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TangoFox posted:@fknlo: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/577677100 Thanks! I don't really check usajobs often enough these days. I'll apply for that but the odds of me actually getting picked up aren't good because they won't be able to get a deviation to get me. I've been told I was the number 1 choice on several TMC bids but they can't ever actually get me. I'll obviously still apply though. The ATM makes the final pick there which is good for me since I don't exactly have a great history with the TMO but I do with the ATM.
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Sep 1, 2020 20:34
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You're telling me... I have been sitting here with 20 bids out there since January and haven't gotten picked up anywhere.
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Sep 2, 2020 02:47
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Guess one of the controllers in my area is going to ZLA. Last day is Sep 16. NGL I'm kind of surprised they're allowing transfers during all of this.
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Sep 2, 2020 02:56
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DFW has picked up 7 this year that "arrived" and went straight to sitting at home.
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Sep 2, 2020 20:36
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Yeah... My brother in law is trying to get out of Indy center and is getting frustrated by everything being essentially frozen.
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Sep 2, 2020 20:50
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We got a new controller apparently and I like his style. Really drawls everything out like a cowboy and he makes an effort to do nice stuff like tell you the winds every time you land. I hope we keep him
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Sep 2, 2020 20:54
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They even had another NCEPT panel a month or two ago which I thought was surprising. Where I want to go will never be able to pick anyone up under the current rules with the current suspension of training and the massive backlog that's going to create. Their trainee percentage is probably climbing if you factor in retirees and anyone that might get there from the academy.TangoFox posted:You're telling me... I have been sitting here with 20 bids out there since January and haven't gotten picked up anywhere. I'm 99% sure I got picked up on the supervisor bid that I did because I asked an OM what needed to be in a 2 week notice. He had quit the agency before so I thought he was a good person to ask. He pulled me aside later that day and told me not to do anything rash and that he was going to try and help me out.
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Sep 2, 2020 21:22
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andd thennnn? It's crazy how slow our HR is. It's impressively bad.
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Sep 3, 2020 03:37
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So there's a "Resumption of Training Plan" from national now. Per our rep: "We are starting to plan for some OJT to begin but it will not include everyone to start. NATCA and the Agency have determined this will only involve the partially certified people on a crew right now." I'm interested to see how they try and resume training with our facility still on 5/5.
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Sep 8, 2020 20:35
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its all nice on rice posted:So there's a "Resumption of Training Plan" from national now. Per our rep: "We are starting to plan for some OJT to begin but it will not include everyone to start. NATCA and the Agency have determined this will only involve the partially certified people on a crew right now." You'll lose 5/5 once they try to train everyone. I don't see how there's any way around it. I don't think we actually have the staffing to train even though we're back on normal schedules. TangoFox posted:It's crazy how slow our HR is. It's impressively bad. Not having any idea of the actual status of any bids is super fun too. Know someone like the facrep at the facility you're bidding at and think they'll know? 
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Sep 8, 2020 21:05
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its all nice on rice posted:So there's a "Resumption of Training Plan" from national now. Per our rep: "We are starting to plan for some OJT to begin but it will not include everyone to start. NATCA and the Agency have determined this will only involve the partially certified people on a crew right now." We're doing it on 5/10. Get. some.
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Sep 10, 2020 01:22
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Our janitorial staff dumped our entire refrigerator worth of lunch boxes and such in the trash without discussion or warning. So I had to eat out of the garbage. 2020, am I right?
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Sep 12, 2020 01:06
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I guess one of my fellow trainees is transferring to ZMP. Not sure how long he's been trying to transfer, but he was just about half way through his first two sectors on R-Side before the whole COVID thing. He's from the UP in Michigan, so I wonder if it's a hardship for a family member or something. Either way, he's good and sure to make it through. That makes three people lost in our area during all of this, AFAIK: one retirement; two transfers.
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Sep 12, 2020 06:33
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I'm not ATC but this thread is interesting. What does 5/5, 5/10 etc. mean?
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Sep 21, 2020 17:44
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Working for 5 days and then having 5 days off. Working for 5 days and then having 10 days off. All at full pay, obviously.
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Sep 21, 2020 18:43
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RCarr posted:Working for 5 days and then having 5 days off. Working for 5 days and then having 10 days off. That is a pretty crazy timeframe, but... I kinda want it, sounds like a great way to work really.
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Sep 21, 2020 18:57
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Balsa posted:That is a pretty crazy timeframe, but... I kinda want it, sounds like a great way to work really. I mean I couldn’t think of anything better, besides just being paid to never work. You essentially get a week of paid vacation after every week you work.
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Sep 21, 2020 19:09
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I had the mid last night. I didn’t know this until I was woken up by a phone call around 11.
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Sep 21, 2020 23:02
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RCarr posted:I mean I couldn’t think of anything better, besides just being paid to never work. You essentially get a week of paid vacation after every week you work. Yet people still bitch and moan about it for some reason. Crunch the numbers to see how much free leave you're really getting. Under normal circumstances you're working 5/7 of the time. So... What would you like to be paid in full to do... Work 71% of the days of the year Work 50% of the days of the year Work 33% of the days of the year
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Sep 21, 2020 23:36
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fknlo posted:I had the mid last night. I didn’t know this until I was woken up by a phone call around 11. I showed up for mid the other night and Arts says I'm off and someone else has the mid. Our schedules are routinely hosed up because our boss will make changes to Arts and not WMT. Keeping in mind the only scheduling system you can access from home to double check your shifts, request leave on, etc is WMTscheduler you'd think it would be the one you'd want to make sure is always correct and Arts should reflect it. But you'd be wrong.
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Sep 22, 2020 09:48
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Krime posted:Yet people still bitch and moan about it for some reason.
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Sep 22, 2020 13:20
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:I cannot understand at all why it’s a 10 or 15 day rotation and not a 14 day one, which would both line up with pay periods and have peoples' work days stay the same week to week. What's a work week look like? 5 on 9 off? I don't think it would be fair to ask 7 on 7 off.
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Sep 22, 2020 19:44
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:I cannot understand at all why it’s a 10 or 15 day rotation and not a 14 day one, which would both line up with pay periods and have peoples' work days stay the same week to week. For those of us not at the top of the seniority list, shut the gently caress up, this is the first time I’ve had even some weekends off since 2011.  Its a 15 day rotation because we use three separate crews, and it allows a 14 day isolation period if we need to quarantine a crew. (We’ve done it a couple times now.) That said, I think ZLA and ZMA are the last two facilities on 5/10.
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Sep 22, 2020 23:37
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I suppose it is tough to divide 14 by 3.
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Sep 23, 2020 01:10
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NavCanada laid off 14 percent of their staff yesterday (including myself). All the trainees and several managers are out. And they're closing 2 of the 7 FICs, Winnipeg and Halifax.
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Sep 23, 2020 14:43
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St_Ides posted:NavCanada laid off 14 percent of their staff yesterday (including myself). All the trainees and several managers are out.  Sucks, dude, I’ve been there. If you ever make it down Miami way, beers are on me.
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Sep 23, 2020 14:52
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St_Ides posted:NavCanada laid off 14 percent of their staff yesterday (including myself). All the trainees and several managers are out. That sucks man. How likely is it that the layoffs are permanent? Come on NATCA, let's privatize this poo poo!!! I'm actually more disillusioned with the union than I've ever been due to the poo poo that has gone on locally. I don't think I'd be staying in even if I wasn't becoming a worthless supervisor in a couple months. I'm super pro union but god drat the local is worthless.
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Sep 23, 2020 16:55
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fknlo posted:That sucks man. How likely is it that the layoffs are permanent? I only know stuff about the training I was in, but it can't be permanent. They were already understaffed at my center for everything except Oceanic. High level and low level both had quite a few early retirements, and they needed significantly more people than were in the training pipeline with me. Unless they somehow manage to convince a bunch of people to move here from Halifax and/or Winnipeg, which is unlikely because nobody wants to move to Newfoundland.
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Sep 23, 2020 19:42
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I have a question about STAR's I was hoping someone could shed some light on. Going into SEA from the east, we usually file via the GLASR 1 arrival, which has exactly one crossing restriction (JAKSN @12,000/250kt) when the airport is doing south flow. For the last few months, I've noticed that instead of just clearing us to "descend via" the arrival, the controller tells us to "cross JAKSN at and maintain 12,000, 250kts", which is the exact same thing as the STAR, but with more words. It doesn't seem to be specific to our airplane/airline, so all I can figure is that it's somehow tied to the lack of traffic from the pandemic, but I'm confused as to exactly why the controllers are seemingly giving themselves more work instead of just having us descend via the arrival.
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Sep 27, 2020 21:24
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azflyboy posted:I have a question about STAR's I was hoping someone could shed some light on. Maybe enough people have been loving it up by looking at the altitude for the wrong note wrt. North vs. South flow, or the other 2 airports it serves?
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Sep 27, 2020 21:30
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azflyboy posted:I have a question about STAR's I was hoping someone could shed some light on. As vessbot said, my guess is they had enough people make a mistake that some higher up put out an R&I saying, "Ensure that each aircraft explicitly receives the appropriate crossing restriction at JASKN" or the like. Every facility has some procedure that seems like it should be easy, but for some reason gets screwed up often enough that you have to do things manually to account for it.
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Sep 27, 2020 22:44
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Thanks for the explanation. Since most of the traffic I hear going into Seattle over the last few months are crews that probably know the area fairly well, I hadn't actually heard anyone mess up the restrictions, but I can absolutely see that the chart makes it easy to accidentally try and follow the wrong profile.
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Sep 28, 2020 00:51
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The GLASR also isn't an RNAV/OPD STAR which I bet is a reason you aren't given descend via. I worked at a different area in Seattle Center but if we had anybody who couldn't accept the RNAV STAR we would put them on a conventional STAR and just issue a crossing restriction. I'm not sure if other places do this differently, but I've never heard a descend via issued on an non-RNAV STAR 
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Sep 28, 2020 00:56
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azflyboy posted:I have a question about STAR's I was hoping someone could shed some light on. Each controller has a different method for this one. Usually it comes down to who their trainer was. It's been a while since I was given an actual explanation for it, though. I've heard people say "approach is going to take them off the arrival anyway" several times. "Give the crossing restriction and flash 'em early." As Zochness stated, it's also a non-RNAV star, and controllers in my area like to argue over whether or not you can say "descend via" or not. It's the same for the CHINS4 coming from the SE over Yakima. It also helps on the rare occasion we get a military pilot going in on the GLASR. They never fly the GLASR, and aren't used to its restrictions. A C-17 confused about where JAKSN is and what to do there is annoying, especially when we're metering. Keep in mind I'm a trainee, though, and haven't worked in months.
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Sep 28, 2020 01:31
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Thanks for all the replies. I'd been wondering about it for a couple of weeks since another pilot pointed it out to me, so it all makes more sense now. azflyboy fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Sep 28, 2020 |
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Sep 28, 2020 04:17
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Is there a website to track airplane flight patterns over an area? Like a heat map style "this many airplanes fly over this area" type thing? I don't need it to be live, I just want to see generally where they fly, over a specific area. I want to look at cities and see where planes fly over residential areas. I'm aware of flightradar24, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.
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Oct 5, 2020 01:27
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Is there a website to track airplane flight patterns over an area? Not that I'm aware of, but that sounds like a neat idea. When my brother moved to the west side of Minneapolis he asked me how air traffic was going to be for them so I compared his address to the SIDS/STARS on my airline EFB. Given a known location, it's not too tough to see what the deal is.
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Oct 5, 2020 01:35
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ZKC coming in with multiple positives and people quarantining because of close contact. Perfect timing for them to go back to normal staffing in a couple weeks.
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Oct 15, 2020 21:15
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We're still on 5/5 and they're bringing trainees back. They've "tested" it with a few trainees already, and have a plan that was approved by national. Each shift has "enough" staffing and an allowance for one R-side and one D-side trainee. Trainees will come back two at a time for classroom study and sims to spool up for a return to the floor and training. After they are deemed ready to return to the floor, they'll be assigned to one of the 5/5 shifts. As trainees get signed off, more trainees will be called in. Based on the last zoom meeting, there is not yet a well defined rhyme or reason behind the order in which they call trainees in. The training department is saying we should only be waiting a few weeks before getting called in, a month or so at most. I'm clearly missing something, because it takes more than a couple of weeks or a month to get fully signed off, even on your D-sides. A recent NATCA email also stated that they reached an agreement to set training at 50% capacity, and I'm not sure if the current training plan takes that into account. I get that we need to continue training, but when a third COVID wave is impending, and you're on a non-standard schedule, how do you expecting to get any sort of consistent or (god forbid) quality training in? How does bringing us back make any sense? I wholly understand that the training department is doing whatever they can to help us. They're working with what they have. This just feels like pressure from above to get asses in chairs, with the staffing shortage playing a not insignificant role. Some people will say "that's the FAA!" or "that's the government for you!" but I've worked for private industry and been an embedded contractor. Both the public and private sector do stupid poo poo that makes almost no sense. They've acknowledged that ordering us to study from home and assigning zoom conferences only goes so far, and it's not nearly as effective as even being in a classroom. It's been seven months since we got sent home (I'm not counting the two days we got called in for a recert and minimum hours before the 120 days were up. We were told to "avoid traffic," and it was clearly a nod and wink situation). We may as well be treated like new hires or controllers who came back after quitting a year ago. I can at least acknowledge, and appreciate, that I'm still employed and being paid. Were this the private sector, I'd have been laid off long ago. If only I could medicate my anxiety, I might feel a bit better about all this (gently caress you, FAA, medical, and your antiquated approach to mental health, among other things).
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Oct 22, 2020 08:05
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I mean worst case scenario, there’s not an FAA TRB in the galaxy that wouldn’t reset training hours because of all this.
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Oct 24, 2020 13:42
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