And I say again, never ever let your 11 year old prop your airplane. OK, now that I have the disclaimer out of the way, I’ll tell you that’s me as an 11 year old propping the first Breezy we had back in 1972. I decided to put these pics up because of the recent flap with the controller’s kids relaying instructions to crews of several active airliners back in February. Here’s another thing to be clear on: I’m not saying it was a good idea for the controller to allow his kids to relay instructions, but after careful review of the audio, I’m not gonna say it was a horrible idea either.
This is really such a complicated issue to make perfect logical sense out of, especially in our current culture, which I think is just one slippery finger away from losing its grip. Of course, letting your kids do your work as a controller isn’t the best idea in the world, but fundamentally, I’d far prefer a controller with a good head on his shoulders allow this, than to have a controller with a bad head on his shoulders quietly working his way thru the system.
I think the biggest problem in all of this is that both the media and the general public have no idea at all what goes on inside a control tower or any other facility where controllers are doing their work. I’ve been in several different facilities over the years, and the reality is that it’s pretty much nothing like you think it is before you’ve seen it. And anyone who’s talked to controllers over the radios in high traffic environments, or even just listened along, knows that it sometimes sounds like a foreign language with the way instructions and responses are tossed about in rapid fire and somewhat garbled fashion. I’m pretty sure the public perception of how the system works is very far from the reality.
With this in mind, the controller's kids did an excellent job… an A+ plus job in my mind. Plus, all they were doing was relaying instructions. At no time were the lives of anyone in any of those airplanes in the hands of those kids. In my opinion, for the media to suggest such a thing just further shows me that they are completely clueless. The really scary part is that at least 90% of the aviation related stories I see in the news media are significantly inaccurate. If they get aviation wrong, why would we honestly think they're really getting anything right? Anything.
My dad spent 35 years flying with United Airlines, and I was raised around that environment. When those pics of me propping the Breezy were taken, he had recently started flying United’s new 747’s. He knew how to deal with responsibility, and lots of it. He also knew I had the basic knowledge necessary to understand both the procedure of propping an airplane, and the risks of it. He knew I was just big enough to be able to handle the task physically, and, after teaching me how, he had reason the believe I would be able to accomplish the task, and do so well. I propped that 90hp Continental a lot as an 11 and 12 year old and never had even one problem doing it safely. And, if I may add, by the age of 13, I was completely competent as a pilot (not licensed of course) in the Citabria 7KCAB that we had. That's a 13 year old able to handle cross winds in a 150hp taildragger on a really narrow Elgin, Illinois runway. It's not because I'm special, but because I was fairly mature, and had the right opportunities with the right education and supervision.
I know that my story isn’t really apples to apples with the controller’s kids story, but I do think there’s some common ground here. Young people who have the knowledge needed, who can also be seen to understand the task and the risk, and are taught well and effectively supervised, simply have no trouble doing something that most people would say they couldn't do.
The controller in question, and apparently his supervisor, are very possibly going to lose their jobs over this. In my simple, been-propping-airplanes-since-I-was-11-years-old mind, that’s the real tragedy here.
Friday, March 12, 2010 at 07:53AM 
