I was thinking that someone was having a bad case of the Monday's!
And yes, you can get your ass kicked for saying that!

"Naw man... .Hell naw."
I was thinking that someone was having a bad case of the Monday's!
And yes, you can get your ass kicked for saying that!
That second grader had better radio phraseology than about 67% of all regional pilots, about about 42% of all mainline pilots. I'm less worried about him, and more worried about pilots trying to be "cool" or "cute" on the radio when they're an adult.
Funny...but if I comment "nice sunset" to the other pilot and something goes wrong the media and Fed's would nail me to the wall for breaking sterile cockpit and being unprofessional. But they can run a daycare center in the JFK tower and have a 7 year-old issue clearances???
What happens if there is a runway incursion? What happens when a foreign pilot who already BARELY speaks English misunderstands the speaking of a 2nd grader telling him what to do with his 400 ton $250 million aircraft? What about that pilot in Russia who let his son into the cockpit and they ended up crashing with a child in the pilots seat. How is this different?
A mistake on either end of the radio can lead to tragedy...why would we or should we voluntarily lower the safety margin? Because it's cute??? You gotta be kidding me. As pilots & controllers we spend our careers trying to mitigate risk. While not intentional or malicious why voluntarily introduce it? I'm not sure if you noticed, but the aviation system hasn't been getting a whole lot of positive press these days. This is not what we need right now....
He was giving takeoff clearances to people that had already been talking to tower and monitoring the frequency. They were clearly all American and enjoying the change of pace. It would have been different if the kid had been responding to the first contact of the tower from inbound aircraft. I can see the safety argument, but a little fun isn't necessarily
a bad thing.
This is awesome. It really made me happy to hear this.
It is sad that if the media found out about this it would probably be on national television within 10 minutes and they would cry for the controller to be fired.
Those things are part of the reason the job didn't drive me nuts.
And hey, when I was a little tyke, I got to sit in the cockpit, in flight. And press some buttons! Those days are certainly over. I kind of miss the good ole' days.
I can't disagree with anything cime_sp said.
I also can't say that I wouldn't do things like what the Kennedy controller did because I did them. I did them willfully and with the full understanding that it would be damned hard to explain if something went wrong. Nothing ever did go wrong. I was lucky in that respect. I was also lucky to be able to see a kid get a genuine thrill out of doing something as simple as talking to an airplane.
Not saying it's OK... just saying that I did it.
It also wasn't OK for the Eastern guy to precede every transmission with a blast on a Boxcar Willie train whistle or the Piedmont guy that had the sound of sleigh bells in the background all December. But they did it and I enjoyed it.
Those things are part of the reason the job didn't drive me nuts.
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"Naw man... .Hell naw."
What exactly is wrong with saying "with you?" I know it's "nonstandard," but is it really worse than saying 2.5 when you mean 2500. It's not really unsafe.
I had a bad two months when I kept saying "Aaaaaaaand Gander Center, Southernjets 126 flight level 2 1 0..."
Grrrrr! I have no idea where in the hell that habit came from but nipped it in the bud.
You were one of them!!!! Ewww.![]()
I had a bad two months when I kept saying "Aaaaaaaand Gander Center, Southernjets 126 flight level 2 1 0..."
Grrrrr! I have no idea where in the hell that habit came from but nipped it in the bud.
For a very short period of time. VERY SHORT man! It was absolutely unintentional.
I think it started one day when we were looking for a smooth ride. An aircraft we were in trail of climbed, found smooth air and it started with "...and Southernjets 123 is requesting FL XXX as well".
Then it started.But I nipped it in the bud quickly.