Sport Pilot Talk

CharlieTango · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:15 am Post subject: Flight Design forum - bias

the flight design discussions on this board have recently evolved. the portion of discussion here that, in my opinion is unfair bashing now includes the ct forum, which is a pilot/owner run forum, not flight design's.

1st art and fans are saying that no negative posts are permitted. not true at all. i publicly advised a member to fly the new ctls before he decides to buy one, i said i was skeptical about its handling. a plane that is designed for american lsa pilots ( easy to fly and land ) might not be as fun to fly.

every negative aspect of the ct is discussed by the members but we are labeled mac using kool aid drinkers.

the forum wants to be ct specific and doesn't want discussion about other designs, that is different than a bias, it is simply a rule.

the forum doesn't want the bashing, especially when it doesn't seem grounded in reality. artp's bashing didn't start with flight design, same behavior existed when he was a cirrus owner. he's had years of practice and is quite good at it. i find it interesting that he bought his ct from the cirrus dealer and now his complaints are all about dealer service. what's that about?

i've owned home builts, cessna, piper, mooney and flight design. i'm not and never was a big cessna or piper fan but when a design fits me well like mooney or flight design i stick with it.

pilot john's approach was interesting. he posted a long, not permitted evaluation of many designs. it was a fair post, a bit off on his flight design evaluation based on a 30 min ride in turbulent conditions at least he was being honest. the post didn't fit the rule and had an in your face flavor to it.

this forum is more appropriate for such a comparison but pj, didn't just post his report here he used it to call us names and bash our forum. in the end pj's report was ignored and the subject was about us sheep. silly.

so why do we come across as kook aid drinkers? i think it is because there are a few voices that are giving the wrong impression and a few voices responding. the responses are saying, wait a minute, i've got a ct, had it for years, hundreds of hours, and your reports just don't jive with what i know. i contend that a seemingly unfair comment countered by someone proud of their aircraft is to be expected and doesn't really deserve the name calling.

i have asked that art not put words in my mouth about 50 times by now. one common approach in this bashing is to build straw men and knock them down, much like saying negative posts aren't permitted.

i'm not trying to make ct fans out of anyone, i am trying to keep some balance and counter negative rhetoric when it seems unfounded.

vwvectors · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 76 Location: Florida

If Pilotjohn's post is fair & he wuz being honest IS that not balance . Which should be the rule ...

artp · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 144 Location: Odenton, Md

CharlieTango wrote: i find it interesting that he bought his ct from the cirrus dealer and now his complaints are all about dealer service. what's that about?

I bought my CT from an LSA dealer who does not sell Cirrus. When I had the Cirrus it was serviced by a service center in Lancaster which is no longer a certified service center. In any casy my complaints about Cirrus were with the repetative failures, but to their credit (and unlike Flight Design) they actually fixed the parts when they failed. The only complaint I had against the Cirrus service center was the same one I have now, they had more work than they could handle.

Speaking of putting words in someone's mouth. Except for the time it takes to schedule an appointment, all of my complaints are about Flight Design and their inability to provide parts support or honor the warranty to fix items that don't work. I am sorry they can't design an oil cooling system that works but they sold me one and I would have hoped they work make it operational rather than publicly state I don't have one, and then retracting that statement by adding the thermostat works fine except below 25 degrees (it doesn't work at 80 degrees either).

CharlieTango · Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 10:22 am Post subject:

vwvectors wrote: If Pilotjohn's post is fair & he wuz being honest IS that not balance . Which should be the rule ...

i agree, roger makes the rules though, he owns the site

i'll be talking to him at the fly-in this week and my position will be that some "balance" will ligitimize the site more than it will have a negative effect.

in this case i don't think it was negativity as much as focus. probably not "fair" to do a comparison with a $250,000 gen cat design. roger wants the discussion to be solely on the ct.

i do understand roger's issue in that much of what he has dealt with was far from "balance" even though pilot john's post seemed honest he did admit that he was trying to mess with roger.

artp · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 144 Location: Odenton, Md

CharlieTango wrote: i agree, roger makes the rules though, he owns the site

i'll be talking to him at the fly-in this week and my position will be that some "balance" will ligitimize the site more than it will have a negative effect.

Some "balance" will legitimize the site?

When I owned the Cirrus my first major complaint was the autopilot. I went through 7 of them. I complained on the Cirrus forum. I received the expected abuse from the CharlieTango's of among the Cirrus owners. I should complain to the service center because it is not a Cirrus problem. I should complain to STEC because Cirrus just installed them. No one else has the problem so it couldn't be Cirrus. But the forum did not attempt to suppress what some considered Cirrus bashing. As more people got the planes (I had a very early SR20 which I got after a 2 years on the waiting list) they started having the same problem. It turned out that it was a Cirrus problem. Cirrus had to recall all the planes to replace the aileron trim servo's.

A similar happened with the flaps locking up in a partially deployed position. Once again the earlier complainers (I had the problem but was not one of the earlier ones) got the predictable abuse, but once again their posts were not suppressed and in the end Cirrus had to recall all of the planes again to replace the flap relays.

There are other examples, but I don't want to focus the discussion on Cirrus, but rather the importance of a user forum that allows complaints to be aired rather than suppressed because they are not positive. The current CT forum is a feel good site for Flight Design. That is the right of the administrator, but those on the forum should not think that it is a serious platform for owners to address Flight Design problems.

rfane · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 80 Location: San Jose, CA

artp wrote: That is the right of the administrator, but those on the forum should not think that it is a serious platform for owners to address Flight Design problems.

Where has it been said that it was? Roger has been consistent with the message of what the board is for. With that said, if we had a safety of flight issue, we wouldn't hesitate to discuss it.

vwvectors · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 76 Location: Florida

Charlietango , I hope your successful in your "negotiations" with Roger .

pilotjohn · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 19 Location: New Jersey

I was only trying to mess with Roger AFTER the ridiculousness started, and the poke was really only the statement that I would not buy a CT just because of his forum... Of course, that is not true. I am unbiased toward the SLSAs I am evaluating. The opinions were an honest attempt at following his rules.

I will write a longer evaluation post sometime in the future, when all my analysis is complete and my mind is made up. The comparison to a 250k airplane (actually a 110k used 172) was because that is what I fly, and my reason for looking at SLSA is not because of medical reasons, but because of price.

CharlieTango · Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject:

vwvectors wrote: Charlietango , I hope your successful in your "negotiations" with Roger .

progress has been made.

i'm sure roger doesn't want to see anything abusive