(Note to Mods: I'm just putting this here for traction. I know it belongs in the Pilot Health section.)

So I was in ORD the other day, taxiing out on the well-known Alpha-bridge transition to 22L when I heard something that I have never heard before on the radio: A stuttering pilot.

At first, the Captain and I thought it was a joke, somebody being a wiseguy. But after listening to this pilot for a couple of transmissions, I came to realize he was actually suffering from a speech disorder that you don't run into all that often.

It was pretty impressive to think about, considering what he must have overcome to make it this far in the aviation world. Although, I can't help but wonder how he would handle an emergency situation or if increased stress would further devolve his ability to speak clearly.

Anyway, if you want to hear it for yourself, go to liveatc.net, look up KORD Ground (Outbound) Archives for 06NOV11 and select the 1500-1530Z time frame. Once there, skip to the 9:00 minute mark and listen carefully.

 

That's a new one. Like you said, good for that guy.

 

I'll take a pilot who stutters any day over a Air China crew trying to read back taxi instructions.

 

Something is strange in that transmission I think.
Being a former hard stutterer myself (think little Mel Tillis here!), I've not heard stuttering quite like that before.
When that person first answered at approx. time 8+50, there wasn't any halting speech pattern, then the second transmission it is a repeating of words numerous times - almost more of a transmission problem somehow.

I had a squadronmate in my first operational squadron that stuttered- and had a fairly heavy German accent at that (first generation American) and combined with the O2 mask and such, yes - in times of excitement (high stress/workload) it became very hard to understand him over the radio.

I didn't listen to any of the tower tapes to see if he continued to have this problem. Did you follow along on to see if this continued?

USMCFLYR

 

I think I gave that guy a sign off.

 

I Stutter. Most people who meet me now would have no idea. I control it really well. Anytime I fly with a new Captain I give them a heads up just so they know what is going on. Some days are worse then other, some letters are worse then others. The one that is being a pain right now is "N". I try to keep my PA's short and to the point...haha Sometimes it gets worse when I am stressed and sometimes things just fly out of my mouth no problem. It was a killer when I was younger. My dad was in the Navy so we moved around a lot so I was always the new kid with the stutter so needless to say I was pretty quiet. I always wanted to fly for the military but I got medically DQ'ed in 2000. I thought "Stutter" would be a cool callsign. Anyhow, we are out there, doing what we love to do!

 

G-g-g-great post.

 

We switched over to tower a minute or two after hearing his transmission and I didn't hear him after that. I suppose I could pull up the Tower archive...

 

Good on ya, man! I wouldn't let it stop me either.

 

I will admit, I may have made a Billy Madison reference to my Captain (All in good fun, of course).