I sometimes cannot help but think that a newcomer to this forum must be overwhelmed with the abundance of information that has been put into this forum. If one goes to the building techniques or painting and finishing forums for information, the opinions of how to construct or finish a model borders on information overload to the point of driving one to insanity. To confuse matters even more, when engineering formulas and physics enter the conversation, the head starts spinning just trying to wrap your mind around what these brainiacs are talking about. To some, including me, is becomes as confusing as trying to read mandarin. I mean after all, we are mostly a fraternity of grown men in the autumn of our lives playing with toy airplanes. I am by no means saying this is a bad thing but then I think about the many kits I constructed on a folding card table in my younger years and wonder how they managed to get off the ground at all....but they did.....and they flew pretty darn good.
For the most part I agree. The problem used to be that no one could find *any* information on what to do or what was going on. Now, there is arguably too much.
It's inevitable when you have this range of skills. The kind of information that might be interesting or useful to David, Ted, Paul Walker, Derek, Howard, myself, etc. is completely different from what a beginner or retread might need. The difference between the level of skill and knowledge between even one of the Usual Suspects and even other experienced modelers/Expert level competitors is remarkable, far more than most people think, and then you project to a beginner or sport flier, and it is absolutely astronomical.
One thing I don't agree with is the sort of implicit notion that it was somehow easier in the good old days, or that only "simple" information is useful. Beginners and retreads are no more or less intelligent than the rest of us. Partial, wrong or "fencepost wisdom" BS (just another way of saying "wrong") information, which constitutes the vast majority of the supposed assistance that people get here and everywhere else, doesn't help anyone. It just perpetuates the same old crap, which is restated over and over. Beginners and retreads deserve *correct* information and advice. What they frequently get is utter nonsense from decades past, and a bunch of people arguing over their favorite brand of nonsense. That's just another reason why today is so much better than the "Good Old Days".
If someone doesn't understand or grasp it, it is safe to assume that the problem is in the explanation, not the person trying to read it.
I stopped writing for the "Design" column because I could not do it without using math, and I cannot explain the concepts (and it, for the most part, cannot be explained) without it. It is frustrating that people reject it categorically, because I have seen almost nothing written in terms of stunt that required any sort of advanced mathematics and the concepts are pretty simple. But it is a "block" that people cannot deal with. And as I have noted previously, since you do have such a wide range of experience, you have to start from the most basic precepts every single time, which it extremely tedious for the more experienced.
Even worse it the tendency for some to mock it (like our host does incessantly), despite the fact that making even an attempt to understand it might reduce some of the random experimentation and extreme frustration that they experience. Cut-and-try can be a useful way to go but you have to have some notion of what you are trying to do or how to evaluate the experiments. Scientists don't go out in the lab and mix chemicals at random, with no underlying theory, and see what happens. Why should we?
The other thing is that beginners have to deal with is that there are so few of them that people descend on them trying to "recruit" them, and it can become oppressive. Particularly when a few people try to exploit the sort of thing you mention to recruit them into the their crazy political jihad (liked Dennis did the other day, still fighting a war they lost almost 10 years ago). Fortunately those people are rare but that's a significant problem, too.
For my own part, I can only explain it the way I think about it, and I try to provide complete and correct information that I know works. And why I think it works. There's nothing worse than "do it because I say so" because that is the height of arrogance. I can't do anything else, and neither can anyone else. People are just going to be different and they are going to have varying approaches to trying to provide help.
I would note that this is almost entirely an internet phenomenon. In Real Life(tm), you go out and fly with your buddies and depending on their level of experience they can boil whatever they know down to fixing whatever problems you have. Or, you can just go buy a kit, build an airplane, and go fly it without referring to or knowing anything more than you did back when you were a kid. The information is available, but you don't have to use it.
Brett
Topic: How much is too much (Read 4624 times)