One way to anger aviation community....

The social world has been burning bright in the aviation realm of things thanks to the following article:

http://qz.com/233165/the-pilots-of-i...es-of-the-air/

Thoughts?

I have seen a lot of my favorite aviation IG accounts go dark thanks to this report, and it seems some may have their jobs in jeopardy over it. It has been a sh*t storm and a half, to say the least. Whether it's Flightaware, IG, FB or various aviation websites, it seems there are A LOT of angry pilots and enthusiasts, myself included.

At the end of the day, stupid or not, the rules say they shouldn't be screwing around with cell phones. The rules came about due to a handful of high profile distracted flying incidents, and this may result in even more restrictions or heightened enforcement of existing rules. Apparently dedicated cameras are ok to use, but I have serious doubts about most of those pictures from the article (and others I've seen) being taken with anything other than a smartphone.

I know it's true for myself and I'd guess it's true for others that there's times when we get a chance to take pictures we just can't (or shouldn't) share with the public for whatever reason. I don't think this would be such a story or an issue if the pilots weren't posting them on public accounts tagged to make them easier to find and identifying themselves as crewmembers. Seems to me like yet another case of social media providing people the perfect opportunity to put their foot in their mouth.

I'll be honest, I'm a student pilot myself and I've been known to take my fair share of pictures while in the left seat, though those shots are taken with the CFI in control of the aircraft. Dumb rules are still rules nonetheless. At the end of the day I have no issue with the pilots taking pictures and it does tick me off that this is being treated as such an issue, but being against the rules it's a case where they should have remained private to prevent things from getting into the hands of the media with their tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill.