GIANT DISCLAIMER

I have received some interesting email (ahem, flames) from people regarding the opinions that I express on my web site and in postings to newsgroups. Some of these people have commercial interests in the products mentioned, and I appreciate that they were conscientious enough to state their objections in private.

I will however state the following in response to general attacks:

1. I have no direct commercial interest in any of the products or services mentioned in these pages.
2. I do not troll for responses by being intentionally contrarian.
3. I do not intend to go into commercial competition with these same vendors.
4. I do have a personal interest in seeing these commercial ventures succeed, such that they will continue to develop and sell the products and services I buy and enjoy. Nobody gets rich in this hobby and I am thankful that people undertake development for their own purposes.
5. I do enjoy reading the personal opinions of other soaring enthusiasts.

Funny thing is, you, the reader, have no reference to determine if ALL of the above statements are false. I do a lot of investigation into subjects on the Internet. One thing about the Internet, which makes it so interesting, is the ability for anyone (regardless of background or expertise) to publish information. When reading the information it is up to the you, the READER, to be discriminating, and make a judgment as to the merit of any stated opinions. I have found that there are more bogus opinions on the web than valid ones. Particularly in "technical forums" you will find the amount of bad and dangerous information to be rampant, the people who post the most messages are always the ones with the lack of credentials.

I used to have hour long arguments with Steve Y about the relative merits of the planes we flew, the best breakfast in town and who was better at parking trailers. I am a more informed person after these discussions, and welcome your feedback in a similar light.

Filling a personal page with nothing but superlative praise for every product mentioned is not meaningful to me, just read the advertisements instead. Slandering something to another person's detriment does nothing for the credibility of the source. Maybe nobody will sell me anything for fear that it will be mentioned in this web site. Given the nature of the content and the numerous opinions out there which are more qualified than mine, there's little chance of that.

Remember, what I state in these pages is truly a personal opinion, developed with the background I have and the experiences that have occurred to me. The instructional content has been tested, refined  and it works.  If you find errors, agree or disagree with my thoughts, by all means send me an email, or better yet, put up a web page where I can read your views on the world.