I'm sorry. I should have been more sensitive than that.
Should I label one "Henning"? I don't even know this character but he gets drug into a lot of threads and has quite a reputation from what I gather.
First, you are obviously charting the correct course. The real shame here is you and your FIL have a huge shared aviation experience even if you're on two different ends of it. That's a wonderful basis of commonality that your FIL shredded in an instant in a melodramatic and poorly thought out way. A real pity.
One suggestion - loose the "sorry if you disagree". You ain't asking forgiveness or permission. Just telling him straight, making it clear it's your call. Make it a bit of an issue, make it known that attitude doesn't fly. Back him off a bit, if he isn't smart enough to do so on his own snd brings it up again.
The DPE for my private checkride was a Delta 737 captain. He also flew Citations for a charter company. Great guy and he seemed like a strong supporter of GA. I'm not sure if he's ex-military or not.
Believe me the last thing I want to do is destroy our relationship over this. We've gotten along very well until this incident.
Should I tell him that?
False. Try again.
I think you are assuming facts not in evidence. From what I've read, it seems like he doesn't like flying at all. Lots of people "end up" in jobs, simply because it is what they can do.
Partially true. More importantly, perhaps is that, as I said above, he has DIFFERENT experience.
yup - flying big fast airplanes into large airport with long runways and state of the art navaids does make you lazy when it comes to stick and rudder skills.
make nice - tell him he's right - and that you're trying to improve your skills to match his - ask him to fly with you some day to impart some of his wisdom!Should I tell him that?
Concur, it's more polite, if somewhat lame, or at least confrontation avoidance. I don't know the dynamic between them of course - but a firm push back, without ambiguity might/might be in order. Reset the relationship as one between adult peers. FIL is not his parent or supervisor, and the comments about his judgement beyond aviation are condscending. OP's call, of course, and he'd know what's best for his situation, but I'd want to shut that crap down. Might cause some friction; it'll pass, or it won't.
The point I was trying to make was that the father in law only heard his daughter say that the original poster said turbulence was not a safety issue so if I were in the situation of the original poster I would give the father in law that and ask him for help in becoming a safer pilot instead of being combative about what a safe pilot he is. It appears to me the father in law did not have all the information when he made his call and may be resistant to walking it back as long as the original poster makes it a black and white argument.
I told him every detail of what went into my decision to go and he didn't care. I don't think he was even interested in what I had to say once I decided to go against his wishes.
I have found that when discussing emotionally charged issues from divergent perspectives I do best when starting with the merits of the other person’s point of view and moving toward mine rather than simply saying they are wrong at the outset. I feel questions have more value than statements.
True but I am sure every pilot at the top had gone through the grueling process of hand flying some lowly airplanes during earlier years. While ago my instrument instructor and good friend who started flying a turboprop for regional one day called me to see I can pick him up from FWA airport. When I went to pick him up it was pitch black night with may be 1 mile vis and 100 ft. ceiling. On the way back we started talking about the approach. I was assuming he had nice autopilot and made cat II kind of approach. I was surprised to find out that they hand flew the approach because the airplane did not have an auto pilot. I
