is this individual being reasonable and logical? If not have at it, but Iwould still wonder whygets re-elected?
For the record, Ibelong in the 20-40 age group.