"I don't care about Greatness, Ron,, I care about staying safe and alive" line please. It is so transparent to use this safety thing to cover up. This is nothing else but a character assassination. If you did care about safety and staying alive you would not bump people trying to schedule training with you left and right.
Gabor
Wow, I have heard this from several other people as well and have also experienced this myself first hand.
Russ Hobbs set up training with for him and myself with Steve while we were at Mentone weeks before the event and when Russ arrived Steve was not there yet so Russ was offered a ride with Ron and took it.
As I understand when they landed Steve was now there and saw Russ getting out of Ron's machine and made comment. I believe that Russ did get about an hour of training with Steve but that was it, he felt very "Blown off" and felt strongly that Steve did not want to train him anymore since he rode with Ron.
When I arrived I also went for a ride with Ron soon after I got there, I was very excited about finally getting a ride with Ron who I have much respect for and experiencing how the Yamaha motor that I built did in his machine.
When we landed Steve came immediately over and asked how was the ride and me being all smiles said Great! which it was, I already knew that the 22 hour drive that I just did was well worth it, I was on cloud 9.
A couple hours later I asked Steve when I could get my training that was scheduled and he immediately said "You need to schedule a time to come to Macon" What??? There was an verbal agreement to get training at Mentone an now I have to come to GA to get any training?
I questioned him on Why things have changed and he said this was not the time for training at the event... too much going on here.
Long story short Russ got over 15 hours training with another CFI at the event and I got 2.5 hours with him as well. When we trained we did it at an airport about 7 miles away from the Mentone airport, Other CFI's were there as well doing some training away from the event.
If Steve really did want to train why could he not have done that as well?
My guess is he wanted to stay in public view at the event showing everybody what a skilled pilot he is.
I have no Axe to grind and Steve's training is top notch, he has many very successful student graduates that back this up, that is why I sought out to get training with him.
I did have a very good time at the event but it does seem that it is par for the course that if you would like to get any training with Steve DO NOT GO FOR A RIDE WITH RON.
Thank you Ron for being a big part of making my first visit to Mentone a very good one.
Todd