With all the reports in recent months about aircraft being directed to use the same runway at the same time, and other near-tragedies, I thought it might be worthwhile to allow Bob Newhart to remind us of the challenges facing air traffic controllers.
I don't know whether this qualifies or not as the lighter side of air travel, but we can always use a smile or two.
Peter
7 comments:
Funny guy, Bob Newhart is missed. How he kept a straight face while relaying this to his audience - must have taken a lot of practice.
My Dad was an en-route Air Traffic Controller. He let me and my brother come to work with him on a mid shift (this was the 70's and I doubt they allow it these days). I Loved that time, but after a few hours of watching screens and hearing the pilots and the controllers talk, we retired to the break room and napped the last half. He Retired in the mid-eighties.
I spent some time in towers and RAPCON in the 80s. Newhart is closer to reality than you might be comfortable with. Then there was the night in RAPCON hearing some flight over a speaker plaintively calling for "Holloman COntrol" as all the controllers were sleeping. The Captain over ATC ops (I was Maintenance) was real unhappy with me when I reported it up the chain.
Proof that you do not have to be vulgar in order to be funny. He is missed.
Braniff, TWA, Pan Am, Texaco: boy, it sure was a different world back then, eh?
The FAA has their DEI policies at work, straight from their website:
Schedule A, 5 CFR 213.3102(u), for hiring people with severe physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and intellectual disabilities. This excepted authority is used to appoint persons with severe physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and intellectual disabilities. Such individuals may qualify for conversion to permanent status after two years of satisfactory service.
Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website states. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.
And you wondered why Snow White only has 5 dwarfs nowadays - the pay is much better at the FAA. Dopey & Sleepy flew the coop.
With Driving Instructor, Bus Driver School, this bit, and countless clips doing his cameo in Hell Is For Heroes, Newhart was the master of the one-sided conversation bit, letting the audience imagine the other side.
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