Houten Klaas
2009.07.30

Professional or prutser?

Year after year Jan Cocheret awarded me the Best pilot award in Piloot and Vliegtuig.
I appreciate this very much. But I do want to show the dark side, the shadow side, the not so nice side of being the best pilot in the Netherlands. This has to do with jealousy and frustration.

It is not so difficult to explain the meaning of the word prutser. A prutser is a person who is not very able in a lot of things. His scope is to compare with the scope of a Dutch North Sea Shrimp. (Latijn crangon crangon)
This shrimp is a very small animal.

Each year I will award one individual in Dutch aviation with the Prutser of the year award.

Sadly enough we aviation enthausiasts in aviation, often heave to suffer because of prutsers. 
I will give you a few examples.
A while ago Ameland airport celebrated its 50th birthday.  Reason to organise a little airshow. As I have a special relationship with Ameland I decided to offer the Edge 540 (The plane I raced in 2007)  for a very friendly price.  It was nice to celebrate my 25th aniversary as display pilot at Ameland. ( My first ever display was here as well in 1982)
The show itself was ok, but mainly because the aviators. The organisation part was sloppy. Very sloppy.
The day after the show I was called with the question if i could tell a nice story for the Ameland school kids. 
(Well, after a very late night this was quite a thing, and it was raining cats and dogs.)
But for school kids we do everything! They all enjoyed the explanation very much.
Now the story is getting interesting. time to send the invoice in order to get the costs reimbursed for the fuel , insurance, and performance.
The civil servant, or officially called the airport manager, (Master of all prutsers) decided not to pay for the airshow. Not only me but also other participants had to listen to the comment, sorry, we have no money.
For the first time in 25 years of airshow flying I had to hire a collection agency to get my money. Read my lips, I had to hire a collection agency to get my money. From Ameland.!!!!!
Dear friends I can tell you, this definitely changed my payment conditions. What a frustrating experience. The island I like so much, the island I promote wherever possible. 
The island I took my fellow air race pilots to relax and twe generated lots of publicity for.
 
You slowly can feel coming who will win the award of "Prutser of the year". 

But I am not yet ready. Yesterday, july 29th 2009 I visited Ameland again. A lovely day. The hospitality was super, coffee right after landing, courtesy car available and we had a supa dupa day. When we departed back to Teuge a photografer asked to take some pictures of the airplane and the circus. In order to do some Ameland promotion.
I checked with the local airport supervisor (the man on the tower) and told him about the procedure after take off.
(To explain to the laymen, as you may understand, in order to fly safe and spectacular airshows, you have to practice some manoevres). 
For instance fly at a specific point at specific speed at specific altidude. 
Two nice and safe fly by\'s ,beautiful pictures and going back home.

The man with the scope of the Shrimp (remember) the man who can do almost nothing right, decided to call the Dutch Aviation police.
Yes my friends you read it well, He called the police.
Can you remember when you were a little kid , in your class there was always one little boy or girl who, behind your back, went to the teacher, to complain, to snitch.
We, as grown up people all know that men like this suffer from the " Little Penis Syndrom". At Sunday when they are sitting in church the can only dream about one thing..........
Yes, you are right. These persons, in Dutch called klikspaan or some people even use different expressions for this kind of character. It is not the fact that someone is snitching that makes me react, no it is trying to NAIL someone. Stab a knife in his back. That is making me react.
Frustration form a brainless civil servant. A man who was unable to organise a simple airshow, a man who has not any respect with any of the volunteers who make it possible that Ameland airport is still open. A man who\'s world is small. Island small.
A man who does not understand that if a jubileum book is made about 50 years Ameland Airport, it is logical, and a sign of respect, that each and every volunteer spending one or two weeks of his time per year to occupy the tower, gets a jubileum book. No, this civil servant is seriously hurting the image of the beautiful island of Ameland, and specifically the friendly atmosphere of Ameland Airport.

So my dear friends, I officially declare Klaas Touwen (official airport manager fro Gemeente Ameland) to the Prutser of the year. And in order to make this title official I will declare a prutser every year but also declare a HERO every year. Because I do not want to be seen as a negative person. The HERO of the year will get a flight with me, in the Xtra 300L.
The prutser will be famous for ever!!!!

(In a next weblog I will try to explain the psychological background of behavior of some people who work in aviation and suffer from the emotion jealousy).
Better know as the above described syndrom. (LPS)