On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:16:59 +0000, Matt Whiting wrote:

I certainly don't always agree with Steven, but I'm betting he's a lot
more familiar with moving airplanes out of the way that you are or than I
am.

Some people aren't quite thinking the situation through. Unless we're
speaking of airships or helicopters or 152s or such, nobody needed to be
"moved out of the way". Rather, anything moving into conflict with the
pilot's intended route needs to be vectored away from the conflict.

I'm not saying that that's trivial, but it's not the same thing as "moving
something out of the way".

There's also the fact that, no matter the emergency, it takes time for the
plane with the emergency to get to any given point. So it's not as if all
potential conflicts must be instantaneously handled.

I don't know the DFW area. But around the EWR class B, traffic tends to
follow a limited number of paths. Presumably, this helps achieve the
necessary sequencing by the runway threshold.

This organization too would help the vectoring.

Again: I'm not saying that this is trivial. But I've no doubt that it can
be done.

Perhaps more difficult would be getting aircraft off the runway, if
traffic on the ground were sufficiently congested. What happens if a
Heavy is taxied onto grass?

- Andrew