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QL from ZTL here. (Atlanta ARTCC) I've been a controller now for 24 years, all here at Atlanta. I was hired "off the street" as it were, went through the screen at Oklahoma City and ended up here. Never really wanted to go anywhere else. I was here when we upgraded to DSR (Display System Replacement), and we will finally be getting ERAM this year.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:47
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Tommy 2.0 posted:You are spot on, hence why I went far out of my way to find myself a real good tax guy. It is absolutely mind boggling to me the amount of things you can legally write off and little things you can do to help with this stuff.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:58
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The Ferret King posted:Sorry, not picking on you, but what tends to happen in aviation threads is a lot of folks ask for abbreviation definitions and I just want to head off the requests for the airport names. Thanks for chiming in. When do you plan on retiring and how have you enjoyed your career? Sorry about that. I'll actually be eligible to retire in October, and I'm pretty sure I'll go out then. I don't have any kids to put through school, it's basically my husband and me so I really don't have much incentive to stick around. That being said, Air Traffic Control's been very very good to me and allowed me to do things I've wanted without worry. I never wanted to go into management or Traffic Management, I've felt my talents were best utilized right there in front of the screen, and it's a responsibility I take very seriously. As someone brought up earlier, you do see a lot of retired controllers that get jobs with Raytheon or Lockheed Martin and come back to work in the training department or whatever. Yeah, not doing that.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:42
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fknlo posted:Our keyboards and trackballs are straight out of the 60's! The numberpad is even backwards! That's the hardest part of the job, learning the backwards numberpad. We did get some new backlit keyboards that look like they're from the 80's a few months ago though. The backwards number pad was designed to be like a phone's number pad. Back when I started in '90, we still had the 300 Switching System (PBX) for our landline calls, and I guess they felt it would be too confusing to have two different types of number pads on the consoles.
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Feb 12, 2014 05:57
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Discovery Channel did a documentary on Air Traffic Control, they shot some footage from inside Atlanta ARTCC. This was from before URET, when we still had the strip bays of physical flight progress strips, but the radar screen is still the same one we use today. Found a dubbed copy of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0nYEmrq1as The bit about Atlanta Center starts at 30:10 Cerebral Mayhem fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 19:21
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Tommy 2.0 posted:CM, not sure if you caught my Allenburger comment, or maybe you actually don't butt up against Allendale? Never heard it called Allenburger, sorry. You know a guy called Silky Smooth? Cerebral Mayhem fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 02:46
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So Tommy 2.0, how are you enjoying Masters week?  The Masters golf tournament is taking place in Augusta, GA. Augusta approach control is located right below the airspace I work in Atlanta Center, and part of Jacksonville Center. For this one week every April, the traffic going into AGS and satellite airports becomes crazy busy. Numerous routings and altitude restrictions have to be put into place to make the traffic flow manageable. Sometimes there are so many that they run out of parking at the terminal, and we have to hold them in our airspace, which I was doing on Thursday. At least I'm on Sat/Sun days off now.
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Apr 12, 2014 15:10
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Masters is nothing compared to Sun n Fun for us. And yes, we work the low stuff for them both. The biggest difference between Masters/Sun n' Fun for us is the sheer volume of VF-Tards we have to deal with. These guys fly once in a blue moon just for this one event and have zero clue what they are doing. Masters is pretty well structured now, imo, and it just gets treated as another busy approach control we have to feed (like CLT landers). AGS approach is sort of humorous to us, because at even 6am in the morning they won't let ANYONE fly through their airspace, even at 120. I had to sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves to get them to take a VFR. :P Masters IS a lot better than it used to be, years ago. When it does blow up, it's usually because of the VFRs and the lack of parking space at the airport. As for the overflights, I was working Augusta sector on Thursday, Allendale handled me off a guy at 80 landing AVL (Ashville, NC) that would have gone right through the middle of AGS Appch. I checked but they were already not accepting handoffs on overflights, so I called Allendale to tell them he either needed to go over ALD and go east, or over DBN (Dublin, GA) and go west around it. The pilot opted to go over DBN, but then later after I handed him off to Macon Approach I saw him squawk VFR and head direct.
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Apr 14, 2014 14:50
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Tommy 2.0 posted:That is why you try to get a trainee. Nope, I'm off Sat/Sun (took me 17 years to get it!  ) So on Monday, i usually work a 1500 shift (3-11pm), Tuesday a 1300 (1-9pm), Wed a 0800 (8am-4pm), Thursday a 0545 (5:45am-1:45pm), then finally a Friday Mid shift 2230 (10:30pm-6:30am). I like working mids.I thought about doing something like, "Allendale, Augusta 06, Bulldog's going active, do you have stairs in your house?" but decided not to. 
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Apr 14, 2014 21:56
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