I'm still trying to think of any post where you were right, and I didn't agree with you -- but whatever.
As usual, you miss the point entirely, but I'll say it again: It's not what you say, it's how you say it. You can be right as rain, but if you say it rudely, no one will listen or care.
Hmm. Should I start quoting all the times you've done that then, Jay?
The Experimental crowd here needs to take a step back, breathe, and stop thinking the advice or actual knowledge posted by folks with thousands and thousands of flight hours is somehow aimed at their DUMB comments because they're flying an Experimental. You guys build this dream world up in your heads that there's some "competition" going on, and there's not.
Aerodynamics is aerodynamics. A claim by an Experimental driver or a Certificated driver that is flat wrong, like the zoom climb thing, is going to get called out here. We're all pilots. Single engine light aircraft are all single-engine light aircraft. Slapping a bigger engine in one doesn't change the laws of physics.
But woe to the lowly Certificated driver (who may have 10,000 hours in the logbook and flew CRAP that was Certificated long before I or some of the Experimental crowd was out if diapers) who dares ruin the "fun" of the Experimental guys walking around worried that someone doesn't like their choice of airframe!
Get over it, y'all. It's a damned airplane, just like all the others. Comes with a lot less FAA intervention and oversight, which history shows isn't going to be the care for long. Meanwhile, anyone flying one probably should at least attempt to listen to more experienced pilots when they say, "Hey man, your knowledge level on that thing you just posted about... Frankly, sucks." They're not attacking you, your fragile pilot ego, or the Experimental you fly that's giving you an unwarranted "us vs. them" complex. They're trying to help.
And as far as "rude" vs. "polite" goes, I wrote an entire essay on that once and came to the conclusion a LONG time ago that I'd much rather the "rude", "crusty" old tech chew my ass and learn something right than have someone in my foxhole too "polite" to tell me I'm sitting on a live hand grenade.
There isn't a pilot here who isn't happy y'all have fun airplanes. There isn't a pilot here who doesn't understand the great value of less silly FAA rules on owner maintenance.
Jay, you respond like this to EVERY criticism of your choices in tech, and have this almost weird need for your choices to be seen not just as really good for you, but THE BEST CHOICE EVAR MADE!!! OMGBBQ???!$&&
There are folks in the group who not only has to read "Aerodynamics For Naval Aviators", but do the math and prove that they knew it. You know, back when schools gave real tests not graded on a curve. Those were the folks who jumped on your zoom climb post and PILE-DROVE it into the ground. Because they KNEW without a shadow of doubt it was wrong.
The RTV thing, the camera, those are far less worrisome for most of us. It's the new "me against the world" attitude that has most of us worried, Jay. Don't get sucked into the sub-set crowd in Experimentals that wants you to believe it's some kind of battle with something to prove. That era is over. Experimental aircraft are here and they're stuck in the 1970s. You have friends here, Jay and even Doc is trying to impart a sense of "You have a higher performance aircraft, now take your airmanship to the next level and learn. Fly MORE professionally, not less. Study! Be RESPECTFUL of the faster airplane."
We are trying to say, "Cool airplane, Jay. Don't let it go to your head and forget to fly it BETTER than your last one."
Everyone who upgrades in the Commercial world (note I did not say Certified... It's not a damn competition. Get it out if your head!) to something faster, higher performance, and capable of things a trainer or family load hauler isn't, has a transition period where they prove to a more senior airman that they're ready, have the additional aerodynamic and systems knowledge necessary, and then gets turned loose to go scare themselves a bit. Somewhere this respect gets short-circuited when the Experimental crowd starts thinking there's a competition between them and Certificated and they ignore correct (rude or not rude, doesn't matter) information from old Certificated pilots.
Especially ones who flew stuff where they had numerous souls on board that they were responsible for their lives. You don't get that job by being a contrarian argumentative weenie. You get that job by proving to a while lot of folks that you know your book as well as you know how to fly the airplane. I don't care if it's popular to pick on airline crews these days, and I certainly enjoy a good joke or two at their expense from time to time, but they EARNED that seat, left or right. (Asiana excluded for the moment. LOL...)
Jay. Seriously. Stop thinking you need to "battle" everyone. The battles start when you post in a style that says, "I figured it ALL out, because I have an Experimental now!" Whoop dee doo, man. Seriously. These guys aren't "attacking you" because they're "jealous" or something stupid like that. That's made up crap in your head. They're picking on your choice of attitude and words that seem to indicate a devil-may-care trend starting.
I wasn't there to scrape up the bodies, but I was involved in the search for the two high-time CFIs who didn't make it out of the bottom of the loop they started too low in their fancy new Experimental capable of aerobatics. All they has to do, since both had already shown aptitude for both book and real-world application learning was to find a highly experienced aerobatic pilot to show them the edge of their personal limitations and set a hard deck, and they'd both be alive today.
You want to be "insulted" by folks and shut off hearing what they're saying to you, Jay... That's your prerogative. But don't expect them to like it. They've likely seen someone shut off outside input for all the wrong reasons before and seen the truly disastrous results.
Keep in mind also that Doc sees people doing that EVERY DAY with their health! He's probably run out of much tolerance for it. As would any of us in his shoes. You've seen the posts where he flatly tells addicted pilots posting anonymously that he won't tolerate lies from them, and he'll drop sponsorship of them like they were a red headed stepchild if they even do it once. His reaction to other times when he's feeling like someone is blowing smoke up his butt, is completely in character.
So here's my advice Jay, take it or leave it. Drop the BS "us vs. them" crap that is so popular with Experimental drivers. Ain't a Certified driver in the majority of pilots who wishes Experimentals weren't around. That said, the marketing spin that Experimental is the only way to go is also BS. They're all just airplanes.
It's funny to debate you when you get huffy about Android vs iPad. Nobody dies if my iPad or your Android crashes and burns. Entertaining even.
It's deadly serious when you translate that level of ignorance over to "aerodynamics experts vs. Jay" mode.
That's what's got people worried. We don't give a rats ass at the end of the day what you're flying. We want you to realize you've taken a step up and the book learning has to keep up with the flight training. You did ten hours or whatever it was transition training. How many hours of cracking the aerodynamics book did you do when you heard you were stepping up to a higher performance platform? There's folk here who stepped a LOT higher than you when they transitioned. A lot higher. And they not only did that, they had to pass tests that they could TEACH it, in many cases.
I was worried enough about your recent rants that I privately asked a friend of yours who'd known you lots longer than I have, if you'd been getting more testy and crabby lately. He said no. You're likely defensive about the Experimental for some unknown reason. I hope so.
I had a good friend start doing that irate thing all the time, and his massive coronary event was only months afterward. He's not a pilot so no FAA medical drama, but that's how much your irate posts at people who DO know more on some topic than you do, worried me. His was due to the very low amount of O2 getting to his brain. His O2 saturation numbers taken at check ups out at his extremities, were fine. He had no other symptoms and still was almost killed by his first heart attack.
Sharing that part just to let you know that folks here DO care. It's not a damned competition against everyone else. It's a competition against yourself. Cab you fly better, smoother, and back every flight maneuver chosen with head knowledge of exactly why the aircraft is going to do what you want it to do?
The Vx / Vy thing was a sign. When was the last time you really calculated Vx / Vy for a takeoff and wrote it on a TOLD sheet? Knew the crosswind component to the knot and also wrote that on the sheet? Exact runway distance required to clear a 50' obstacle even if there aren't any? There's guys and gals here who have to do those calculations on paper for every takeoff here. I will be the first to admit being lazy in this regard, but I've flown in a club that required it. They required a verbal takeoff callout of all the pertinent data for the takeoff. It MADE ME BETTER when I did it.
I make a lot of fun of the FAA Chief Counsel but I rarely say the truth regarding safety. The Counsel can't do a damned thing to force you or I to be better and more knowledgable aviators. Only we can do that. And only we can lower the accident rate. When someone here points out something they feel is unsafe in what you're doing, instead of arguing, think of a reasonable answer as to why you want anything on any flight to be less safe than their way. You can say you choose less safety, that's fine. But lashing back with comments that Certificated pilots are "*******" isn't exactly sane.
There's something disconnecting their safety concern from the part of your brain that will accept it and think about it, and I contend that it's this " Experimental vs. The World" attitude that seems to get passed from Experimental builder/owner/operator to other ones.
Try just thinking of folks as pilots, Jay. Some with a bejillion more hours doing it than you, and responsible for many many lives. Us relative noobs (and yes you have more hours than I do but we're both waaaay down in the noob category here against some folk attempting to get through to you) need those guys. Pizzing them off is really really really stupid. They aren't perfect politically correct people but neither is a person who'll waltz into a room and announce that all Certificated aircraft pilots are "*******". Methinks we could find a Pitts driver or ten we could plop into your RV who'd eat your piloting skill in the aircraft for a snack.
Back off the " Experimental vs The World" thing and listen a little harder, Jay. You've got a nice airplane there. Bunch of folks here who'd prefer it and you remain in one piece.