Even an expert learns something new he or she didn't know untill then. So the expert status is a label added to a statement to make themselves feel important or omnishent, (spelling?) so anyone proclaiming to be an expert is full of dog poop, it's just knowledge collected throughout the time spent in the hobby, most of those experts never do what they say, they just recite what they've seen others do. So with that I'll be honest, there is no time span to become an expert, it's not like your going for a liscense to become one, so I've seen noobies go from trainers to 3D machines in 2 years and fly way better than I could ever dream of, does it make them and expert, nope, it just means they reached their goal they set forth to do. Ask them to fly in a pattern compition, it's not what they want to do, so they are not experts. Just shrug off anybody proclaiming themselves to be an "EXPERT", obviously you made a statement to them that contradicts what they know.</p>

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BTW- I usually give advise but still after all these years,....I still learn something new everyday.</p>