Is anybody willing to post anecdotes of thier fellow club member's activities?

I think the only rule should be, do not post their name. You don't want to get reported do you now?

I guess I'll start.


We had a member who has since moved on who was the self-proclaimed "instructor".
He would show up, check out the beginner pilot's plane, do the usual airframe, engine and radio checks. Once satisfied, he would start it up and takeoff, and very soon after takeoff, he would crash thier plane.

To paraphrase him, "It wasn't my fault, you didn't have this or that setup right, the CG was wrong, the engine needed adjusted." He trashed more pilots' airplanes than I care to remember.
I rarely recall him ever having one of his own planes coming back in one piece.

I give him credit on one thing, he was skilled as a builder but not as a pilot.
It's not to say I haven't busted up my share of birds (20+ years of flying), but I am very cautious as to who I give flight instruction to.

We don't have any bad members at our club.The Watchussets Barnstormers.
Everyone's cool..gassers,slimers, and electroheads.
Micro, heli, full scale, sailplanes, pattern, park flyers, turbines....we got it all!....except annoying members.

Yes...we are fortunate!

We had one miserable so-and-so who was what I call a 'sheep' (someone who buys the same gear as everyone else just to 'fit in'). He bought a very expensive (at the time) Graupner radio system, which he never utilised to the full, having bought it only for appearances sake. Anyway...comes the day when he makes a disparaging remark about my basic Hitec radio, so in front of a crowd of other flyers I loudly asked him to demonstrate all the wonders of his new radio and show me how he used them to improve his flying - needless to say, he couldn't and retired with quite a red face, never to make comments about other people's gear again. Added to his big mouth, he was also someone who didn't like new members joining the club - no doubt jealous because they had more money to spend on the hobby than he did.

Steve (no longer in any clubs and perfectly happy about it)

I dont fly in a club but I would realy like to. I just have a field behind my house that I fly at and im all alone lol. Luckly, im trying to get this my neighbor into the hobby. He has a plane and everything and is ready to go except he needs a prop adapter. Cant wait

Originally Posted by kkens4

We don't have any bad members at our club.

Same thing with my guys at the Largo Flying Club, but they might consider me annoying.

Originally Posted by Doc Austin

Same thing with my guys at the Largo Flying Club, but they might consider me annoying.

Good point...I hope it's not me at my club!

Originally Posted by Doc Austin

Same thing with my guys at the Largo Flying Club, but they might consider me annoying.

There's an old adage that holds that if you don't know who the village idiot is, then it's probably you.............

tim

My club has one guy, retired from the most famous supplier of hinges, control horns, battery hatches, etc...

He doesn't fly much. He just shows up with two planes, then walks around talking to people. So far, so good, right? But he won't let up. He asks a question about your plane, then gives his opinion on what you should do, or what would be better.

Many times, I show up at the club field about an hour before sundown, when the wind has died down. This guy corners me, and won't leave me alone, even though I've got about an hour left. I give him short answers, and don't reply to his opinions, I just nod and keep unloading and so forth. Eventually, the time comes when I have to excuse myself to actually go fly.

He is also one of those guys who is not content to fly his own plane. He only has planes that are "better" than everyone elses. Last week, he had a really fast glow pylon racer. It was unbelievably fast, so much so that all he could do was fly in circles with the plane on its side. Everyone was pretty impressed until they realized all he could do was fly in circles. I thought to myself: "You may as well just go control line and sell all your radio gear."

The thing is, everybody annoys SOMEbody. I was always annoyed by the guys with lots of money who were heavily into contest-oriented gas powered pattern. They liked to eat up the entire airspace "box" of the field practicing their routines, to the point where you couldn't put up anything else at the same time, and you had to wait for them to land to refuel. One of these guys was a real aggressive and pushy type.

In that short interval after his landing, I'd launch and do a couple circuits, trying to thermal, he'd use his electric pump to refill as fast as a NASCAR pit stop, and take off again to begin practicing like I wasn't flying. If I didn't take the hint and land right away, he'd buzz my plane in high speed passes that just "happened" to be in the same area as my ship. If we shared a channel, boy, would they get antsy if I stayed up more than ten minutes trying to thermal. I would try to play nice and fly off in one corner, (which is not ideal for thermal-chasing) or find an altitude above or below the hot-dogger's "box", but invariably he'd either start getting too close or he'd complain I was in his way, as the box kept expanding. If I landed and tried to wait him out, I'd have a long wait because he would go thru a full gallon per session. This guy later caused us to lose the field owner's permission to host a large model air show/contest because during his muffler-less hot-rodding, he expanded the "box" to overfly the owner's roof a time too many. The owner thought one $%#%#$ was enough.

This was a gas powered club and I was the lone glider-guider there. I'd be out there alone with the hi-start laid out, and those other guys would show up and start gathering-up and throwing away "this loose string all over the field" because it would hang up their landing gear. These guys didn't have a real runway, and used a very wide area of the grass to take off and land on. They were not able to hit the same strip of grass every time, their landings would wander all over the field. When I moved the hi-start out to the opposite side of the field to give them room, they still occasionally managed to hook it with their tailwheels. They also didn't like the idea of a second flightline opposite them on the field, though it was 2 acres wide. Discussing it in club meetings, they decided to put my gliders and the lone heli flyers in one "Ghetto" area of the field, off to one side. Hi-starts and helis; a match made in heaven.

It was very hard to find a happy medium between myself and the gas guys: I liked to hand-launch/ hi-start launch from near the middle of the field, so as to have plenty of clearance all around, they prefered no human foot pass a flight line and all planes must taxi on and off. If I'd land, I would have to wait until all the other planes come in to retrieve mine.

After a while, I gave up the hi-start as impractical in this environment, and went to electric powered soaring. This brought back peace. But I was never really made to feel welcome by those guys, though I put in plenty of time as a club officer and for maintenance tasks and etc. I really needed a different club but this was the only one in practical range of my home. The club lost their field and I did not follow them to their new digs, now preferring to go it alone as long as I can find empty industrial lots and unpopulated ball parks to fly in. Some day the sprawl will eat up the free spaces entirely and I'll have to join a club again. I don't look forward to that time.

Sorry to hear that.

We have a great club (www.rcsportflyers.com). I am by far the most annoying member and they made me prez. That shut me up!

Tom

Originally Posted by Jeremy Z

My club has one guy, retired from the most famous supplier of hinges, control horns, battery hatches, etc...

He doesn't fly much. He just shows up with two planes, then walks around talking to people. So far, so good, right? But he won't let up. He asks a question about your plane, then gives his opinion on what you should do, or what would be better.

Many times, I show up at the club field about an hour before sundown, when the wind has died down. This guy corners me, and won't leave me alone, even though I've got about an hour left. I give him short answers, and don't reply to his opinions, I just nod and keep unloading and so forth. Eventually, the time comes when I have to excuse myself to actually go fly.

Yup, there's always someone like that at most fields I find the best thing to do is act like a politician and never really answer the question. Just divert the subject and hurry on your way to launching your plane. Because if you actually answer one of his questions about your plane or why you did something the way you did you've opened yourself up to him telling you why you're wrong and how you should do it this way and then you're really sunk - sometimes it's hard not to get sucked into a big "discussion". Just play dumb and crack a joke or something.. then if he keeps talking while you fly you're well within your rights to politely say "Sorry, I'm trying to concentrate, could you not talk to me while I'm flying? Thanks!".

Well we have plenty of annoying ones, but I'm sure I'll approach the character limit

Originally Posted by WACOFFlyer

I guess I'll start.

We had a member who has since moved on who was the self-proclaimed "instructor"......

Anyway we also have had our fair share of instructors who couldn't fly. The one guy wouldn't even look over guys planes, just take them up. The one time the elevator flew off in flight, and down went the plane. The instructor's buddy comes over to me ( and I didn't even say a word) and says "well the reason you don't crash the new guys planes is because you check them out first" then huffed away.

Well, yea, isn't that the idea? Poor guy didn't even realize what he was saying. Sad part is the "instructor" more often than not crashed for other reasons too. He has since moved on, but there was someone waiting in the wings to take over. Presently the best instructor in our club is NOT an "official club instructor". The officers get miffed when I recommend the unofficial one over the official ones.

And we have one of those guys who talks your ear off too. We all usually one-by-one leave when he's expounding his knowledge to us. The one time the "last guy" hopped on the club riding mower, and the talker followed him as he was cutting; even after he sped up

Got one of those know it all types at my field too, guy will show up with one plane, hang out for 4 hours and MAYBE do one flight, which often ends in disaster.

Everyone of course knows about him, and its kind of funny to stand back and watch him work his way down the line of picnic tables our club uses for flight tables. You can see people scatter as he comes, and quietly return after he passes.
The only saving grace about him is once your radio's on and your heading for the flightline he will zip it till your safely back in the pits again. Then he starts anew.

One club member remarked to me when talking to him it feels as if hes using up all the air.

You guys are a tough bunch!