Originally Posted by
FedElta
Hey Carl, FTB, *0, Bar, et al :
Many years ago during the late Southeast Asia war games, two Navy F4's launched off the boat with drop tanks. One of them got a drop tank fire. I believe it was the Airboss that broadcast " F4 off the cat, you're on fire, Eject, Eject".
Four F4 bubbas pulled the handles and left two airplanes. Navy guys feel free to correct my fuzzy memory, but once again the law of unintended consequences reared its' head. Might be applicable to this current issue that carl raised.
Regards to all....
It's very applicable, and it came up during the discussion. When a controller sees two aircraft in conflict, he generally knows both flight numbers. They said that during the extreme stress of the moment, controllers can mix up those two flight numbers (dyslexia) and issue the cancel takeoff clearance to the wrong aircraft. Imagine that. You're right at V1 or maybe a hair past it when you hear the controller screaming "cancel takeoff clearance" to you. As you go off the runway, you hear the controller apologize for mixing up the flight number with the aircraft they really wanted to cancel.
I told the two guys that I'm ready to start handling my own traffic separation with TCAS and do away with controllers. For some reason, they didn't like that idea.
Carl