Oshkosh Air Boss - Sean Tucker and Thunderstorm

[MSN ATC]

Listening to the Air Boss frequency during the airshow today at Airventure in Oshkosh, Wis. Just after the warbird extravaganza, the first act to perform was Sean Tucker in his modified Pitts. Right after he took off, a gust front or squall line or something blew in and kicked the winds way up. The airshow was cancelled but Sean was still in the air and apparently having trouble getting down.

The exchange posted below is about six minutes of audio on the Air Boss frequency with the Boss, Sean Tucker and various others battling the winds. Some of the players:

--Duggy is the DC-3 jump plane.
--Big Ford and Little Ford are the EAA Ford Tri-motors.

[eberwein]

Thanks for posting this. Watching that yesterday was quite interesting. I've never seen a plane do a harrier like that before.

[Chadan]

Great clip!

1:45: "[winds] 320 - 20 gusting to 39"
1:55: "I got eh... eight gallons of gas..."

 

4:45 "Can I use the taxiway?"
4:50: "__ative"

It was difficult for me to discern between "AFFIRMative" or "NEGative". Listening a second time I believe it was 'affirmative', but it troubles me that it wasn't immediately clear. Why do these binary words share trailing syllables? Seems like this is inviting trouble...

[Whuts_goingon]

Great clip!

1:45: "[winds] 320 - 20 gusting to 39"
1:55: "I got eh... eight gallons of gas..."

 

4:45 "Can I use the taxiway?"
4:50: "__ative"

It was difficult for me to discern between "AFFIRMative" or "NEGative". Listening a second time I believe it was 'affirmative', but it troubles me that it wasn't immediately clear. Why do these binary words share trailing syllables? Seems like this is inviting trouble...

If you listen just before the taxiway question, the controller says "Do what you need to do", then "Can I use the taxiway?" then controller says "Firmative"....

[Chadan]

It was difficult for me to discern between "AFFIRMative" or "NEGative". Listening a second time I believe it was 'affirmative', but it troubles me that it wasn't immediately clear. Why do these binary words share trailing syllables? Seems like this is inviting trouble...

If you listen just before the taxiway question, the controller says "Do what you need to do", then "Can I use the taxiway?" then controller says "Firmative"....

Whuts - You may have misunderstood the point of my comment. I understand in context that the answer was, 'yes, use the taxiway'. My point is that it's too easy to mistake "Firmative" from "Negative" over a garbled, stepped-on radio transmission.  "Firmative" is even worse than "Affirmative" since it's the exact same number of syllables.

My question is, since aviation speak is intentionally clear, sometimes to the point of absurdity, why are the words for "Yes" and "No"- words that are polar opposites - so similar to each other? This seems like a glaring bug in the system that should have been squashed decades ago.

[Whuts_goingon]

Reason for that might be because it's Oshkosh, and not a regular Cessna touch an go routine or commercial flight.
Military airshows use push for a manoeuvre to start for example, but like HAM radio amateurs they talk normally afterwards.....

In the normal daily routine they know exactly what the phrases are of course.

[Chadan]

Thank you for your input Whuts. For anyone else interested in the discussion specifically regarding the audible ambiguity between the words "affirmative" and "negative" please join me in the pilots and ATC forum.

[keith]

I was in a vendor's booth when this blew through. The winds came out of nowhere, blowing up more dust and debris than you'd think would be reasonable given the weather just 30 seconds earlier.

My first thought when it happened was that I hoped all the aircraft in the air were ok.

Only Sean Tucker would say that it was fun to be flying in that wind I really wish I could've seen his landing, that would've been interesting.

40kt winds obviously pose no real problems to enroute aircraft but if you're flying aerobatics low to the ground and the winds come out of nowhere, I imagine that could be a problem in some cases.  Thankfully these guys did just fine.