What do you call the guys with wands?

[stepwilk]

I'm writing about the C-130 and the reason for its many-windowed goathead nose, which is to provide total visibility for crews that might have to maneuver, including backing up, at unprepared landing areas and without anybody to guide them from outside.

Question: what you you colloquially call the people in high-viz vests who wave wands to guide an aircraft out of a gate and onto a taxiway? The only term I can remember is "ramp ape," and that's not very polite...

[Mike-Bracknell]

table-tennis players?


....or maybe 'marshallers'

[reynoldsno1]

Probably "marshallers" ....

[TWT]

Aircraft marshalling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_marshalling)

[stepwilk]

Right, marshallers I know, but I was thinking of something more colloquial. Like calling flight attendants...well, I won't go there.

[Shiny side down]

Bloke with the bats....

The batty bloke. Does that work?

[sevenstrokeroll]

I suppose you could say:

ground guide

wing walker

or

ground crew

and isnt' marshaller in this term martialer???

[sevenstrokeroll]

I never thought of it as a goathead....but perhaps a greenhouse canopy?

[Hydromet]

Goatherds?

[BobnSpike]

http://www.allthetests.com/quiz29/picture/pic_1300934441_1.jpg

[crewmeal]

It's not the size of the wand, but the witch that waves it!!

[BOAC]

'Bat(person)'??

[kookabat]

Aren't they 'air traffic controllers'??

:suspect:

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Right first time kookabat................

[Talkdownman]

What do you call the guys with wands?
How about 'magicians'?

[corporate-pilot]

Nigel, unless it's Ian in which case he's called Ian.

[PAXboy]

"Lowly paid who can easily ruin your day with one easy mistake and leave you filling in forms for a week - person" JB here we come. :E

[Shiny side down]

Wanderers.
- Blokes (or blokesses) wot wander about with wands.*



*one has a sneaky suspicion that one's contributions are not as helpful as could be. But flying manual is dry reading, so easily distracted.

[StopStart]

As an adjunct to your original post, the mass of windows of the front of the C130 do give us increased visibility when manoeuvring at low level however the extra, lower windows were originally intended to aid positioning for airdrops. As one approaches the DZ the DZ markers disappear out of sight through the main windows so the Navigator & pilots would use the lower windows to assess the release point for the drop.
You might've noticed that the C130J has one less frontal lower window and one less side "kick" window. The lower front window was replaced by panel to mount a defensive sensor whilst the rear side window was replaced by an area of aircraft skin where the AOA vane is mounted.

Just FYI of course...... :8

[gopher01]

Or the bloke who gets all the flak when the bloke in the left seat at the front thinks he knows better and gets it all wrong. Not so much needed at main airports where they should all be capable of following a line and a load of numbers painted on the ground but much more important if operating away from base. Generally he is to be obeyed unless there is a significant difference of opinion beween his directions and what the A/C captain thinks is safe. Known to personal experience on an airfield in Norway where I was marshalling the aircraft to follow a snow covered taxiway, the captain decided he knew better, taxied straight ahead across the snow and across the unprepared ground between the taxiways, almost bogged the aircraft down and left us some very big ruts to explain away to the Norwegian authorities

[stepwilk]

I never thought of it as a goathead....

There was a time when the early C-130 was colloquially known as "the Goat" because ofd its nose.

[ZOOKER]

Harry Corbett.