Piper, come and visit one of our events once. There's one at Schiphol Airport (yes, the number four airport in Europe) where we have some 120 sick/handicapped children, their family and 200+ volunteers running around. About 100 of those wear hi-viz, either because they're pilots, or airside volunteers, or regular Schiphol employees with hi-viz jackets as part of their work clothing. Now try to pick out the one guy who is in charge, and is also wearing a hi-viz because of his airside duties.
The hi-viz is not just because of optical conspicuity by the way. The gate between landside and airside is manned and only two kinds of people are allowed to pass:
- People with airside authorization and a hi-viz jacket. Pilots, marshallers and such, mostly. At least people who know their way around aircraft.
- Passengers under the guidance of one such person. Passengers are not wearing hi-viz of course.
This means that if we see someone walking around without a hi-viz jacket, who is not accompanied by someone wearing one, we have an "issue". Most likely this is a passenger who walked (ran) away from his/her guardian. With children around that are as young as 6 years old physically, and maybe only 2 years old mentally, that "issue" is serious.
So the hi-viz is also used as a "badge of office" or whatever you want to call it. It allows me to glance around the apron and quickly see if everything is "In Ordnung".
Those 120 children also mean 120 VFR flights by the way. We essentially get our own runway (04/22), our own Tower frequency (which, on the day, is not called Schiphol Tower but Hoogvliegers Tower
) and our own dedicated air traffic controller.
Now try to imagine the same event at Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle and you see my problem.
Chuffer, I think you're on to something with the yellow/orange blocked or striped vests. That would work just fine.