ITAWT; ITAWA; PUDYE; TTATT; IDEED

When symbol-space is arbitrary, whimsy sometimes happens.

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2 Responses to ITAWT; ITAWA; PUDYE; TTATT; IDEED

  1. Jim Rester says:

    Hmmm, let’s see. Hope I’m not getting in on the “tail end” of a conversation/discussion. Based on what I’ve been told, this IS NOT arbitrary “whimsy”.

    The above listed are phonetic names of “fixes” (a geographically fixed point) used to define the RNAV (GPS) RWY 16 instrument approach into Portsmouth New Hampshire’s Pease International Tradeport (Airport).

    Without going into too much “nauseating detail”, most of the time, a computer is used to generate these five letter identifiers for intersections and fixes in the U.S. Airspace system. (If I’m not mistaken, the rest of the I.C.A.O. world uses a similar system, with occasional overlaps) There are, however, exceptions to this, and the above listing is one such instance.

    Again, if my information is correct, Portsmouth, NH, is the hometown of the late Mel Blanc, famous for his voice characterizations of many famous cartoon characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, & Tweety, to name a few.) I was told these intersections were named (renamed) in honor of Mr. Blanc. I first learned of this some 3 to 4 years ago so it’s been at least that long ago it was done.

  2. Anton says:

    For whatever it’s worth, IMDb says Mel Blanc was born in San Francisco and raised in Portland, Oregon, and apparently moved straight from there to Hollywood.

    Even if Blanc had lived his whole life in New Hampshire, the labels are “arbitrary” in the sense that they are not assigned according to any overall system.

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