Short Final: A Name Game

I worked for Dassault Falcon Jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey for a few years, and though my usual commute was by car, there was one time when it made sense to fly my V-tail Bonanza to work. On a Monday morning, I was returning from a weekend trip to New England, and rather than flying all the way to home base, Somerset Airport in Bedminster, why not land at Teterboro, go to work, and then fly home?

With VFR flight following, Approach vectored me to a visual approach to Runway 06, as long as I could hold short of Runway 1/19 for landing jet traffic. No problem. When handed over to the tower, I explained that I wanted to park at Dassault. Like many Americans, the controller pronounced it “da salt”—like someone from Brooklyn asking for the shaker next to “da pepper.”

The frequency was relaxed, for once, and since I knew he was handling a lot of Falcons parking at the company's U.S. headquarters, I took the opportunity to tell the controller that, being a French name, “Dassault” is pronounced like it rhymes with a cowboy’s “lasso.”

He thanked me and laughed, “That’s perfect! I was just going to ask you if you could comply with LAHSO [Land And Hold Short Operations] for Runway 1/19!”