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The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck


The FAA is not accepting applications at this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95G5UqxxikU


Big Effort Posts In This Thread So Far

Off The Street Hiring Information
Labor Relations and Unions
Some Radar and Radio Equipment Explained
Some Radar Equipment Explained Further
Types Of Airspace In The U.S.

Introduction
Hi, I'm The Ferret King and I'm an air traffic controller in the United States. I love aviation, and when I got an opportunity to work in this field 5 years ago, I couldn't believe my good fortune. I've since worked at two combined Tower/Approach facilities in Texas, and I'm hoping to one day move to an even busier facility in the future. I am also a low time private pilot. We have several other controllers on this forum, from the US and other countries. Please chime in and be part of this discussion! I sure hope you guys find some of this stuff interesting, as I really enjoy talking about air traffic control and aviation in general.

Today, the FAA opened a hiring announcement for off the street applicants (a pretty rare occurrence in the agency's history) and I figured it might spark some questions for those who are applying, or others who just heard about it and want to know what the big deal is. For more information on this please see the link at the top of the post.

What we do
The primary purpose of the air traffic control system is to prevent a collision. An air traffic controller's first duty priority is to separate aircraft. In addition, we provide many other extra services on a workload permitting basis. It's a big sky out there, but there are so many flights airborne at a given time, wanting to go between common places, that some establishment of order and sequence is needed.

A very brief and mostly plagiarized history

(Archie League, arguably the first air traffic controller sitting at his homemade work station)


The earliest forms of air traffic control were accomplished with flag signals from a guy standing on the ground at an airport. In the 1930s, increases in commercial air traffic resulted in the establishment of the first radio based control towers and centers. Towers would provide separation of aircraft over the immediate airport area by looking out the windows. Centers would separate aircraft along their routes by assigning routes and altitudes at sufficient times to avoid two airplanes being at the same place at the same time. Kind of like train track scheduling. They used maps, grease pens on glass and little fake airplane markers called “shrimp boats” to keep track of everyone's position. We call this type of procedural control “non radar” though at the time I'm sure the term didn't exist. The process of communication was still quite slow, since instructions had to be relayed through the airline's company by telephone, or to a nearby control tower within radio range, before it was given to an aircraft.



Radar!


World War II brought one of the greatest technological advancements to ATC. Radar gave controllers nearly instant feedback on an aircraft's position over the earth and allowed for more airplanes to use the national airspace simultaneously. Into the early 50s, radar was only used to handle traffic in the vicinity of busy airports.



Much of an aircraft's travel en route wasn't within radar coverage, and establishment of additional radar sites was stalled by federal budget cuts. The nation was still feeling its way through major increases in air traffic volume, and tweaking the national airspace system to meet the demand was a continual process.

Then, on June 30th, 1956 (a date all of us controllers learn about at FAA plane-school) a United DC-7 and a Trans World L-1049 collided over the Grand Canyon (at the time uncontrolled airspace, not served by the air traffic control system) killing all 128 people. The U.S. Congress approved funding for huge upgrades to the national airspace system, including expansion of controlled airspace and radar coverage. This national airspace system remains, with many upgrades and improvements, to this day.



Air Traffic Control Today

The types of air traffic facilities in the U.S.
Name (Abbreviation) [Radio Callsign]

Flight Service Stations (FSS) [Radio]


Flight service stations don't make control decisions on their own. They exist to provide pilots with preflight weather and routing information, and to act as a liaison between pilots and ATC when ATC communication is not available at the aircraft's location. In addition, flight service stations coordinate search and rescue efforts for missing aircraft along with Centers (discussed below) and local law enforcement. Pilots can radio flight service from the air, or ground, in most locations; or call them on the telephone. They used to be operated by the FAA but were contracted to Lockheed Martin some years ago. Much of their function can also be accessed through electronic means. Various websites and mobile apps can fulfill most flight planning and weather briefing functions. As a result, the number of flight service stations in the US has shrunk considerably, as communication methods have improved to a point where it's no longer necessary for a separate station to serve small geographical areas. However, you can still walk into an FSS and receive a face to face flight briefing, if you live near one. The FAA's hiring announcement posted today is not related to flight service station positions.


Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCT) [Tower/Ground/Clearance Delivery]


Towers are probably the most recognizable air traffic control building. They are usually quite visible from your terminal/aircraft and can be very interesting structures. The view is great. The tower's function is to manage aircraft movement on the airport surface itself (runways, taxiways, sometimes ramp areas) and a small section of surrounding airspace. Tower function responsibilities can be split between several people, depending on need:

The Clearance Delivery controller is usually the first to talk to a flight crew on the radio. They give them their routing and altitude instructions based on the flight plan the crew submitted to Flight Service. When the flight crew has this information and is ready to taxi away from their parking area, they call the Ground Controller.

The Ground Controller manages aircraft movement along the taxiways, taking aircraft to and from the runways or repositioning them as needed. Sometimes they need to coordinate a runway crossing with the Local controller. This coordination is crucial to ensure proper timing of runway crossings between departing and arriving aircraft on the runway.

The Local Controller (most people know this person simply as "Tower") is responsible for aircraft movement on the runway surfaces, and the surrounding airspace delegated to them by the overlying control facility. The local controller visually scans the runways to ensure proper spacing is maintain between departures and arrivals. They're the ones that say "Cleared for takeoff" and "Cleared to land." They've got binoculars, and sometimes mini radar displays to help them find aircraft out the window. Depending on the airspace structure and type of airport, the local controller may have responsibility to set the sequence of arriving aircraft to the runway, telling who to follow who. At other locations, all of the arrival sequencing is handled by the Approach controller, and Local's job is to ensure separation between those arrivals, and any departures.

There are also many MANY airports in the U.S. that don't have towers at all! These public/private airports have a low enough traffic density (we hope) that pilots can handle their own affairs when getting in and out. They're all over the place here and they're very popular with smaller aircraft.


Terminal Radar Approach Controls (TRACON) [Approach/Departure]


Man look at all of that. Gotta know what all of those shapes and tick-marks mean. Don't let the blue dots touch! TRACONs can be colocated with a tower at an airport, or their own separate facility. They handle a section of airspace roughly 50 miles around their primary airport, from the surface to about 10,000ft. They use radar to keep aircraft a prescribed distance from one another, and line them up for arrival to airports under their control (usually a big primary airport and a bunch of smaller airports). They'll also manage overflight aircraft that are passing through within their altitude strata on their way to other destinations. TRACONs will split areas of their airspace off to separate controllers as needed for traffic complexity. Smaller places may have a single controller working both arrivals and departures. Bigger facilities can have 10+ separate sectors that can be split or combined as needed, covering a much larger geographical area.

Arrival controllers receive aircraft from the Center, sort them into a proper order for arrival to the airport, and descend them to an altitude from which the pilots can make an approach to the runway. They'll tell aircraft which way to turn, what altitude to maintain, and even how fast to go, to try and get as many airplanes into the airport as quickly as possible without losing required separation.

Satellite controllers will work areas other than the primary airport, and handle traffic to and from those small uncontrolled fields I mentioned earlier, or from smaller tower controlled airports. In very busy areas, the satellite traffic is kept away from the main departure and arrival corridors for the primary airport. They try to get everyone where they're going as fast as possible, but generally the flow of the primary airport's traffic will not be interrupted.

Departure controllers are responsible for coordinating with their towers to release aircraft, put them on course, and climb them to an altitude where they can be transferred to a higher up Center controller (or the aircraft's requested cruising altitude, whichever is lower). They may need to work around the arrival controller's traffic by turning their planes away, or holding them at a lower altitude until they're past the arrival corridor. As soon as they can, they allow the aircraft to proceed on course and hand the flight crew off to:


Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) [Center]


Well this is where my knowledge starts to lapse. I'm a Tower/Approach/Departure controller, and Centers are a whole different animal. They are the largest air traffic facilities, working hundreds and hundreds of miles of airspace from the surface (when no TRACON exists beneath them) all the way up to space (or 60,000ft, I forget). They monitor traffic en route at high cruising altitudes, where people are going STUPID FAST and can't turn on a dime. They manage climbs and descents for aircraft transitioning to or from their cruise. They even perform most TRACON functions for airports that lack a local facility. They contain a lot of support staff, managers, and specialists, and an entire unit dedicated to managing traffic flow by holding aircraft on the ground at their departure airports. Their radars update more slowly than a TRACON's, and they work many large areas that have no radar coverage at all. In those areas, they have to revert to that old school style of non radar controlling, with pen and paper and a good clock. They also deal with a massive amount of special military airspace and oceanic flights.

Centers are split into several specialties, so a single controller does not have to learn the entirety of that center's operation. Within that specialty, a controller will be responsible to work several radar sectors, and perhaps some non radar sectors. They are zoomed out so far on their displays that 10 miles can look like half an inch on the screen. It's a totally alien method of working airplanes to me, so I should leave it at that and let some of the center controllers chime in.

Well that was a whole lot of words, where do we go from here?

I can't tell what, if any, of this stuff is interesting to the typical forums user. Please ask me any questions! I will also write a new post below to expand on what I know about the hiring process to try and help anyone interested in applying. It's not a job for everyone, but I've found it to be a very rewarding career thus far. It has been the most challenging and exciting thing I've done in my adult life (which might be why I can so easily blab on about it).

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 16, 2017

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The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

FAA Job Summary and requirements posted:

Minimum Requirements

KEY REQUIREMENTS

US Citizenship is required.
Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
Three requirements must be met to be referred for selection consideration:
Basic Qualifications
Biographical Assessment
Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT) Exam
This vacancy will be open for a minimum of 5 days and extended as needed

quote:

Age Requirements: A maximum age of 30 years is established for initial entry into air traffic control positions covered by Public Law 92-297. Persons who have reached their 31st birthday may not be originally appointed to these positions. If experience was gained as a civilian ATCS with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or Department of Defense (DOD), you must have been hired prior to age 31. Maximum Retention Age: 5 USC 8335 (a) and 5 USC 8425 (a) require mandatory separation at age 56 in a career controller position.

Why the age 31 limit?

FAA controllers are forced to retire at age 56. You must be in the job for 25 years to qualify for your pension. So when hired at 31 you'll get your retirement benefit eligibility at the proper time. Why a prorated option isn't available I have no idea. I guess they really do want the full 25 years out of you. Though the FAA website says you must attend the FAA Academy by your 31st birthday, in the past they have considered your age "frozen" upon receipt of a tentative offer letter, which happens several months prior to your academy start date. Additionally, the FAA tries to expedite the hiring process from a certain point for those in danger of getting too old. At what point this happens, I'm not sure, but it's certainly after you've taken the entrance exam.

What's the Biographical Assessment?

Sample Questions Here

The Biographical Assessment (also called Biographical Questionnaire or "BQ") is a highly controversial screening test meant to ensure the FAA is hiring from a sufficiently diverse pool of applicants who are qualified to work as controllers. It's a character assessment of sorts. The FAA began administering this test last year during the open hiring announcement, and it disqualified a huge majority of applicants (up to 90% according to reports) which has caused a LOT of controversy, especially from folks who went to college specifically for ATC, those with prior ATC experience, and military veterans.

The announcement closing August 15th, 2016, does not require applicants who previously completed a CTI college program, or eligible military applicants, to take the BQ

What's the pre employment test?

The Air Traffic Selection And Training test (ATSAT) is an 8 hour cognitive ability test taken on computer. It's split into the following sections (click the section names for more complete information, courtesy of Stuckmic.com):

Analogies, AY; Word and visual anaologies. The world analogies focus not just on the meaning of the words, but also similarities in their spelling or pronunciation.
Angles, AN; You're shown a variety of angles and asked to pick from a selection of numerical degrees that best represent that angle
Applied Math, AM; Time/Distance problems, most of which resolve to specific minutes AND seconds. You can't use scratch paper or a calculator.
Dials, DI; You're shown a variety of dials and gauges and asked to describe their incrementation, or to read the dial/gauge value.
Experiences Questionnaire, EQ; A short questionnaire about how you'd describe your personality. This is not the MMPI2 psychological questionnaire, which you take later on during your medical screening.
Letter Factory, LF; A puzzle game where colored letters travel down from the top of the screen on four conveyor belts at varying speeds and must be placed in specific boxes at the bottom.
Scan, SC; A screen is filled with data tags for aircraft, each containing a 2-digit, 2-letter ID. At the bottom is a range between two numbers. Any aircraft whose ID falls outside of this range needs to be excluded by typing the 2-digit aircraft ID and then the enter key. You keep filtering out unwanted aircraft as more are added, and the range of numbers at the bottom occasionally changes.
ATC Scenarios; A basic representation of a radar screen with simulated aircraft. You have to guide them to their landing runway or outside of the airspace along the proper routes while maintaining separation from other aircraft and the airspace boundary itself.

The starting pay seems really low

Starting salary for attending the academy is quite low, but supplemented with a per-diem that was around $80-90/day when I was there last. Some is only usable for housing, but the incidentals portion of the per diem can be spent or saved as you see fit. When I ran the numbers for my stay at the academy, I calculated I was really making more like $30k-35k effectively with the per diem figured in. It was livable for me, your mileage may vary.

Once you pass the academy and report to your facility, you start at the bottom of that facility's AG (academy grad) pay band. It's about $37,000/yr now I think plus a locality adjustment (what they call their cost of living adjustment) of between 14-35% depending on the geographical area of your facility. As you earn certifications through your facility, you hit certain Development Steps (D#) and start making the bottom of that pay band. Here they are for 2014 (you get 14-35% locality pay on top of this amount based on your location):



The numbers at the top are the facility complexity level. When you go to a facility with more traffic, you get more pay, basically. Facility levels can be found here (look at the ATC 2012 column). CPC is "Certified Professional Controller," you move to the bottom of that pay band once you certify on all required positions at your facility.

What are the medical qualifications?
You need to be able to pass an Airmen's 2nd Class medical plus EKG screen. You will also need to pass a psychological exam (it's the MMPI-2 short version). If you don't know what goes into obtaining and maintaining an airmen's medical, make sure and do your research before putting stuff down on paper. You may have trouble if you've had a history of anti depressant use, diagnosis of any mental or neurological disorder, or any sort of cardiovascular problems. These medical exams weed out a lot of folks who come unprepared. I can try to answer specific questions about the airmen's medical but it's pretty complex, and everything's case by case.

quote:

On anti-anxiety/depressants, 10mg once daily. How much would this screw with my chances of making the ATC cut?

You can't be on them and control. You'd have to be off them for a certain amount of time and then be evaluated by an FAA designated psych doctor and probably take an expensive battery of tests. You'd need to be free of the underlying condition's diagnosis before they'd issue an airmen's medical.

There are certain anti depressants that are now allowed for use by pilots after a 1yr evaluation period and a bunch of tests. There are only 3 or 4 specific drugs allowed though and it's currently not an exception that's available for ATC.

These guys may be able to help: https://www.aviationmedicine.com/

I got a weird security certificate message on that website but I've been there a lot before and never had a problem. Our Union uses them.


Background check/Security Clearance?
No felonies. DUI/DWI/Public Intox or past drug use will be a hindrance. It's possible to make it through the screening with these issues but it complicates things a lot. If you have an unreasonable credit history you may have trouble getting your security clearance. Substance related offenses harm your chances of getting the medical clearance also, so you get double-screwed.

What's the training like after you're hired?

The academy is pretty intense. You go to the FAA's facility in Oklahoma City for several months (varies depending on facility type you're placed in). There are weeks and weeks of book work, memorization, and written tests. You absolutely have enough time to learn it all if you acknowledge your study limitations. Some people read something once and retain it. I studied after class every day just to make sure I aced the tests. And I did (this isn't an accomplishment, nobody cares how you did at the academy once you're out).

Nobody fails the written material, they just won't let you be that bad. Once you're done in the classroom portion you move on to the practical academy training. You work in either radar sim, or tower sim labs. Radar sims look just like the real thing except the traffic isn't real. Tower cab sims are an array of angled LCD monitors with a simulated view outside the tower windows. You practice scenarios for a couple weeks, increasing in intensity, and you'll have certain scenarios that are graded. Center students will also do a non radar lab portion, where they practice the Dungeons and Dragons method of ATC (I'm just poking fun at pen&paper ATC, I get to actually see all the airplanes I work).

The way they calculate the pass/fail scenarios has changed since I went. I believe now that you take several scenarios that are graded (like 2 or 3) mixed in between your normal sims, and then a final examination on the last day. Your cumulative score must be passing or you'll have to retake the final practical exam to try and get a high enough score. If you fail the retake, you are terminated and you no longer have a future with ATC. When I went, it was 100% based on that final exam. That was a tense day, let me tell you.

If you pass, you go to your facility and begin your local classroom work. More memorization, more bookwork, way more than what the academy threw at you. Still plenty of time allowed to learn it all, but you had better learn it ALL. After class, you may have a simulator portion of training if available, or you'll go to the operational area and work alongside a certified controller. You'll be expected to know your written material very well, and have an overall good sense of judgment. You'll be working live traffic. Your instructor will critique you on the spot, override you when you do something really stupid, and write up a training evaluation form for every training session.

You'll be given so many allowable hours to log on that position/sector while training. If you exceed those, a board will be convened to determine your future with the facility. You don't want this. It can lead to anything from extension of hours (we think you'll get it but just need more time) to relocation to a slower facility (we think you're capable but just not capable enough to work here) to termination (we don't think you're capable, or more honestly we don't like you).

LINKS

FAA.gov
USAJobs.gov

A/T Aviation Megathread
Aeronautical Insanity Thread
Stuckmic - Rumor mill for prospective ATC applicants and current controllers
PointSixtyFive - Supposed to be Stuckmic's replacement since Stuckmic is no longer moderated or updated
Aviation themed forum for professional pilots, with an ATC subforum

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Aug 16, 2016

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

mick foley forever posted:

This stuff is actually pretty cool to me. How would you know a job like this is right for you? What sorts of majors/work experience can really help you get a job in this area?

I had no idea it would be right for me. I had a customer service and retail background. I knew I loved aviation, but in my late teens and early twenties I wasn't ready to commit to college, and I wasn't making enough money to where I was comfortable spending a ton of money on something like pilot ratings or aviation specific education. My friend told me about the FAA hiring off the street back in 2008 and I took a chance.

I had some serious concerns about getting into such a big responsibility. I wasn't sure I was ready to buckle down and really commit myself fully to a profession as stressful as I thought ATC was. I decided to go for it anyway, and I ended up doing pretty well at the academy. My training at my first facility went very smoothly, and I was encouraged every step of the way by older controllers and peers alike. The whole experience was intimidating, but awesome.

Get selected for the job first, when they do off the street hiring like this, it's all about meeting the basic qualifications for the hiring announcement. Then there's a lot of luck involved. Once selected, only your personal dedication and mental aptitude can determine if you'll make it through training. You won't know for sure until you try (some days I still don't "know" that I'm cut out for this).

I've always thought a really good bartender or restaurant server would probably also be a good controller.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 19, 2015

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Theris posted:

Any idea how long the hiring process takes between the announcement close and when you hit the academy? My 31st birthday is in late April, seems like it might be cutting it close.

In 2008 it took me a little less than a year. I applied to the 2nd announcement they had that year and they did a total of 8. By the 8th people were waiting over 2 years to get selected and start the academy.

I'm afraid April is way too tight a time frame. I just couldn't see it being realistic. You could always try, maybe they'll do something different this year that speeds things up. Though the website says you have to attend the academy by your 31st birthday, it used to be that a tentative offer letter "froze" your age and you didn't have to worry about that. You'd get that tentative offer letter much sooner than your academy date, though still not April soon I don't think. It's still unlikely to happen by April, but I wanted to clear up what may be a discrepancy in the job posting.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jan 19, 2015

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

YF19pilot posted:

If I recall correctly, doing one of these programs, which are certified or some such by the FAA, you can graduate and go right into working for the FAA, skipping the OKC Academy and going directly to your field assignment. I don't know if they still have to do the localized training or not, I'd have to ask.

That's the sore spot with those students now. That program was called CTI and it has been completely eliminated as a source of new hires for the FAA.

They stopped off the street hiring right after I got in, and basically told all interested that they had to go to these specially accredited schools and earn a certificate. Then they'd be able to apply to CTI announcements.

Then, they never posted any CTI announcements after the first year or so. Students were starting and completing their college courses (some schools got you finished up in 18months) without any idea when they'd be able to apply for work.

With the announcement posted today, the FAA lumped all of those CTI graduates in with the off the street applicants. It may have some impact on your resume for selection (that's total speculation) but the FAA has abandoned the CTI program as a source of new hire candidates for now. It was a really crappy deal for those who spent that money, or are currently enrolled.

Tommy 2.0 posted:

You got extremely lucky getting a class date as quick as you did then. For this one? I have no idea what is going to happen.

HR was even still answering the phones and they let me change my assigned facility (gave me a choice of 3 different ones, actually). My timing couldn't have been more accidental, nor more perfect. It wasn't long after that their backlog got insanely big, they quit answering phones, stopped approving applicant requests, and kinda went into lockdown. Class dates got strung farther and farther out. I'll probably be repeating this a million more times in this thread, but I was VERY lucky.

Theris posted:

Yeah, wouldn't hurt to try. I'm a current federal employee and already hold a secret clearance, so maybe being a transfer might help.

Coworker of mine and I were at the academy together, same start date at our facility. He had some years with the TSA and that broke our seniority tie in his favor for bidding time off/shifts. Your government time should be an asset in at least some small way.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Feb 11, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
I met my HR rep at my pre employment processing in Kansas City... I don't recall if I bought her a beer or not. I hope I bought her two.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Boola posted:

Good thread, thanks for putting this up and letting us know they're taking off the street applications again.

What's your schedule like? amount of days worked on/off, hours, etc. I remember reading that it was a 3 days on, 4 days off, 4 days on, 3 days off sort of schedule in the past with 12 hour shifts but I'm not sure if that was just fantasy or not when you figure in the new guys getting the worst shifts, forced into doing overtime/extra days, and whatnot. How much paid time off do you get in a year?

Facilities can negotiate their own schedules and rotations to an extent. We must have at least 8 hours off between shifts (9 hours if the time off period is over night), we must work no more than 6 consecutive work days before getting a full 24 hours off, and we can work no more than 10 hours in a shift.

So both places I've worked were usually on a 5 day work week. 6 days were occasionally necessary for a while due to staffing, but sequestration and budget cuts hurt overtime availability for many facilities. I didn't work much OT last year at all. You bid your weekends yearly right before you bid your annual leave.

Our schedules descend. Flat 8 hour shifts, I'll just list my typical start times mon-fri: 330pm, 130pm, 800am, 600am, 1030pm that night. You'll see that's two "quick turns" a week. Getting off work at 930pm on my tuesday, going back at 800am the next morning. Then again on my Thursday I get off work at 2pm and go back at 1030pm for the midnight shift. The good news is I'm off work on Friday at 630am and I don't go back until 330pm Monday afternoon. Bad news is it can be fatiguing if you aren't able to sleep on queue. These aren't my actual days off personally, I was just using mon-fri to illustrate the shift order.

Other facilities can do things like 4 10 hr shifts or whatever, but I think what I've seen at my two facilities is probably the most common structure.


quote:

Is it usually possible to get assigned to one of your top choices out of academy as long as you aren't requesting very small or extremely popular facilities? For instance, if I said my top three were Austin TX (my current home) / Portland OR / Denver CO is there a good chance I'd be assigned to one of those?

This will be the first time in many many years that facilities are given based on academy performance. I'm not really sure how they plan on working it exactly, sorry. I knew my facility months before going to the academy. They placed you first back then, then sent you to school. This resulted in some talent going to slow Podunk airports, and some real useless trainees going to huge busy facilities.

It also caused trainees with potential to start at places way too busy for their lack of experience and result in either termination or the stressful process of "washing out" of training and getting moved to a slower facility. This was even worse back during the labor dispute a couple years back during the time our contract had lapsed. I may go into more detail on those days in a later post, though I was hired closer to its resolution and didn't suffer much from it personally (I was VERY lucky).

quote:

The salaries were cut by 30% back in the 2000's and that's still in effect, right? I know the salaries differ a lot depending on what facility you go to and what your discipline is, but do you mind sharing the normal average progression for someone from 1-10 years in the profession?

Progression by years served isn't a great indicator. If you stay in one place your pay never changes appreciably unless there's some new contract (lately these have NOT been favorable to the workforce) or you go to a higher facility. Those pay bands in my second post are what you're gonna get, plus locality. You'll be at the bottom of the band and creep up yearly with congressional and presidential raises. Those are normally a percent or two annually and lately have been absent or not kept up with inflation.

The cut in 2006 I'll try to talk more about later. The pay was cut drastically for new hires, and it took until late 2009 to arbitrate a new contract to restore the pay to more reasonable levels. They rolled out the restoration over a 3 year period, completing it in 2012 (that's why that image way above says 2012 pay band). After they finished restoring the pay bands, it was still less than what pre 2006 controllers were making, but it was close. This was branded as a huge pay increase by some media outlets but really it was a big pay cut, followed by a smaller pay raise, followed by a pay freeze.

quote:

What is the pension like? I know what is offered now most likely won't be the same 25 years from now, but I'm still curious about how it is structured.

This is all changing for new hires and I'll try to get more complete info for you soon. Now it's something like 1.5% of basic salary per year up to 20 years, then 1% each additional year of service. I think those figures are staying the same but I'm only paying .8% into it from my payroll and the FAA covers the rest. They're trying to make new employees contribute 5% or something. These are fuzzy numbers I'm working off memory.

quote:

I work offshore as an engineer on a 4 week on 4 week off schedule so I love the time off I get along with the pay and travel but sometimes still wish I had a job that at least had me in my own bed every night and with a somewhat normal life so it is interesting to consider applying for this now that it is opened back up. The hardest part would be starting back at 1/3 of my current salary, though. That's why I'm asking about the average salary progression.

You can increase your earnings steadily but it'll take time. It took me 16 months to fully certify at my first facility and some places take longer. Some take less time and a lot depends on individual dedication.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Feb 11, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Fat_Cow posted:

He was Terminal

Just for those unfamiliar, Fat_Cow's dad was not dying. We tend to refer to ourselves as split between to categories. En Route (those that work in ARTCC Centers) and Terminal (Those who work in Towers and/or TRACONs).


Tommy 2.0 posted:

Tell them to go to the union or something. It's a common thing at my facility for just that reason. They might have a lawsuit.

I've yet to see part time at my facilities either, but I'm not certain it's ever been requested. Also I've worked at places with ~20 or ~40 controllers. You guys have hundreds of coworkers so maybe it comes up more often.


Fat_Cow posted:

My father worked as an Air Traffic controller for 20 years. After he retired as a supervisor for a year Raytheon picked him up to train Controllers is that normal?

I think so. And honestly that sounds like the sweetest gig. You're retiring around the same time that the FAA would be hiring a bunch of new people (to replace the retirees) and at that point you're a subject matter expert hopefully. All of my instructors at OKC were retired FAA controllers. I went to OKC twice. Once for tower school and again for radar school since my facility had both.

I think they make $60-80k/yr or something and that's on top of their retirement benefits from the FAA. It's gravy.


DNova posted:

Why does that pay chart completely ignore facilities less than 4 in complexity?

There aren't any facilities rated less than 4. In my second post I linked to this PDF of facility complexity ratings: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pomriaxleim1jbj/FAA%20Facility%202011-12.pdf (look at the ATC 2012 column).

You can see there are a few level 4s throughout the nation. BPT (Beaumont Port Arthur, TX), CSG (Columbus Metro, OH) etc. MrYenko is right, a lot of these end up getting contracted out to private companies to run (the FAA still pays the company to operate the facility, yay government contracts). Contract controllers are usually former military/FAA controllers who have good personal connections in the industry. You don't normally get hired directly into a contract facility off the street or anything.

Boola posted:

How do they come up with the locality added to the pay bands? Is it part cost of living part desirability or something else?

I see that Seattle is 14% and Houston is 28%, even though Houston has a way lower cost of living. I definitely see Seattle being a lot more desirable than Houston, but when you figure Houston is a 12 level facility and it gets 28% locality... that's hard to beat.

It's based on local taxes. Houston's biggest facilities are located in Spring, TX, a ritzy suburb with shitloads of oil money. The school and property taxes there are high, and artificially inflate the locality adjustment. As a result, Houston Bush Intercontinental Tower (IAH), and Houston TRACON (I90), are highly desired facilities to work in the FAA because they're the only level 12s in the nation with such a high locality %. You make the most money at those facilities and get to live in a relatively low cost area. It's a sweet deal if you're able to work level 12 volume (12 is the highest rating). Your pension is calculated (using the percentages I mentioned in a reply above) based on an average of your highest 3 years salary. They're trying to change this to the highest 5 years for new hires. Regardless, people will sometimes want to go to places like I90 or IAH for at least 3/5 years to secure the largest retirement possible.

The Houston facilities are somewhat of an anomaly and people know it, so it can be tough to get into them.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Feb 11, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck


Labor History and the Union

I'm going to fudge history again and gloss over some details, and I want to avoid any sort of dramatic pro labor language that miffs people or turns people off to our profession (though SA is probably a pretty safe environment for that overall). This stuff is highly relevant to the current hiring announcement, because past labor relations directly led to the requirement to replace nearly all of the controller work force every 25 years. This massive, repeatable attrition is what causes the FAA to begin hiring from off the street and open up this career to peons like myself.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6P4d7NJNTk
(sadly, part 2 of this video isn't available yet)

Where Did it Start?

In 1968 the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) formed and was later recognized as a Labor Union, to organize and protest what the workforce thought was an untenable traffic volume situation. This began with a workforce-wide protest. Controllers insisted on forcing proper separation standards of all the aircraft being worked nationally. Previously, there was pressure from management to run airplanes much closer than legally allowed, to make up for the lack of infrastructure to handle the ever increasing traffic volume. There was no oversight, and the general public would have had no idea that the controllers responsible for their flights were being encouraged to skirt the separation standards in favor of quicker operations. Near collisions were common, but nobody ever heard about them. Airport expansion and ATC systems modernization was stagnant, and there were too many god drat airplanes in the air.

Federal limitations on strikes for civil service employees complicated PATCO's ability to force the FAA's hand on many issues important to the controllers. What follows is a short, hopefully unbiased history of what happened:

-In 1969, almost 500 controllers organized a 3-day "sickout"
-In 1970, about 2,000 controllers organized a sick out to protest what the felt were unfair practices of the FAA.

Then in 1981, PATCO declared a strike, and about 11,000 controllers (of approximately 13,000 total) refused to show up to work. Striking of government workers was still banned. President Reagan ordered the striking controllers back to work within 48 hours, lest they be fired. Almost the entirety of the striking workers refused the presidential order, and were fired (yep, 11,000 of them).

Right or wrong, PATCO was striking to protest work rules, under-staffing, and pay. Well if you already thought the ATC system was understaffed, how about after 85% of its workforce was fired? The strike and firings placed an unprecedented burden on the national airspace system. Supervisors, Managers, office workers with ATC background, were hastily placed into control positions. The military gave as many controllers as they could. The FAA began an aggressive hiring campaign, but it takes years to train brand new controllers.

To say things were a mess would be an understatement. Delays were enormous, controllers were even more overworked, safety was compromised. Scheduled flights even had to fight over vouchers for flight plan clearances off many airports. An airport would be given so many possible flight plan slots, and they were first come first served. Didn't get one that day? Well then you didn't get to fly with ATC service.

After a few years, some of the fired strikers were able to apply to get their old jobs back. And a new labor union was formed:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iEhvrI3FWI

Today's Union
Ok, so Take 2 (maybe 3, who's counting). FAA Air Traffic Controllers (and indeed several other bargaining units in the national airspace system) are represented today by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). Esablished in 1987, joining NATCA is optional. It costs you a percent or so of your facility basic pay very two weeks. The union has local representation at every facility, though not every facility is 100% union. My facility recently became 100% union, but prior to that we had a couple that elected not to join. Depending on where you work, this can create some friction between coworkers, but it wasn't an issue for my facilities, really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRuDoRb0WFY
DAAAWWWWWWW isn't that cute?

NATCA and the FAA butt heads regularly on all sorts of issues. Some seem more noble and worthy causes than others. The last big dispute occurred in 2006, with expiration of the "Green Book" contract that had been in place for years prior. Contracts are effective for so many years before the FAA and NATCA must go back to the negotiation table and reassess whether the contract still serves the needs of both entities.

The Green Book Contract contained some very unfortunate language. If a new agreement was not reached within a certain time frame of the Green Book's expiration, the FAA was allowed to invoke whatever changes it wanted. NATCA didn't foresee any reason for a stalemate because relations had been somewhat stable for a while and we didn't expect the FAA to feel the need to use that destructive clause.

Negotiations for the new contract to replace the Green Book got heated, and eventually there was an impasse over a couple articles mostly regarding pay. The FAA wanted to cut pay, NATCA was going to fight any such change. A new agreement was not reached in time, and the FAA exercised its power to assign it's own "contract." This was called the "White Book." NATCA called it Imposed Work Rules or IWR and would not agree to the articles concerning pay.

Ouch (2006 Imposed Work Rule Pay for New Hires)


One of the worst things about this, is that only new hires would be getting this lower pay. This A/B-scale style of pay system is terrible for working conditions. The stressed out New York controller in his 40s was making way more than the stressed out New York controller in his 20s, and not by a normal factor of additional experience. We're talking a LOT more, and for doing the exact same job. Plus, depending on your tolerance for the stress of the job and what you think a good living wage is, there's no way anybody is going to volunteer to go to the busiest facilities to earn $80k when they can sit back at a facility several levels lower and make $65-70k. The difference in volume and complexity can be huge. $80k in the busiest and most expensive areas to live in the U.S.? No way.

Pay was the biggest sticking point for the impasse, but it didn't stop there. During the IWR, the tension between controllers and managers at facilities grew. The FAA took this opportunity to clamp down on personal luxuries. They mandated a dress code, they prohibited employees from leaving the facility to smoke or take a lunch break, and they gave incentive raises based on popularity instead of performance. Kissed enough rear end that year? Congratulations, you got a raise. They were also quick to escalate minor transgressions of rules. You had better not leave 30seconds before your shift ends or they'd drop the hammer on you. Have a loss of separation? They'd pull your certification and stuff you in an office for a few weeks. Mouth off to an overzealous supervisor? Maybe the Aviation Medical Office would get a phone call about your possible mental instability, wouldn't that be a shame?

Controllers were hardly angels during this time frame either. New hires were pouring in, subject to the lower pay and new shittier rules. Veterans had no motivation to deal with their poo poo while trying to take it from management as well. Training suffered, morale suffered. And plenty of controllers did everything they could to make manager's daily lives hell. Plus pay was frozen for everyone except managers. Many controllers left the union to become supervisors to earn more money. During a time of labor dispute this is a very serious slight to those folks' former colleagues. Everything escalated and it was looking like the FAA might not be a great place to work. Then in 2008:


THANKS OBAMA!!!

An aviation senate sub committee had been convened for quite a while already, discussing many issues of the national airspace, but the FAA/Controller labor dispute was definitely a high priority. Pressure from our new Democratic President (NATCA supported of course) finally moved things along and in 2009 (a few short months after I started working at my first facility, I WAS SO LUCKY!) an agreement was reached. It's called the Red Book and it remains today. The pay bands referenced earlier in this thread are a result of the Red Book and several arbitration panels that forced an agreement to be made. The working conditions and rules were also relaxed back to more normal levels, and we got a lot of our protections from management indiscretion reinstated.

Regardless of what you think of unions, the pay new hires will enjoy is a direct result of relentless union action. I don't always agree with what our union does, but I generally feel better knowing they're behind me. I should mention, for those applying right now, that NATCA is fighting the increase of employee contribution to benefits for new hires.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Dec 22, 2015

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

CatchrNdRy posted:

Are your monitors and screens sort of basic and chosen for its appearance because its the most efficient or because its difficult to update reliably? The screenshots look like what I'd stereotype air traffic control screens to be 20-30 years ago. Why doesn't it look like a trendy smartphone app!?!?!

The lines and overall map presentation is a pretty old design. When color scopes became available, studies were done to see which colors had the best effect on clarity and attention-grabbyness.

There's a whole document specifying colors that must be used.

quote:

FAA Joint Order 7210.3

3-10-1. COLOR USE ON ATC DISPLAYS
<editor note: For Terminal Facility Displays only>

Color use on terminal systems was developed jointly
with the Terminal Safety and Operations Support
Office and the Terminal Automation Human Factors
Team. This section provides guidelines on the use of
color on ATC displays through a national standard for
terminal air traffic displays. These guidelines are
intended to standardize the use of colors across the
terminal systems. Any use outside these guidelines
must be developed jointly with the Terminal Safety
and Operations Support Office, the appropriate
Service Area Director, and the Terminal Automation
Human Factors Team. All use of color on ATC
displays must fall within these guidelines, except for
MEARTS<don't worry about this acronym>:

a. Whenever color capabilities exist, the following
National Color Standard for Terminal Systems
shall be installed:

1. Background shall be black.

2. Point out identifier blinking or steady shall be
yellow.

3. Compass Rose, range rings, maps A and B
shall be dim gray.

4. Coordination rundown list as follows:
(a) Unsent shall be green.
(b) Unacknowledged shall be blinking green.
(c) Acknowledged shall be steady green.

5. Geographic restriction border, fill, and text
shall be yellow.

6. Data blocks owned shall be white.

7. Limited or partial data blocks unowned shall
be green.

8. Search target symbol shall be blue.

9. Beacon target extent shall be green.

10. History trails shall be blue.

11. Predicted track line shall be white.

12. Minimum separation line shall be white.

They sperg out pretty hard about this stuff. You are also correct, like many things in aviation, our technology updates at a pace much more slow than private industry tech. It has to all be evaluated and contain multiple layers of redundancy. But I like the displays where I work quite a bit, I've also worked on the old round radar scopes that still had a "sweep" going round and round constantly. Those were only 1 color, green, and though they worked very well it definitely looked dated. I plan on doing an info post on current and recent radar systems soon.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Feb 12, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Zochness posted:

You guys have STARS down there? We still work on the old scopes with ARTS-IIE, was lots of fun getting to work with STARS/ACD at the academy then get back to facility with the old submarine scopes. They definitely get the job done though, I don't even notice the sweep any more.

Yep, we have STARS. I came from a facility with ARTS-IIE. The extra functionality and display clarity of STARS is very welcome. We also operate in a radar mode called FUSION, where our targets move every second instead of once per radar antenna sweep, it's neat. Very fluid motion.

Please don't worry folks, I'm gonna go all crazy on Terminal Radar Systems in a later update!

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Cerebral Mayhem posted:

Jacksonville Center (ZJX). My area encompasses ATL (Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, GA) and the area southeast to AGS (Augusta Airpot, GA), to south of MCN (Middle Georgia Regional Airport)

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?

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
It's absolutely my favorite ATC related pun/song pairing.

I love the Offspring.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Crunk Abortion posted:

I'm getting ready to apply for an off the street position, and would love any advice TRACON goons could offer. I just had Parahexavoctal update my resume, did you guys also include a cover letter when you applied? How much should I specialize my resume to include FAA keywords and stuff?

Most information available on how the hiring panels select people is complete rumor-mill. I don't think anyone knows exactly what they're looking for. I will say that the interview portion of my hiring took about 15 minutes out of a year long process and I felt it probably had the least to do with me being selected.

I believe I included a cover letter, short and sweet. The shorter and sweeter for everything, the better, I really don't believe the resumes get looked at that closely beyond verifying you have met the prerequisites.


xaarman posted:

So if someone reports an ELT, what is the process that happens? Today, ATC asked several planes if they could pick it up, how strong it was and if it was getting stronger/weaker, but then what?

What if it's on 243.0?

My understanding is that the satellites have stopped listening for 121.5/243.0 bands of ELT(Emergency Locator Transmitter, aircraft distress beacon) and so it's now entirely up to other aircraft and ATC facilities to notice and report them. Newer emergency beacons broadcast on 406MHz and include the transmitter's location, registration information, and phone number contact (probably for the owner or pilot). The old style ELTs just beep. And beep and beep and beep.

If the ATC facility who takes the report is a terminal facility (Tower/TRACON) then the information is forwarded to the overlying Center and they take over responsibility for activating search and rescue. They'll coordinate with Flight Service, the Air Force, and reports are probably made to the Domestic Events Network to ensure efforts are made to locate the signal. If it's a strong signal heard in the vicinity of an airport, one of the first things we'll do is ask airport management to drive around and check the hangars. A lot of the times these ELTs go off after a hard landing and the flight crew parks the airplane without realizing they're "beeping."

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) still takes part in hunting down ELTs, as far as I know. Their band of cadets will drive around all over creation with a handheld receiver attached to a big dorky "H" shaped antenna, scanning for the strongest signal until they narrow it down to the plane's location. I used to be in CAP when I was younger and had several calls at 1am on a school night to go run through fields looking for an airplane. It was never a wreck (thankfully) only aircraft parked with beeping ELTs.

Pilots and maintenance crew are also authorized to test their ELTs within the first 5 minutes of any hour, no more than 3 beeps. You'll often hear these tests pipe up over the emergency radio frequencies (121.5/243.0). They sound like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_AMzBuoLs0

It just goes on and on until the ELT battery dies or someone finds it and shuts it off.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Feb 14, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

The Bramble posted:

So I have something called REM sleep behavior disorder. All it does is make my legs twitch while I sleep, no other symptoms. I have a prescription for 0.5mg klonopin that I can take to stop the twitching, but I could certainly live without it. As far as the medical goes, how long would I have to be off klonopin to not have it disqualify me?

Aviation Medicine.com is a great resource for folks expecting complications with obtaining or retaining their medical clearance. Our union uses them. It may cost a little bit out of pocket, but an inquiry through them could save you thousands down the road. Are you an AOPA member by chance? They too have a medical department, as well as a subforum with a very experienced medical examiner providing guidance.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Feb 14, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Yeah at my facility we work the Mexico/US border and have similar non-radar (manual/verbal) transfer of flight information for anyone crossing over. Our responsibility as ATC is distinctly different from any procedures pertaining to authorization to actually cross the border. We don't know anything about an individual flight's legality for entering US airspace, that's more the jurisdiction of US Customs And Border Patrol, and the Department of Defense.

I have had pilots call me up asking for "clearance" into the United States airspace. We don't do that. The pilot is supposed to have all that handled before they even depart. I believe much of this is coordinated through Flight Service and Customs, but I'm not sure since I've never flown across the river myself.

Our situation is a little different than MrYenko's, in that our verbal coordination procedures aren't required as a result of unstable equipment. The Mexican approach controllers on the other side of the river are 100% non radar. There is no radar coverage for them to use there, so it all has to be handled verbally.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Feb 14, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

chocolateTHUNDER posted:

Most of the ideas people have about your job is that it's highly stressful and causes premature death or some poo poo like that. Basically, that it's one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

Speaking from your experience, is the level of stress really that high?


Sinbad's Sex Tape posted:

I'd say it's no more stressful than working in customer service. You're in control of the situation and most find working the busy traffic the funnest part.

I will personally attest that I had way more stressful periods of my life working in customer services than I've yet to have in ATC. I think so much of that has to do with the fact that I actually like my job now and I'm empowered to do it. The control aspect is very important, it's great being the one in control. Not to get a big complex about it, but we don't have to deal with complaining customers (not in the moment anyway) and the whole operation is shielded by layers upon layers of professionalism and anonymity, which makes it a very polite environment to work in. Some exceptions apply of course.

You adjust to the level of stress put forward by the job. You also can't let yourself get wrapped up in the reality of the number of lives you're responsible for. That doesn't help anyone. All the passengers care about is that they're not delayed and don't die. All the pilots care about is that they're not delayed and that they don't die.

You'll often hear people say that we have to be perfect in this job. That's not entirely true. What you do need to do, is operate at a high level of cognitive function and have good overall judgment. I never go a day without correcting a few instructions I made. If I did, it'd be a fluke. But you have to be good enough to realize you need to make the correction. And the thing you did requiring correction should not be SO screwed up that you can't recover from it. But minor mistakes happen all the time. We're perfectionists but we're hardly perfect.

Training is absolutely horrible. You don't know what the gently caress you're doing and you're taking it from all sides. The pilots want to know why they haven't been cleared to come into the airport yet, your instructor wants to know why you're so loving stupid, and your supervisor wants to know if he's going to be able to go home early today without having to do paperwork. You have to handle the inherent stress of the job along with the stress of not being comfortable with your own abilities and limitations. You don't even know what you don't know yet. It slowly gets better and better as you certify on positions within your facility. Your coworkers start treating you better, you begin to understand more of the local operation, and you free up that valuable brain capacity for things like sequencing and monitoring your traffic, instead of focusing on the simple stuff like what that airport on your scope is called again.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
For the first year I was at my first facility, we actually still had tapes that we changed out every morning and marked with a grease pen. We had a whole tray of them that we'd cycle through (starting over every 45 days).

It's an antiquated term now that it's all digital recording, but the message still gets across. We wouldn't need to actually "mark" anything but if we knew a pilot was going to be calling in later to complain, the smart ones would probably try to get their story straight with management and quality assurance so no one was surprised by the phone call. They can pull up the audio and radar data immediately by date/time.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

I.C. posted:

Has everyone already asked how realistic "Pushing Tin" is? Like, everyone you've ever met?

Most people think we're the guys with the orange batons marshaling the planes to the gate.

(Did this joke already happen?)

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

xaarman posted:

Thanks for the write up. How long or what needs to happen for it to be taken seriously vice "another hard landing at a random airport" ?

It's taken seriously immediately, and hopefully you figure out it was a hard landing before too many resources were activated.

It took so many minutes for the ELT satellites to scan a given area twice. I think it was between 30min to 1 hr. Two passes were needed to confirm a persistent ELT signal, attempt to triangulate the location, and begin the search and rescue procedures (though they'd begin notifying people sooner if aircraft/ground based facilities were also receiving the signal). If a signal is received for a few minutes, then stops, it will probably be assumed that it was somebody testing their transmitter, or otherwise becoming aware that it was broadcasting. If the signal is no longer transmitting before satellite triangulation can occur, there's not much you can do to find it anyway.

On the old 121.5/243.0 system, it now has to be detected by other aircraft or ground facilities since the satellites don't listen anymore. If we're hearing it at an ATC facility, it's probably pretty close and very annoying, so we'll have the airport guys out looking within 10 minutes to shut it up.

I'd say conservatively you could expect activation of SAR resources no more than 1hr after first hearing the signal or being notified of one. It could take them several more hours to find the transmitter. The newer 406MHz digital transmitters can encode GPS coordinates with the distress signal, so it makes finding it a lot easier.

All of us terminal facilities (towers and TRACONs) monitor 121.5/243.0 continuously. Not only for ELT signals but for anyone broadcasting on those frequencies for help. I've been told that Centers don't necessarily listen to those frequencies at the control positions, though it may be monitored at a supervisor or coordinators desk. Generally when aircraft call on 121.5 it's because they missed a frequency change and want to know who they need to contact next. Terminal facilities or other aircraft are the ones that reply to these requests, I don't think they usually get a hold of a Center through 121.5.

EDIT. I promise an effort post on radar systems is forthcoming. It's taking me a lot longer to compile interesting information/images than I thought.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Feb 18, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Yeah when I hear airline pilots or other folks way up high calling out for help finding a frequency I always hear them call for Center and think to myself "center can't help you, buddy, they're not listening."

It's fun reaching out to them and finding out they're hundreds of miles away from my tower, but so high up that the radio quality is still excellent.

It's like a contest between pilots (and occasionally controllers) to see who can be first to bitch out a pilot accidentally transmitting on 121.5 (guard) frequency. Diligent pilots will try to monitor guard on a second radio in case anyone calls out for assistance, but might accidentally set their radio to transmit instead of receive only. Then you get this coming out every speaker:

"Center N12345 leaving 10,100 climbing 15,000"

"YEEEEERRRRR ON GUAAAAAARRRDDDDD!"

"Oops sorry."

Bonus points if multiple guard police jump on the poor guy at the same time, toning out the frequency and causing a horrible screeching sound, as they race to be the first douchebag to yell at the guy for making a simple mistake.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Could have been slightly less vindictive, and he just wanted to give the other controller crap in a friendly way.

But that's almost certainly why he wanted to know, yes.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
I've heard that Salt Lake City TRACON is deceptively difficult to work because of the lack of options. Those planes get down into the valley and they pretty much need to be set at their proper interval way ahead of time, because you can't turn them hardly anywhere due to the mountains. If you botch the sequence, there's no way out. I've heard stories of folks coming from other large TRACONs and having difficulty certifying at SLC.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Sounds like NY Center is swamped and put a stop on a lot of departures entering their airspace. The offer of 10,000ft to destinations as far away as California is a joke because no air carrier is going to stay level at 10,000ft for transcontinental flights, but NY Approach doesn't own the airspace above that so that's all they could presumably offer.

EDIT: This may not be obvious to everyone so I should clarify. Jet engines are very inefficient at low altitudes. 10,000ft is an unreasonably low altitude for a jet making a long flight. They tend to cruise between 30,000 and 45,000ft. It's unlikely you could even make it from coast to coast at 10,000ft without running out of gas midway.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 20, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

The Slaughter posted:

No, I mean I'm on the ground, at an uncontrolled airport with no FSS reachable, so I call the clearance delivery hotline to get my IFR clearance. Now what's happening behind the scenes to get me off the ground and in the system IFR?

Flight service will call the ATC facility's flight data position. Sometimes at smaller facilities that position is combined with an actual control position, so you're talking to the radar controller themselves.

Flight data will issue the clearance to the FSS specialist, and an instruction to hold for release while they coordinate with the radar controller responsible for that airport. When flight service is relaying the clearance, we try to get this done while they're still on the line because we can't call the specific FSS specialist back directly. Usually the radar controller is able to issue release instructions to the Flight Data controller and we can relay that to FSS who then relays it to you (you've probably been on hold this whole time, it takes a couple minutes).

If there is traffic management flow affecting your arrival airport, then we don't have any choice but to ask FSS to call us back in a couple minute so we can call Traffic Management and ask for your release time. If the airport is controlled by the Center where the Traffic Management Unit resides, this may be simpler. But at my TRACON, we have to make a separate call to TMU.

Hopefully we can get back to FSS quickly and issue a release time that's reasonable to allow FSS to relay the information to the pilot, and the pilot to get to the runway and takeoff. It's a fairly cumbersome process but it's necessary as you know, when the airport is locked down by bad weather. If the radar controller is busy they aren't going to give Flight Data priority to issue departure instructions, so we may have to keep FSS waiting for several minutes until we can get a word in. If other lines start ringing during this time, Flight Data can actually become a fairly busy position for once.

Calling the ATC facility's clearance line directly streamlines this process quite a bit, if it's available. I wasn't sure if you were talking about FSS clearance delivery or the ATC facility clearance delivery phone number. If the latter, just ignore what I said about the instructions getting relayed, you need only wait for the facility's flight data controller to get things coordinated with the radar controller (or if you're lucky you're talking directly to the radar controller and they can issue your release immediately).

Athazagoraphobia posted:

Do controllers talk poo poo about Reagan? I live in DC and I'm always amazed that the man who hosed over air traffic controllers has an airport named after him.

I've heard that controllers in the Northeast call that airport "National" for that very reason. ATC didn't get to pick that name, I'm afraid.

Tommy 2.0 posted:

pilot: center we are position alitude looking for our ifr clearance to bumfuck
center: lol no we can't, maintain VFR
pilot: uhh we can't maintain VFR

I love the feedback loop that results from a pilot just not getting the message when requesting IFR below the minimum IFR altitude (slightly different from your scenario, since yours is a traffic/volume conflict).

If the weather is bad and a pilot has departed wanting to pick up an instrument clearance, but they're still below the minimum instrument altitude for that area, we have to ask them if they are able to maintain their own terrain and obstruction clearance in their climb to the minimum altitude. If the answer is in the affirmative, we may issue them the clearance. If the answer is negative, our book says to tell them to "maintain vfr and say intentions." This results in a hilarious exchange when the pilot isn't getting the message.

"N12345, approach, are you able to maintain your own terrain and obstruction clearance between your present altitude and 2,000?"
"Negative, N12345."
"N12345, maintain VFR say intentions."
"We'd like to pick up our IFR clearance to Bumfuck, TN"
"N12345, are you able to maintain your......."

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Feb 23, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

PkerUNO posted:

This is a subject that interests me quite a lot. I've always thought that ATC was a bit like playing a high-stakes puzzle game, where you have to fit planes together in the most efficient way, juggling your attention between them to keep them from touching. This rather simplistic view may be entirely caused by my adoration for the Japanese "I Am An Air Traffic Controller" series of videogames - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRZTzp2goRk (PC) & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaabFQUVgJ4 (PSP). I gather the job in real life isn't quite as... arcadey?

I think the radar screens look pretty arcadey, yes. The biggest difference is that a lot of ATC isn't as twitchy as the above video games, or other flash games approximating ATC. There are tons of rules, tons of procedures. Separation goes beyond making sure they don't hit. You need prescribed distances and altitudes between certain airplanes. Good controllers safely run airplanes as closely to those minimum distances as possible, but it's done smartly. Any risk is calculated and you leave yourself with options to get out if something goes wrong.

Some ATC facilities are rather sleepy. Very low, or very inconsistent traffic. You might go your whole day without having to resolve any separation conflicts at all. Even on days when I've been rather busy, sometimes the planes just show up in the right order/spacing already, and I'd have to try drat hard to get them too close together. Other days you get 2 airplanes in the airspace, 100nm apart, and they are going to meet up at exactly the same point in space if you don't fix it.

What you're paid for, and what you're trained for, is the knowledge and ability to work these conflicts out when they happen. If you're good at it, you can run pretty busy traffic without breaking much of a sweat at all, because you make a good plan the first time and execute it well. All that's left to do is keep up with new additions and scan your traffic for anomalies. If you're always reacting at the last second, unsure of your control decisions, constantly amending clearances/instructions, the job gets tense in a hurry. At the very very busy places, the margin between the two styles is pretty thin

quote:

I half-seriously thought of looking into the actual job, but trying out the sample games on the NATS site kinda made me realise not all video game skills translate well to real life. That and I'm guessing suffering from IBS automatically rules you out.

I'm not certain this would rule you out completely. I work with a guy who has Crohn's Disease, even, and is on medication. It depends on many variables. They wouldn't let you take anti depressants to medicate for it (I understand this is sometimes a medication used for IBS since it blocks the offending nerves) but there might be combinations of diagnoses/medications that comply with the requirements of an Airman's 2nd class medical.

[quote]
I'm guessing a lot of the job is simply routine and not all of your working day will be stressful, but do you get really difficult pilots to deal with? Like, the same level of difficult customers that ground staff have to deal with? Or is everyone unequivocally professional, calm and collected at all times?

It's mostly calm and professional but there are exceptions. What makes this job so drastically different from my time in sales and customer service, is that I'm always in a position of authority. If a pilot starts mouthing off, they're the ones behaving badly and I don't have to take it. I'll continue to handle their flight like I would normally, and then they'll get a call from the flight standards office at a later time about their unacceptable conduct. Sometimes pilots get snippy, sometimes controllers get snippy, you just let it roll off unless it's really bad. Honestly the kind of hostility I'm referring to has to be bad enough that the pilot probably isn't mentally sound anyway, and they should have their certificates examined.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Welcome to near 100% attrition every 25-30 years due to retirements.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
So I've recently achieved 5 year veteran status in the FAA and I still have no idea what the gently caress you guys are talking about.

Any clarification to make this thread more accessible to the layman would be greatly appreciated.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
I'm guessing AR is Aerial Refueling. And what is Tailhook? And Blue alerts? I'm not asking just for me, mind you.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

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What routes? North Atlantic Tracks (NATs)?

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Zochness posted:

So after almost a year as CPC I'm finally getting sent to OJTI class (a class to learn how to train new controllers on live traffic). Any of you guys who train enjoy it/hate it? I've got a tower only CPC-IT (already certified at another facility, transferred here and in training) on my crew who I'm going to have to train on radar, so I'll get thrown into it pretty much right away. I enjoy teaching people so I hope that helps, we do a lot of training.

I've recently begun training people at my facility as well. I was briefly authorized to do it at my first facility, but then I transferred shortly after, so I don't have a ton of experience training other people. I haven't yet had a situation get out of control, my developmental has been at this facility longer than I have, and is on his last radar sector, so I'm not exactly starting fresh with him. This is his first FAA facility (he was in the Navy prior).

If the trainee is working the traffic, it's actually pretty easy, you just monitor for mistakes, correct them on their phraseology, or provide suggestions when they encounter something new they haven't seen before.

Our training situation here is a bit ridiculous (people taking 4+ years to certify at a level 9 Tower/TRACON facility) and I really try to make sure that I'm providing useful feedback to the trainee, as well as accurately documenting the training session on the evaluation form we fill out after every session. Recently, we designated a computer for training reports, and I've been able to type reports into a PDF and print them out. Much to my trainee's chagrin, this allows me to write WALLS OF TEXT quite rapidly, and provide tons of references to our manuals.

When I first began my career, my instructor was awesome. He drat near had the manuals memorized, always kept his cool, and was a great controller as well. He helped me so much, since I was starting without experience, and I really want to be the same kind of instructor to other people.

I'm doing what I can to keep my feedback actionable. I was so sick of hearing people say a person "needs more time" or whatever, when all the training reports they wrote just said "Good job, no assistance required (signature)." I try to explain on the form what I thought was wrong, and how I wanted to see it done better next time ("you had 6 miles between these airplanes on final and you only needed 3, next time I want to see you run them at least less than 5 miles apart")


quote:

Get a week in Dallas to take the class at DFW TRACON, the last guys who got the class had to do it here, they are so pissed :smuggo:.

That's where I did my class as well. I'm not sure how well it prepared me for instructing others, a lot of it is just going through the national training order manual and discussing how to fill out the training report form after every session. Something I don't think we do very well in the FAA is ensure that the people providing training are actually good teachers. You can be a good controller and still be a crap teacher. Our problem at my facility is that we don't fail anybody out of training, but we don't certify them either. It's a horribly frustrating kind of limbo for the trainee, whose pay depends on completing certification.

It was neat to see DFW TRACON though, definitely a bit bigger than the facilities I've worked at.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

Tommy 2.0 posted:

AR means Atlantic Route, Tailhook is a chunk of military airspace that one plane will take up hundreds of miles in diameter, and miles up, to practice 10k feet of crap in, blue alerts I have no clue.

Ah yes, I see them now: http://tinyurl.com/mdaraz8

I might have heard of these before but I didn't recall them. TRACON airspace is a small world compared to Center. About the most interesting things we have are Military Operations Areas and Instrument training Routes. We also have an alert area that is commonly filled with Navy T-34 Mentors doing rapid maneuvers through several thousand feet, it's scary when someone decides to fly through it without talking to us. Either they really trust their traffic avoidance system or they're stupid (or both).

We have a couple offshore GPS waypoints for helicopters but we so seldom use them anymore, most of their operations moved out of the Corpus Christi area, where I'm at.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
The mechanics of it looked alright but it was so complicated I never bothered to learn how to play it.

There are some more arcadey radar games that are good, but they all miss one of the biggest parts of terminal radar control, and that's degrees divergence. We can have less than 3 miles(lat/long) or 1000ft(vertical) if aircraft are on courses or headings that diverge by at least 15 degrees. This comes up a lot when vectoring to a final approach course, or splitting up departures, but none of the games I've played take it into consideration. They all "ding" you any time you bust that 3 mile bubble around the airplane. Kinda frustrating because it really changes the way you have to work the traffic in those games. The interfaces are always cumbersome too.

I feel like real ATC is easier than some of these clunky games.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Feb 24, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

TheHouseofM posted:

Any chance you can get me a copy of that PDF? I'm at controller at NORCAL and would love to be able to type my trainee's reports instead of writing them out.

EDIT: Ha, I found it (I had the wrong form number before). It's on the employee website. https://employees.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Form/FAA_3120-25.pdf

You'll need your login credentials of course. Whatever firefox does to display PDFs doesn't show the fields as fillable, but once you download the PDF and open it with Adobe Reader proper, you'll see them.

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Feb 27, 2014

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
The stuckmic.com rumor mill has several posters who passed it, but there's another rumor circulating that these notices were sent in error and that there might be some changes.

Rumor rumor rumor.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

kmcormick9 posted:

Speaking of entitled motherfuckers on stuckmic, has anyone heard anything about the cti class action?
"I paid for this meaningless piece of paper so no one else should get this job before me" was the sentiment back when I was :f5:ing that site all day waiting for my FOL.

I'd like to see them succeed. I don't know how the FAA chose who to be in cahoots with, but those CTI schools made a poo poo load of money and the FAA doesn't have to pay these CTI grads a dime.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Newer rumors from the rumor mill are saying that the 2,000 people who passed the biographical questionnaire on this last announcement are going to move forward in the process. They estimate this will yield as low as 400 controllers graduating the academy (after losing some in the hiring process and others to academy failure). This means they would plan to have additional off the street hiring announcements in the future because 400 is not nearly enough.

Someone who left my facility (and the FAA) for a private business opportunity, now works at a contract tower and is waiting to get back in to the FAA. He did not pass the questionnaire.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
ZJX = Jacksonville Center, Florida
ZMA = Miami Center, Florida
KBOI = Boise Tower/Approach, Idaho
ATM = Air Traffic Manager (the highest level of air traffic management for a given facility, the chief, the boss, not a controller themselves but a former one)

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Thought you guys were talking about Gods Of Air Traffic for a second. But no, actual goats.

Our facility has had a feral dog problem in the past. One controller got attacked on the way to his car one morning, it was ugly.

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The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

E4C85D38 posted:

In the spirit of being pointlessly nosy, have any of you had or seen a TCAS RA go off?

I read on Wikipedia that under Mode S or ADS-B coverage, you can automatically see a TCAS RA when it happens, but that's not exactly sourced nor is it terribly specific whether that's something that happens now or if it's on the big list of NextGen stuff to cram into towers/centers.

At the two U.S. facilities I've worked at, we had nothing that would display TCAS reports of any kind on our radar displays. We're advised of a flight crew performing a Resolution Advisory (RA) maneuver when they tell us they're doing so over the radio, or when we notice that they're suddenly diving/climbing away from their assigned altitude.

I've had one RA happen under my watch as a controller so far in 5 years. This was before I learned my lesson about what air carriers need to comply with when that system issues them commands. I mean, I KNEW they had to comply with TCAS instructions, but I didn't know it was required for some operators even when the crew has the traffic in sight out the window. Minimum vertical separation between an instrument flight rules aircraft (air carriers are almost always this) and a visual flight rules aircraft (often smaller, general aviation planes) in most situations is 500ft. However, if you have a VFR aircraft level at 3,500ft, and you've told the air carrier to descend to 4,000ft and they get close, the TCAS will often issue an RA that the air carrier must comply with.

It's annoying, because you've told all traffic about each other, they may even have each other in sight, and you've ensured procedural vertical separation of 500ft....But if that TCAS goes off, the air carrier will maneuver as directed. Now I tend to separate VFR/IFR aircraft vertically by 1,500ft, or make sure I vector to avoid them passing right over/under each other. The extra workload is worth it to avoid the reporting associated with an RA. A resolution advisory is an automatic quality assurance review and mandatory occurrence report, meaning management is going to have to review the radar data and radio logs to make sure nothing dangerous was going on. Your nose is clean if you issued instructions to maintain proper separation, but it's attention you don't want to have, and they'll probably still want to know why you were running them that close in the first place since we all know it pisses TCAS off.


Iucounu posted:

Got CPC today. Feels good, man.

Excellent work, congratulations. When's the party?

The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Mar 4, 2014

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