Well, if some asshole hits on you hard during a flight, just go into a nice power on stall, let it drop, kick the rudder over into a 3 or 4 turn spin, recover and hold the dive for a couple thousand feet, then say “excuse me?”
Should cure his ass.
I get lots of responses similar to flying.
them: How many times have you done it?
me: Over 640 out of plane. And over a hundred off various structures.
them: You have how many jumps?!!!
me: 640.
them: So you go with an instructor.
me: Why yes I pay in excess of $150 per jump. I’ve spent over $5,000 this week alone.
them: So do you pack your own chute?
me: Yeah.
them: I’d NEVER trust my self to do that!
me: Really? Does your mom still wipe your bum and hold your hand as you cross the road as well?
them: You must be suicidal!
me: Actually the ones that are generally don’t take a parachute with them.
And it just never stops… Its amazing the opinions people put forth on something they really know ZERO about–quite sad really. I’ve never understood the people I end up working with just going to a baseball game here and there and maybe having the treat of taking their wife shopping. Too each his own I guess.
Broomstick & Wicket: If y’all don’t mind, I’ll rant a tad about photography.
Next fool that tells me that a photo I took with a digital camera’s not a real photo is going to find out how real (i.e., solid) the freaking camera is! Camera’s real; therefore, the picture’s real too.
For the love of Og, why don’t people ever understand this? I draw fairly well – I’d never be able to sell anything, but then I have no need to. I enjoy drawing portraits of the people in the stories I write, it gives me another way of visualizing them.
But I wasn’t born with some Artist Gene. When I entered the ninth grade, I got myself a notebook and drew whenever I got bored. Which was a lot. I took out drawing books from the library. I copied pictures out of magazines. I traced, I freehanded, I researched, and I drew and drew and drew. That’s why I can draw. Anyone else willing to invest that kind of time and effort CAN DO IT TOO. Hell, if they invested the time they spend whining at every artist they meet, they could draw better.
Ditto for music. I wish I had a nickel for each person who moaned to me about how musically ungifted they are, I’d be Bill freakin Gates. I taught myself to play and I played my nuts off, that’s why I can do it. And no, I shouldn’t think about performing. I hate performing. I play for me.
I think you are absolutely right about this. I never could draw, but when I was in 10th grade I took an art class. I took a great deal of time on and put a great deal of work into each drawing–no matter what the assignment was. And guess what? The pictures were good. Not great, but not bad either. Certainly better than anything I’ve tried to do before or since.
My husband also has a very hard time understanding this. He does have natural talent…but he won’t develop it. and he gets frustrated because other artists are better. Of course they are, they practice every day!
Sorry for the hijack…
My dad has been a pilot (hobby) for over 30 years. His dad was, too. They’ve both owned their own planes (though my dad doesn’t have one anymore and my grandfather died years ago). I never had any idea that there was any sort of backlash against hobby flying. (heck, my grandfather lived in a community in Florida where half the houses had hangers next to the garage, and the roads were all wide enough for people to taxi their planes to the development’s runway!)
Glad to know that there are others who know what I am talking about!
In art school I encountered a number of students who clearly did not put in as much drawing practice as they could. Or, they “transferred” (traced) photographs, instead of drawing freehand, which meant their drawing skills were rusty, or almost nonexistant.
I, being the art geek that I am, have never traced anything, and I have always drawn quite a bit, just for (get this) enjoyment. Because of this, I have developed a decent amount of skill, speed and accuracy.
I used to get other students ask me the same battery of questions, over and over again. They’d see one of my projects in class, knew I didn’t trace it, and couldn’t figure out how I did it.
Fellow student: “I’ll bet that was really hard to do.”
Me: “No, not really, it was fun.”
Fellow student: “I’ll bet it took you a long time to draw, though.”
Me: “No, only a few hours.”
Fellow student (becoming increasingly irritated): “But I bet you took lots and lots of classes to be able to draw like that.”
Me: “No, actually, my drawing is mostly self-taught. I just draw a lot.”
Listen, get it through your head—you get back what you put in. Stop looking for some “excuse” to explain why I can draw well, and quickly, and you can’t. I didn’t get any special training, I didn’t have any extra special advantage. All I did is what anyone else can do, if they really WANTED to. I worked at it. You could draw well and fast too, if you actually put some effort into it.
If you work really hard, if you draw a lot, you will get faster and more accurate. Every time. I had no more “talent” than many of my fellow students, I just PRACTICED MORE. Sheesh.
Scylla - no, I do not fly a “pontoon” plane. You know how they say a boat is a hole in the water you throw your money into? Well, an airplane is like that, it’s a hole in the air you throw your money into. A seaplane or flying boat is both at the same time, so you get poor at least 2-3 times as fast. But maybe one day I will.
Kinsey, wouldn’t call me “girly-girly” either, but I’m not exactly butch. Frankly, I laugh when folks come up to me and throw out “dyke” as though it’s some horrible thing. Might as well come up to me and hiss “you… you… SOUTHPAW!”. What the hell? It’s not like the airplane cares who I fuck or what their plumbing is like.
I don’t know how this weird sex thing gets mixed up with flying. Either I’m fucking all those men I hang out with, or there’s somthing “wrong” with me and I must not desire men that way. Huh? Well, clearly THEY are the ones with the problem.
Monty, hadn’t thought of that line, I think I’ll use it next time.
OpalCat, hate to repeat the obvious, but your father and grandfather are men. This bullshit I get about being a pilot is based on my being a woman and a pilot. And, I must emphasize, this is NOT coming from other pilots but from non-flying ignoramouses who know jackshit about flying, almost always female.
Somehow, there is this perception among the non-flying public that a “pilot” is caucasian, blond haired, blue eyed, six feet tall, in perfect health, with perfect eyesight and 22 years old. Now, one of my flight instructors did approach this ideal, except that he was 3/4 bald at 25. But most pilots don’t fit this description. There have been occassions where there is a clump of us pilots hanging out at the airport - black pilots, females, old guys past 70, almost all of us wearing glasses - and some fucking tourist shows up and says “where are the pilots?” And we say “here we are”. And the bitch (it’s almost always female) says “but you don’t look like pilots!” Huh? I expect this type thinks pilots are hatched out from under rocks as needed.
I will add the caveat that sometimes, there are things you’re just no good at. I adore music, but I’ve never been able to carry a tune and still can’t identify a key, no matter how much I’ve tried.
With that out of the way, if you do have the potential for a talent, then just like anything else you get better with practice. If you enjoy drawing (or writing or singing or whatever), you do a lot more of it. If you just want to be perceived as an “artiste”, you don’t.
ROTFL! What a great line–I love it!
Thanks for the reply. I’ll try to do you a good turn. My old boss is a former Marine Naval aviator. He told me that that the Navy had done an exhaustive study and determined that women tended to be fitter pilots than men.
The basis of this was that a women’s body was built in such a way that it could handle a lot more g’s than a man’s, women are smaller, and in repeated experimental scenarios were found to remain calmer in emergency situations and more capable of precise control and movement while the cockpit was being bounced around.
He wore a g suit and did exercises as a matter of course, and during this part of his training he would be taken up in the back seat of a jet by a women (who was not allowed to be a combat pilot or fly on a carrier because of her sex,) and this pilot would then routinely stress him with g forces until he passed out. The lady was well-known and most of the trainees tried to be really nice to her in the hopes she’d go easy on them.
Apparently she made it a matter of pride to render her trainees unconscious and made no bones about her anger at being relegated to a training position.
He remembers screaming out loud during a particularly tight turn that women make better pilots and should be allowed to fly combat before the blood drained out of his head and he lost conscioussness.
She supposedly did this to everybody.
So, there’s a solution for you.
What I meant was that hobby flying is so “normal” to me that it wouldn’t occur to me that anyone would think twice about it. It seems as normal to me as golf or stamp collecting, just more expensive.
No problem; using a teddy bear and kitty fabric you say? 
As far as the “I have no talent” people: I made a quilt on commission (proceeds to be donated) for a friend who is a photographer. “Wow, that’s beautiful. That’s real art, not like the pictures I take.” Why does everything have to be a contest? His photographs are beautiful and represent his talent; my quilts are fine too. It made me very uncomfortable when I know that these things come easily to each of us but the other hasn’t tried them. It’s not a competition.
Isn’t that the truth. I have a friend who is (or was, I hope she’s grown out of it) very competetive. I draw and paint well, she does 3-D and design work well. But somehow she still would try to “stick it to me” and prove that she was better than me. But it never worked. She couldn’t draw, didn’t want to draw, and I could draw. Drawing was what was important to me. I didn’t do a lot of 3-D and design work, I wasn’t particularly interested in it, and I always praised her work in that area. I thought she did wonderfully. But this never was enough for her. She wanted to “beat” me, and she wanted me to acknowledge that she’d “beaten” me. I think she was frustrated because I just wouldn’t play along.
She couldn’t get it through her skull: First, it isn’t a competition. Second, even if it was a competition, we’d be competing in completely different categories. We were never competing against each other, except in her mind.
I am a musician. One thing that gets me is the close mindedness stereotypes you get sometimes.
Usually I’ll be in a conversation and tell somebody something like: I’m on the brink of exporing some professional side of playing*.
(*consider they haven’t heard me play as well.)
Some people react to that by saying how tough it is to make a living doing that, and that they don’t think it would be a very fun scene. Blah blah blah, blah blah.
Being a nice guy I shrug it off and tell them I’m not aspiring to make a living out of it.
But really, I do it as a Hobby. I want people to hear my music and enjoy it. I’m not in it for the cash, or to try and be the next rock star, or to be famous or to get signed by a label. I do it for the pure enjoyment of it. As an aside I’m working on various computer degrees so I can survive nicely, thank you!