Tales of the Runway Hog An Austin Air Traffic Controller recalls a dreaded departure by Esteban Erik Stipnieks
Authors Note: This is a part of a series from a conversation I had with my father who entered Austin as Air Traffic Controller at Austin Tower then returned to his military roots as pilot for the Army National Guard. I added to the story additional info from my own reading and expirence.
Len Morgan in one of his columns for flying regaled the airplane. In only words he could he illustrated the point with a quotation "wouldn't taxi over a wet cigarette butt" The quips about it rendered the column in Flying nearly sacrosanct. The point was the airplane was severely underpowered. The 720 that Branniff operated well was an interesting airplane.
Robert Mueller was in many ways the accidental jet port. In terms of Jet power particularly early jet power like Kansas city (till they built their new airport) and other airports it was ill suited for its task. The technology fell on the airport that like many of the others of the era was purely accidental The airport became land locked and the WWII training airport was not suited too well for era of jet airliners. 5,000 feet was nice for WWII era bombers and for WWII training planes a bit like having an elevator in an outhouse. Early 1950s the idea of a the jet airliner seemed far off. Then Boeing had other ideas and things changed.
Like the song "Too Fat Polka" her departures caused consternation in the tower "I don't want clear her you can clear her she's to scary for me". The Branniff 720 flight from Austin to Washington DC inevitably ate large amounts of runway. The takeoff charted and planned had narrow parameters and the sight of an airplane very low climbing very anemically would inevitably greet golfers golfing on the east side of the airport or motorists travelling up and down I-35 on the west side. Oddly enough the down hill departures going to the Golf course were worse. The sight of an airplane filled with people waddling down and barely clearing the end of the runway was challenging to view from the control tower.
Now the consternation was probably felt in the cockpit....this where Len Morgan's own color commentary becomes interesting the quip another Branniff old timer made about a buying the guy a Ford Fairlane with a Falcon engine. The airplane was underpowered so from the cockpit those take-offs down the runway that seemed awfully short hoping that the needle for vr would come up after v1 was called and the point for v1 watched like a hawk. By regulation the takeoff had to be done on paper planned out runway length, density altitude figured in before the take-off took place. The crew knew the abort point and had rehearsed them so the physics and numbers would at least workout to make it legal. Airline pilots though are trained to be the most boring men you know and well cautious by nature. Just because the book said it could be done does not mean it was fun to be done.
I am sure the tone that which the takeoff clearance was given also came through. The science behind the turbo jet was simple it was meant to make things go very very fast above 50% the speed of sound. It did this by accelerating a small section of air to a very very high speed. While this is great for transonic flight getting near the transonic zone of flight this was not so great. The modern turbo fan airliner has a huge fan blowing the bulk of air rearward providing a nice kick in the pants at the start of the takeoff to provide a nice punch of acceleration. The grim irony is the airplanes that are capable of shorter takeoff runs are now using Bergstrom with its Strategic Air Command length runways. This is the mid 1970s The debut of the 727 was heralded because the airplane could climb like a homesick angel and handle like a jet fighter ideal for smaller runways. Branniff International would later operate this airplane on this run. The whole issue of runway performance was why Mexicana's first widely operated jet was the airplane and it went from DC-6s Branniff operated a true first generation jet airliner out of Robert Mueller for their flight to DC.
For all the stress and anxiety caused it is for a guy to write about it over 30 years after it happened. No accidents were caused but no doubt comments flew as the racket and climbing jet made golf games interesting on the east side of the airport and on I-35 on the west side comments "Gosh that airplane seems to be low." The storys of Robert Mueller in that time period were certainly more interested then the American Airlines Nerd Bird flight from San Jose to Austin.