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I seem to remember from academyland that if the aircraft are of unlike types, you file them as 2/c172/g, and then put "2nd A/C is C206" in the remarks.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:57
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Had a fighter come out of the top of his restricted airspace (SFC-070 at the time,) and pass within about a mile of IFR traffic, going nearly straight up. First hit was 065, next was 092, traffic was at 100, R side called it, next hit was at 127. I tried really hard not to be a dick to the range officer, but what the gently caress, guys.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:34
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E4C85D38 posted:When you say the R-side "called it", does this consist of saying "holy poo poo, what the gently caress"/"guys I think we have a problem", or hailing the aircraft over the radio, or something else? Sorry, the R side called the traffic to our IFR aircraft.
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Mar 20, 2014 02:18
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Butt Reactor posted:In other news has anyone heard anymore about off-the-street hiring? The one person I know that got past the biographical quiz has an ATSAT date. That's all I've heard. In other news, our new supervisor tried to put our arrivals and departures for one of the approaches we service into essentially the same chunk of sky, yesterday, for weather... It didn't work. 
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Mar 25, 2014 11:39
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fknlo posted:Why the hell was a supervisor working when there was weather? She wasn't, she called the approach and told them to shift all their turbojet departures to the DTA we normally only use for props, which runs under the main turbojet ATA. It would've worked, if all the jets wanted to go to their destinations at eight thousand feet. She's new...
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Mar 25, 2014 16:18
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I'm an rear end. All of our letters with terminal facilities define the arrival and departure gates as Arrival Transition Areas, and Departure Transition Areas. I didn't realize it wasn't a common term.
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Mar 26, 2014 13:52
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As a small and incomplete aside to Ferretkings post, centers run equipment known as either HOST (older) or ERAM (newer) that provides some measure of flight plan automation, depending on local procedures. You can call up flight plans in the computer with the flight's three digit computer ID number, or with the trackball at the radar scope itself, and all flights relevant to your sector(s) are displayed on the URET/EDST (User Response Evaluation Tool with HOST, and Enhanced Decision Support Tool, associated with ERAM) screen, next to the radar screen itself. Our area, in fact, just got approval to turn our strip printers off when ERAM goes live, shortly. All of our flight plan data will be digitally stored and displayed. (Finally.) We'll only get paper strips when we specifically print them. Strips are still used elsewhere in the building for nonradar procedures. Our voice system is different, as well. Named the Voice Control System, it's a pair of iPad sized touch screens mounted just below the radar scope for the R side, as well as one under the URET and one above for the D side, and an additional unit above the radar scope for a tracker. They operate in much the same way as the terminal version, except we don't have to hold anything down for override calls. Also, there's no pictures of center equipment loving anywhere. Godamned camera-ban.
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Mar 29, 2014 20:53
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Got to work the Thunderbirds on their way off Punta Gorda, back to Nellis this morning.  ...And then, literally five minutes later, TBird14, the C-17 going in to pick up all their GSE. A bunch of cool stuff coming out VFR from the Punta Gorda airport yesterday and today, post airshow, as well. A couple C-47s, a C-46, a C-1 Trader, and a B-25 are the highlights. And Sun N Fun is this week!
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Mar 31, 2014 15:25
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FrozenVent posted:How do airshows work, you just cordon off a block of airspace and the participants are free to do whatever in there? The MacDill, Punta Gorda, and Lakeland (SunNFun) air shows all had/have a 5nm radius TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) placed on them, from the surface to 15,000ft MSL. During the show, that airspace belongs to the air boss, and we just avoid it. As an example, Fort Myers approach owns the area where the PGD TFR was located, from surface to 10,000 MSL. We own above that, so it impacts our operations. Tampa owns surface to 12,000, so the MacDill TFR impacted our ops, as well, and the LAL TFR will do the same. LAL actually more than most, because we have traffic going through that chunk of sky. Orlando approach owns all the way up to 16,000, though, so if they were to have an air-show at say, Kissimmee, they probably wouldn't even bother to tell us, unless it was near the lateral boundary. *NOTE: All air shows are different, always check your NOTAMS.*
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Mar 31, 2014 18:13
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Possible best part of working at a center: Access to the cartographers cabinet. 
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Apr 7, 2014 16:23
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We had twenty in trail to ATL/AGS in addition to the altitude caps, but PBI and MIA approach give zero fucks, and were throwing them at us at three and increasing. (Mostly.)
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Apr 12, 2014 18:05
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fknlo posted:You'll generally just give them the scenic tour of your airspace like so. We needed 20 miles in trail to KMSP, he got a 270 heading and then a 050 heading before going back on course. I would have just left him on the 270 heading but I wanted to keep him in my airspace. Pretty much this. Our two MIA departure sectors are really narrow (~40 and ~25nm wide, by maybe 75nm long, IIRC,) so we have to get creative sometimes.
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Apr 13, 2014 00:59
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It's more due to the flow of traffic into and out of Miami and the adjacent facilities. Basically, and bear with me, Palm Beach approach is immediately north and adjoining Miami approach, which means there are three paths to Miami from the north. The east coast has arrivals from the northeast going down it, servicing The northeast side of MIA and PBI, while the west coast has arrivals from the whole rest of the country coming in over the Gulf of Mexico. Those arrivals go into Miami approach almost from due west, which means there is a small area between the arrival streams for all of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, as well as all the satellite airports' departures to go out to the north. All of them go through my area, which has two sectors, each with an MIA departure gate, and an FLL departure gate. Additionally, the eastern departure sector has to blend Palm Beach's departures into their northbound feed to high altitude, which feeds Jax center, and work Orlando arrivals coming from the southeast, including short hops from the Miami area, and anything from South America and the islands, whilst the west departure sector also works all of Palm Beaches arrivals from the west, and Fort Myers arrivals from the northeast. ITS FUN.  (Also, I really wish I could just post my sector maps. It makes more sense when you can look at it.) (Also also: when I say MIA and PBI, I'm referring more to the respective approach controls, and less the individual airports. TPA, RSW, MIA, PBI, all use their airport ID for their approaches. Orlando has F11. I dunno why.)
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Apr 13, 2014 04:35
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The Slaughter posted:MrYenko: If not for getting sick mid-week, last week, I would have had the honor of pissing off palm beach approach and miami approach with low level survey work! Kinda bummed that I didn't get to, I missed out on a lot of flight time Are you one of the guys with C206s doing survey work out to the west, around Punta Gorda and such? It's trailed off in the past two or three weeks, but for a while there it seemed like there was a guy just west of PGD pretty much all day, every day. A bit up just northwest of Lakeland, as well. The Ferret King posted:Because MIA, PBI, TPA, and RSW are Towers that are combined with their Approach Controls (same controllers working in the Tower and Approach). F11, Orlando Approach is a separate facility, with separate controllers, than MCO - Orlando International Tower. Ah HA!
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Apr 13, 2014 05:23
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Ya, we've talked to you guys a little bit. 127.2, 134.55, 135.17, and 132.45 are us.
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Apr 13, 2014 13:47
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The Ferret King posted:They're even more cryptic. I posted a bit about terminal radar systems here. Included is a screen shot of an approach radar map (the black on white image). It lacks much of the numbers and annotations because we memorize all the symbols and lines for our area of jurisdiction. To expound on this: There's sector maps, which generally have airways, airway mileages, fixes, navaids, airspace boundaries and altitude limits, etc. they're what you use to learn your airspace. The major addition to them if you're familiar with IFR charts is our internal airspace boundaries, which are almost always different from the airspace boundaries printed on VFR charts. (Terminal facility airspace is almost never round, like is suggested on VFR charts. That's just the airspace in which you're required to follow their rules in.) Sector maps can get cluttered, but at the same time, they lack quite a bit of information that's on the IFR high and low charts, like frequencies, VOR bearing rings, airport information other than the name, etc. That information is available to us, (we keep a full set of IFR high and low charts around, and we have an informational computer at each console called ERIDS,) but it isn't used very often in operations, because the pilot is already (supposed to be) looking at the applicable IFR chart. They're produced in-house, and aren't available outside the facility. I'm pretty sure they're controlled material, as well. Not positive on that, though. Then there's the radar map, or video map. That map is literally what appears on your radar scope. There are different filters for each video map, to turn on and off restricted airspace, airways, IR routes, etc. the biggest difference is that there is no writing of any kind on video maps in HOST. You have to be familiar with the airspace already to really understand what you're looking at. Most areas in my facility have their video maps set to display airports, airspace boundaries, fixes (and not all of those,) navaids, arrival/departure gates, and little else. No geographic information is presented at all. Those settings are not really customizable at all. There is a draw and text feature, so you can put text on the map, but you can't, for instance, toggle on all the fix names. ERAM is significantly more customizable for the end user, who can toggle on and off fix names, airways and names, airport and navaid names, and major geographical features (lake Okeechobee, the coastline, etc,) and other things. Bonus: when looking for a picture of ERIDS, I finally found a decent shot of a couple of HOST consoles:  The two tall monitors towards the left are radar scopes. Each scope has a radar associate position next to it, although the closest one is out of the frame. The monitor to the right, canted more towards the camera is the URET (User Request Evaluation Tool, renamed to Enhanced Decision Support Tool in ERAM,) display, and the tall touch screen above it is ERIDS (EnRoute Information Display System.) The scopes are either right handed or left handed, by which I mean the URET or strip bay is to the right or left of the radar display. This also means that in areas with strips, you have to develop at least a passing amount of ambidexterity. You can see strip bays in the immediate left of the frame, and a large bank of them to the right of the center position's URET. You can also see the terribly depressing neutral colored walls and carpet. That area has the lights turned up a bit above where ours are, so it's even more depressing than normal.
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Apr 13, 2014 17:56
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JohnClark posted:Look at you, with your lights on and everything. Not my facility. (I think that's ZLC.) My areas lights are definitely brighter than any approach control I've ever been in, but not as bright as that.
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Apr 13, 2014 21:29
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The name/facility placards for our class were jumbled. Everyone had someone else's last name. There was only a single card with the first, last, and facility correct, and that guy never reported for work.
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Apr 13, 2014 23:11
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Sunlight is overrated.
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Apr 14, 2014 00:17
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There's apparently a waiting list to train in the tower at MIA. Like, a two-plus year waiting list. And some people are told straight up that they will never even get a shot at
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Apr 14, 2014 00:29
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The Ferret King posted:That's probably to combat the usual effect of Up/Down (combined Tower/TRACON facilities) staffing shortages. Which is, usually people certify in the tower first and then take FOREVER to certify in the radar room, assuming they don't wash out (and many do, on radar). So they're probably trying to combat that by getting the painful part over with first. If you certify on radar at Miami, there's no way you're going to wash out in the tower unless you're a special breed of super radar/stupid tower controller... I mean, it could happen, but it's a pretty big step backwards in complexity. I have one position. I also have a six day work week for five of the upcoming six work weeks. In short, you are correct.
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Apr 14, 2014 00:43
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The Ferret King posted:The silly thing about "Climb Via" that I've been hearing, is that it's being used on basic vector and conventional navigation departures that don't have mandatory altitudes at fixes along the route. For example, the procedure might say: They also just changed weather deviation phraseology. Apparently, saying "Deviations approved, when able, proceed direct fix" will keep a pilot from abandoning all commonsense, and turning directly into a thunderstorm, which was apparently happening constantly when the phraseology was "Deviations approved, when able, direct fix..."
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Apr 14, 2014 13:16
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fknlo posted:On the plus side, they can realistically be so big and still fit in the cockpit. The hot sounding lady pilots are all hot, and they all want me. It's what gets me through the day. This. Although I'm pretty sure a certain low cost carrier that operates out of RSW a lot has hired a thirteen year old girl. SHE SOUNDS SO TINY.
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Apr 17, 2014 10:52
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 GOOOOOONSSSS Actual content: company call signs that make you hungry. I'll start. HGE3 - "Hoagie Three."
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Apr 22, 2014 00:32
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DNova posted:What's all the stuff in the thing in the photo? I'll do a legend when I get home in a bit. I wanted to get the cheap joke in immediately.
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Apr 22, 2014 01:11
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Tommy 2.0 posted:How do you like it down there anyways in ZMA? The facility itself is great. I really like my coworkers, and we seem to have a really motivated group of OJTIs. (On The Job Training Instructor) We also are more of a giant terminal facility than a center, really. We have a LOT of departures and arrivals, and very little fly-over traffic. It's varied, and always challenging. The surrounding area is basically all the worst parts of the bible, though. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, and I just can't stress enough how much of a difference thirty miles can make. Miami is a poo poo-pile with some barely-passable roads running through it. As for the enroute strip I posted...  (This is not a comprehensive description, since that strip doesn't have data in all the fields, but it'll do, pig. It'll do.) The first field at the top left is the callsign, in this case, N226N. Under that is the type aircraft, and equipment suffix, in this case, a PC-12 slant Lima, which IIRC is RNAV (Random area Nav,) GPS, and RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums,) equipped. Under that is the filed true airspeed (T243) and the computer-observed groundspeed (G210.) Another line down is the sector number the strip is printed at, in this case , 67. On the bottom line is the Conputer ID number (993,) which is what we use to make amendments, handoffs, move the data block, etc. Next to that is the strip number (24/5,) which means it's the 24th strip printed, and the fifth amendment. The strip will generally print once per center sector, but can be requested as much as you like. The narrow column to the right is the coordination column, and shows the aircraft's position when the strip printed. This is computer generated, and almost totally useless. I think the 1800 is the Zulu time that the position was reported. Another move right is the coordination time, 1811z, which is the time the aircraft is estimated to pass over the coordination fix, which is at the bottom. (ROGAN 041/032) Those two columns look totally different on a nonradar strip, and are essentially not used on a radar strip like this. The conputer just prints that information anyway. In the fourth major column is the aircraft's requested altitude, FL220. In the sixth column is the route of flight and remarks. In this case: MYNN./.PHK070021..LAL..SZW.J73.GOONS.J73.LGC..KHSV Simplified, it means the aircraft departed Nassau, Bahamas. The "./." is a truncation, since at sector 67, we don't care what happened before PHK070021, which is the 070 radial from the Pahokee VOR, 21nm fix. That's where the computer starts processing, doing route probing, etc. From there, they're currently cleared directly to the Lakeland VOR, then direct to the Seminole VOR, join J73, (known as jet airways, they're airways at or above FL180 in the US,) to the GOONS intersection, J73 to LaGrange, then direct to Huntsville International Airport. Technically, since GOONS is on J73, it doesn't have to be on the flight plan, and it could be SZW.J73.LGC but that's the way they filed, and  .At the bottom is the remarks. The first character is a "clear weather symbol." It's used when you want the remark to be transmitted to each facility down the line that the flight plan processes to. There is also an equivalent "Obscured weather symbol," that is used to limit the remark to in-facility use only. It will not show up on a Jacksonville center strip. The remark "NONRNP10" doesn't mean poo poo to me. As an aside, if there are any dispatchers here, STOP FILING "TCAS EQUIPPED" IN YOUR REMARKS, WE DONT CARE. The last column has the assigned unique transponder squawk code. Center goons, feel free to correct me. We literally file our strips the moment they print, so I'm a little rusty, and might have the coordination information wrong. I think that's it, though. MrYenko fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 04:02
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gently caress I'm dumb. Ignore this post.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:05
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Kilonum posted:Isn't TCAS mandatory equipment on aircraft of a certain size anyway? Mandatory TCAS operation rules vary by country. That said, nowadays, damned near everyone has it.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:20
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The Ferret King posted:I've heard that various online flight planning programs will automatically populate the remarks section with bullshit if nothing is manually typed in. Like when you see the name of the pilot in remarks, for example. The pilots/dispatchers are not always typing that stuff in, it's getting auto populated from other fields in the online flight plan forms. Ya, ForeFlight throws the pilots full name in remarks, unless you disable it. Thing is, with the new ICAO equipment suffix stuff, there's a place for your TCAS equipment. And your RVSM status. And your dog's immunization records. And what you had for breakfast. It's seriously comprehensive. Which is probably why I've yet to see an ICAO flight plan filled out completely and correctly. The FAA: If it isn't broken, apply international rules until it is.
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Apr 22, 2014 11:24
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General aircraft knowledge as well. Types, relative performance, the basics of VOR navigation, weather, quick in-your-head math, etc. No one expects you to solve for x on the fly, but being able to math out whether the guy will make it 3400 feet in six minutes by observing his rate of climb helps.
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Apr 27, 2014 01:32
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Down here, we issue direct to fixes on the arrival all the time. I've never heard anyone complain about it. Are you with NavCanada? Delayed edit: Certified on my second two D sides. Just the three high sectors (which train combined,) to go before I can go to R school and actually be useful! MrYenko fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 1, 2014 23:33
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A lot of Europe uses LOWER limits for their class-A equivalents, too. Content: Weather season is in full swing across Florida. It sucks. Pilots: "We're just gonna make a slight right deviation and then direct Cross City when able," is not descriptive of a 40 degree right turn.
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Jun 13, 2014 22:15
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fknlo posted:What's staffing looking like for the other center folks on here? My area is going to be down to multiple 3 man crews since we're losing another guy to airspace. I think we started with 32 or 33 CPC's this year and are either still the same or one under after getting 4 people checked out due to losses to retirement/TMU/desk jobs. The best part is that we keep sending people to TMU to replace people retiring/transferring who were already from our area... About the same, except the Fri/Sat and Sat/Sun crews, which are hilariously fat. (Seriously, I worked OT the other day, and there were more people on break than plugged in.)
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Jul 22, 2014 20:50
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Tommy 2.0 posted:ZJX is overstaffed, except for my area and another. Out of 6 areas, two work the majority of volume/complexity that dictates our pay scale. If you think about ZJX let me know and I'll fill you in on what areas to NOT go to if you actually like breaks. Seriously, the other four areas are so relax they made a guy work over time a few months back because he didn't get enough TOP for the month. He was assigned to the floor the whole time too. I am so, so sorry about Monday. (What area do you work in?)
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Jul 23, 2014 14:33
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FrozenVent posted:What's TOP, if you don't mind me asking? Time On Position. There's a required minimum to stay current.
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Jul 23, 2014 14:56
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Tommy 2.0 posted:As a former tower Also, sunlight. Still, the view is better than this radar crap. Monitor radiation is like, almost the same thing, man. Also, my area just voted to dim the lights. It's getting even darker in my little slice of the control room.
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Jul 25, 2014 14:59
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Additional content: I certified on my last three D sides. Mandatory six month seasoning period begins now. KodiakRS posted:Do you ever walk out of work surprised by the fact that it's suddenly become day/night? Ya. Florida's pants-on-head-retarded weather is another one. Beautiful sunny day when you went in? Two hours later, you need a boat to get to your car. MrYenko fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 03:09
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Bob A Feet posted:What kind of weather overlay, if any, do you have on your radar displays? I've flown in planes that are weather radar inop and always just asked center/approach if that cloud ahead of me is too bad to fly into and I can usually get a good answer. We have a pair of weather overlays, the Air Route Search Radar weather overlay, and the NEXRAD overlay. ARSR is the radar returns from our primary search radars. They display as green hash marks (/) and the letter H on our displays, for moderate and heavy precipitation, and they update pretty much continuously, but aren't ideal, since that radar is designed to find aluminum, not precipitation. NEXRAD is a modified display of raw NEXRAD Doppler radar data, with the sixteen NEXRAD intensity values simplified to four categories, light, medium, heavy, and extreme. Light is filtered off the display, and the others show up as varying shades of blue and blue-green. The only real problem with NEXRAD data is that it isn't continuously updating. We only get a fresh NEXRAD picture every five minutes or so, which can be insufficient to see a hole in the weather closing up during a dynamic thunderstorm, as an example. EDIT: beaten like a ginger. fknlo posted:Haha, what the gently caress? 6 months seasoning? That is insane. Management's "solution" to some problems we've been having as a facility has been to impose some rather ridiculous procedures in the training order. They still don't loving wash anyone out, so I don't loving get it.  ...And you're a terrible influence.
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Jul 26, 2014 14:52
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Grats. I know who you can blame for that one (the stupid rear end seasoning). Yup. Not being in an active training status is basically the best thing, though.
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Jul 27, 2014 17:03
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 16:53 |
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Another one that's extremely helpful to us is if you're being radar identified, and aren't yet, or do not plan to be in a standard formation, please, please tell us. We can make whatever work, but there's a real sinking feeling when you see a couple primaries out behind the F-16 you just radar identified leaving the Restricted area... At initial check-in, be specific, but after that, everything related to your flight SHOULD get passed along.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:36
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