Duh. Their tugs are turnt up and rolling coal.
LOL. We had one way smokier than that wimpy little one at Stapleton for shoving out heavies. Fun to drive, too. Was four wheel drive and two types of four wheel steering, both normal and crab.
Came in handy when the ramp was covered in snow and de-icing snot.
Numerous times you’d hit the brakes lightly at the end of a snowy pushback and the airplane would just drag the tug from momentum with all four wheels locked on the tug. If you timed it right you’d end up at the perfect stopping point in the alleyway. If not it was a little hairy.
If the wind was blowing the wrong way (from behind) on the smokey one you were mostly pushing in Stevie Wonder mode. Couldn’t see ****. Not the wing walkers, not the airplane, not anything else on the ramp. You were essentially using the airplane as a blind man’s cane hoping it didn’t tap anything.
You couldn’t hear what they were SAYING over the portable radio with the Mickey Mouse ears on to talk to the cockpit, but we’d usually round up extra radios if we had to push in bad visibility conditions.
Normally each gate only had one radio but we’d go steal extras from the charger in the supervisors’ office. If you heard ANYTHING come out of the radio you would start braking to a stop until you could figure out if it was one of your wing walkers talking or just some idiot babbling on another gate about a missing bag cart.
Wing walkers look great for the safety people but were mostly useless in bad weather. You pushed where you looked first and didn’t see anything there. If something moved there after you started pushing you were going to have a bad night.
Reflective jackets are pretty useless in heavy snow. I learned that at least. LOL.
