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The Ferret King posted: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. 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.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:48
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fknlo posted:Our keyboards and trackballs are straight out of the 60's! The numberpad is even backwards! That's the hardest part of the job, learning the backwards numberpad. We did get some new backlit keyboards that look like they're from the 80's a few months ago though. You guys have standard QWERTY keyboards right? We still have the ole alphabetical keyboards and backwards numberpad, it is the dumbest thing. I've gotten pretty good at it by now though.
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Feb 12, 2014 05:24
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We do have emergency generators which we run during certain situations (thunderstorms, ice storms, etc). Makes most of the facility smell faintly of diesel exhaust. At my small tower/TRACON we have to have at least one fully certified controller to work the approach control and a trainee that is at least certified in the tower to work upstairs. We pretty regularly have this kind of staffing for a few hours in the mornings when we open or after 10 PM (we're open from 6 am - midnight). Obviously larger facilities are going to have different minimums. If we don't have the staffing, our radar completely fails or we have to evacuate we go "ATC0" and hand over control of our airspace to Albuquerque center. They work our airspace when we are closed anyways so they know what's going on. We got 18 inches of snow in one night last year and the airport had no chance of plowing it so they just closed. I got a free day off, it was nice.
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Feb 18, 2014 15:44
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Butt Reactor posted:I'm possibly going on a tour of SLC tower/TRACON tomorrow, anything in particular I should ask about if I'm looking into this as a change of career? Is there any chance I would get my "home" airport once I come out of training (even if I get that far)? I may be incorrect but as far as I know there hasn't been anyone actually put through the new placement process yet so it is still a mystery how it will work exactly. It sounds like the placement process is going to be out of the facility manager's hands, just that they can request to receive x number of new hires and it is decided by performance at the academy. Placing new off the street and college hires at higher level facilities (both SLC and the TRACON are level 10s IIRC) has been discouraged because so many were training failures in the past. I know that the TRACON has a pretty high turnover rate because they work a good amount of traffic and once you check out there you can pretty much work anywhere. If you get a chance to meet with the air traffic manager and/or facility representative they can be good people to get to know.
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Feb 19, 2014 04:14
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Butt Reactor posted:I guess it's already a good thing that the guy in charge of organizing the tour is ex-ATC and one of my coworkers? I figured getting SLC straight out of the academy would be too good to be true but I'd be fine with working a nearby Class D like OGD or PVU. Also, any recommendations on resume format? I was thinking of sending one formatted like the ones I use for pilot gigs but I'm guessing the FAA would be more interested in work/school experience than flight hours... I don't think it will hurt. As far as resumes are concerned, I'd just use the resume builder on the usajobs site. It has all the information they want to see and formats it nicely for you. I've heard that on previous bids all the various resumes people submitted would just be transferred over to the resume builder format anyways for uniformity. If you end up touring let me know what you think, the TRACON has an opening right now for a few current controllers and I'm interested in applying. Never been to the Salt Lake area but I want to get out west and it looks gorgeous.
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Feb 19, 2014 06:14
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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. 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  .
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Feb 24, 2014 15:56
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E4C85D38 posted:In the spirit of being pointlessly nosy, have any of you had or seen a TCAS RA go off? I've had one pilot respond to a TCAS RA so far in the two years I've worked. It was an IFR Citation with a VFR Maule 500 ft below them, they had each other in sight, and the RA went off. We have no warning as to when it happens but the pilot reporting they are responding to it. We've got a much older system than a lot of other facilities though.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:19
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The National Air Traffic Controllers Association just held the annual Communicating for Safety conference this week which means another round of Archie League Medal of Safety Awards. These are given to a controller or controllers from each of the 9 regions in the US for life saving actions. Gives me a lot of pride in doing this job and it's awesome to see how well all these situations were handled. The awards for 2014 are listed here https://www.natca.org/archie_league_awards.aspx and most have both audio and visual replays.
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Mar 29, 2014 18:26
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The Ferret King posted:I don't think that was exactly purpose of the change. The change added "....and advise" to standardize the way we ask pilots for verification that they're turning back on course after being authorized to deviate for weather. I took it this way as well, and this was basically what I had been taught to do in the first place training on radar. I toured Salt Lake City tower and TRACON a few weeks ago, and got invited to sit in their daily crew meeting with folks from upstairs and downstairs. I got to hear all about climb via and the converging runway arrival/departure window. During the climb via presentation I learned that in 2008 when SLC turned on all their RNAV departures, they were basically using the climb via rules, and they had 70 pilot deviations in 10 days. The arrivals enter the downwind at 11,000 and most of the RNAV departures share a common fix underneath the downwind to be at or below 10,000. They guessed pilots saw the top altitude of the SID (23,000) and would just put that in and climb right through the downwind traffic. There were some very nervous controllers in the TRACON for a few weeks before they started manually stopping all departures at 10,000.
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Apr 14, 2014 18:08
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The speed in which I run through the checklist definitely goes up with the busier I am/the longer I've been on position/how bad I have to pee. I can talk really fast when I'm trying to give up the position in the middle of a big military practice approach push. We've just recently gotten the hammer put down on putting the 2 minute overlap completion on a recorded line or get the relieving CIC to waive it, a lot of people just ask to waive the 2 immediately no matter how busy it is.
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Apr 15, 2014 21:43
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What's the best remark you've ever seen? We had a Comanche or something overflight that had "43 kittens on board" in the remarks, somebody downstairs sent that strip up to me in the tower. I forgot to keep it unfortunately.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:09
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By all means if you have a specific direction/special request for the circle put it on request and we'll try to make it happen. I don't hear requests like that too often but I have heard checkins like "xxx, 5 miles out on LDA 22, request to overfly 22 circle west for 13" or something similar. Overflying can help us eliminate the conflict at the base to final turn that can happen with runway configurations like Ardmore and my airport's (Amarillo).
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Apr 24, 2014 03:36
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fknlo posted:When you're turning in leave, you're supposed to put in for the shift that you would normally work, right? I tried turning in the last 3 days of leave this week. My last shift is a mid, which has of course already been covered. This would give us 4 on the mid. I've seen this happen when other people turn in leave. My request for that shift was denied in what I assume is an attempt to get me to work in the morning on that day instead. gently caress that. At this point I hope they need 4 on the mid for weather because I'm going to tell them to pound sand and hire overtime. Article 24, Section 10 in the CBA: "Requests to cancel annual leave with twenty-four (24) hours notice to the Agency shall be granted. Unless staffing and workload do not permit, requests to cancel annual leave with less than twenty-four (24) hours notice to the Agency shall be granted. An employee who cancels scheduled annual leave and returns to duty shall be assigned to work the shift which he/she would have worked, if the annual leave had not been scheduled, unless staffing and workload dictate or allow assignment to a different shift." Seems like there might be some wiggle room with the last part of the last sentence, but I know I've never had trouble getting the same shift I would have worked if I cancel annual even if it is covered. We usually need all the bodies we can get though, I'm sure its much different for you guys in the center.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:39
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KodiakRS posted:Were any of you atc goons working Amarillo approach or tower tonight? I seem to remember one of you works here. If you were, we just had some goon to goon communication. I do, but I got done at 5:45 yesterday, so it probably wasn't me. Just had a Southwest pilot try to get me in trouble. Our temp/dew point equipment is out of service so she asked me for the readings. I told her I could contact the NWS office right next to the tower to get them for her and she goes "what does your iPhone say?". I quickly told her it's against the rules to have those on in the TRACON.
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Sep 13, 2014 16:58
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JohnClark posted:It's really quite variable. I went to Purdue for CTI, and thankfully they have a fantastic aviation program generally along with a professor who is an ex-controller to run the ATC portion, I learned a great deal while going to school there. I have coworkers who went to other schools though who said that their specific ATC education in college amounted to basically nothing. Oh hey fellow Boilermaker, what year did you graduate? I definitely appreciated how straight forward they were with us there, I was prepared for the year and a half wait after graduating and knew nothing was guaranteed. Also how they didn't offer an ATC specific degree because hiring could dry up, at least having Aviation Management on the degree and taking some business classes gives you options if ATC doesn't work out.
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Sep 25, 2014 18:49
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JohnClark posted:2007, I actually transferred there from Minnesota after...misspending my first couple college years. How about you? I was a 2010 grad. I guess you missed out on the new AT building they built out at the airport huh? It's pretty slick, had most of my senior year classes in it. Anybody going to convention this year? My fac rep offered to let me tag along so I took the chance to get out of Amarillo for the week. Looks like it's gonna be fun with the dues stuff up for vote.
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Sep 28, 2014 19:15
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xaarman posted:Whichever goon had to deal with Loot 15 today at AMA, sorry. I'm off today, so no need to apologize. Sorry if you had to deal with some of our trainees 
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Oct 28, 2014 03:46
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xaarman posted:You guys were awesome, and very polite. My student... spent the entire 2 hours talking poo poo about himself because of his mistakes which just caused even more mistakes... Good deal, I've heard most of the bases around here have good things to say about us. We try to be better than Lubbock, haha. We have trainees that do that too, things just compound and get worse. Hope your guy gets it figured out.
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Oct 28, 2014 04:14
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Just got the call from Northwest Mountain HR that I was selected on an ERR to Seattle Center, should get my tentative offer letter tomorrow morning.    I already know my release date isn't going to be good, but I'll deal with it. I think I remember one of you guys had made the transition from terminal to enroute, how did that go?
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Dec 16, 2014 22:52
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MrYenko posted:We have a VFR tower CPC who was a trainee at a lvl8 up/down before he ERRed to Miami Center. He says its quite a bit harder, in terms of required knowledge/LOAs, etc, but he's kicking its rear end. I don't think so, one of our guys (whose first facility was AMA too) is leaving for Houston Center next month and he isn't going back to OKC. I've got my radar ticket already so I'm sure that will help, but the rules will take some getting used to.
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Dec 16, 2014 23:18
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Pope Mobile posted:Seattle Center, actually. I'm interning at flight data and there's a certification course next week. I'd like to hear what you think of the facility since I'll be moving up there at the end of next year (hopefully  ). If you see a guy wearing a Purdue lanyard getting a tour at the end of next month that'll be me, looking forward to checking it out.
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Feb 25, 2015 18:01
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Pope Mobile posted:Seattle center is nice, but the city it's in (Auburn) is a poo poo hole. You're about 45 minutes or so south of Seattle itself. Thanks for the info. I've done some research about the distance, at least I have plenty of time to think about where I want to live. I still don't know if I want to deal with that commute, hopefully I can get a sense of what it'll be like when I visit. Sounds like I should be glad I got in on an ERR when I did. Really hope I can get an FOL sometime soon to lessen the chance my release date gets pushed back. We just lost a dev who is taking a hardship to go work with Ferret King over in Corpus. Things are going to be really bad around here come late summer since we're losing 4 CPCs by September and apparently we are not slated to get any devs this fiscal year 
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Feb 25, 2015 20:22
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Where are you at? AMA We got no applicants on our last CPC bid either haha. I guess we're getting an ERR eventually but their release date is like mine, 2 years. Really hope they change things and give us some new people soon.
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Feb 26, 2015 01:50
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KodiakRS posted:According to the rumor mill one of our planes had to go around twice in a row at AMA the other week because a V-22 was completely making GBS threads up the pattern. Any truth to that? I haven't heard anything about that and our facility is really small so we usually hear about everything. We do have V22s flying around all the time because the Bell assembly plant is on the airport, but they usually fly a pattern for the parallel taxiways and stay off the runways.
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Feb 26, 2015 17:25
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Application has been extended until March 31st so there is still time. Get on it! Come to Amarillo so I can get out 
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Mar 28, 2015 04:54
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The Ferret King posted:We just got one of your guys. Former manager at Navy Truax field. That'll be an interesting training process. TJ (his operating initials at AMA anyways) is a good guy, hope he does well. I just toured ZSE today and was told I won the facility lottery so I can't wait to actually get here. Seems like a great place to work.
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Mar 28, 2015 05:49
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I just got done with the Basic Legislative Activism class and I highly recommend it. We do so much on Capitol Hill compared to a lot of unions that are ten times our size, it is awesome. I think a common gripe about contributing to the PAC is that members think the money only goes to Democrats, but we contribute so much more to Republicans than any other transportation union. We generally have a 60/40 Democrat/Republican contribution split while most of the other unions were like 90/10, it's ridiculous.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:57
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There's an international ATC bid out right now in Australia. Tower or Approach rated controllers only, they aren't hiring for the centers at this time. Four year term, no guarantee of a permanent offer. Looks like you wouldn't get started until 2017 too, unfortunately. I think I'm gonna apply for the hell of it though. http://careers.airservicesaustralia.com/caw/en/job/494936/experienced-air-traffic-controller-international Zochness fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jul 18, 2015 |
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Jul 18, 2015 18:26
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Just looked at the schedule for my overtime shift tonight: the person closing with me took sick leave, we can't use hold over on the guys that leave at 10:30PM because they both have 9 hour quick turns and the 2 on RDOs today have OT tomorrow so they're ruled out. Guess Albuquerque Center gets to take my airspace a few hours early.  FAA hiring
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Jul 23, 2015 21:42
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hjp766 posted:Quick question. A discussion has just arisen because of KLAS as to when and how often you guys in the U.S. expect us to append heavy to our call sign. Does the FAA do a foreign pilots guide? My UK colleagues who only use it on first contact according to ICAO claim that KLAS don't then give them proper separation for the A330 as if they forget it's a heavy. I'm a little confused by this. Our controllers should not ever reduce separation because the pilot forgot to say heavy. Our Air Force guys never say heavy (I worked a C17 yesterday who never said it) but our controllers are required to append heavy to the callsign every time in the terminal environment. I believe it is optional for controllers in most circumstances in the enroute enviroment. Are they worried that other aircraft are following too closely BEHIND them on final? Or something to do with wake turbulence separation after takeoff? Our radar tags will automatically include an "H" in them to denote the aircraft is a heavy so there is no excuse if proper separation was not applied to aircraft following the heavy. There really aren't any special considerations for heavies following other aircraft, unless a heavy is following another heavy. Zochness fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 15:10
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I had a pilot call me out for broadcasting on guard the other day. The thing was, he was broadcasting on my frequency, 121.15. I kindly informed him of this and didn't hear anything from him again
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Feb 1, 2016 18:02
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fknlo posted:I was just a hair under 3 years from application to academy start date. I'm told it's a bit better now, so probably just 2 to 2.5. I got in on one of the last CTI only bids, so maybe that was a bit different, but I applied Aug. 2010 and was at the academy Dec. 2011. Some of the OTS people we got last year said they only waited about a year and a half as well, progress!
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Aug 9, 2016 16:10
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fknlo posted:So, what are my options as far as moving to another country and becoming ATC there? I applied to Airservices Australia last August and actually interviewed with them in May, but shortly after they reviewed their needs and put the bid on hold, so still in limbo there. Not sure they're going to put more bids out anytime soon. Takes just as long to hear anything as the FAA. I haven't ever seen international bids out of New Zealand, the UK process looks pretty intense and I'm not sure exactly how NavCanada works, I thought I'd read they required residency or something.
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Nov 9, 2016 15:03
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Just finished my first week at ZSE. I still see the full center maps when I close my eyes, they are burned in from staring at them for a week. Time to get working on my area maps and LoAs. Apparently I got put in the toughest area in the building, lots of low altitude stuff with all the satellite airports in Oregon and sequencing/absorbing delays for SeaTac in the high sectors. Excited about the challenge though, it looks like a lot of fun. PS Center controllers type way too much, I have no idea what's going on when I monitor.
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Dec 18, 2016 03:02
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MrYenko posted:ZSE is numero uno on my shortlist of potential get-the-gently caress-out-of-ZMA facilities. Are you a local, or from somewhere else? It really does seem like a great facility, everybody tells us we won the lottery as far as facilities go. I'm from Texas, but I've wanted to get out to the west for a while. Put in ERRs all over the place, and finally got picked up here, mostly because of my involvement in NATCA. This was before the new ERR changes of course. fknlo posted:We have a transfer from some up/down that had to be talked out of filing a grievance because "the maps contained too much information to learn". That's not a loving joke. Hahahaha, it definitely is so much more than I had to learn in Amarillo, but there is a lot of time to get it all down. There are 4 of us CPC-ITs that are getting "rushed" through to be on the floor by April, I know its gonna be some work but I'll get it figured out.
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Dec 18, 2016 05:17
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The Slaughter posted:ZSE has been a loving mess the past few days. On 3 diff flights, I've had 15-20 min of metering, a hold over BTG, and tons of vectoring ... to go land at a completely severe clear seattle airport. I haven't been down to the floor this week because we were learning how to fly fake airplanes in the simulators for other trainees, but I've heard about some of the issues. I guess we take on most of the delays when other sectors/centers could be helping out more or something? Apparently this is different than the way a lot of other places run it. I hear Seattle approach can be kind of hard to work with as well. I'm still new to all this center/big hub airport stuff, sorry I can't shed more light on the subject. I'll be seeing it all firsthand soon enough.
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Jan 6, 2017 04:31
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The Slaughter posted:Yeah usually you get metered from the south with whatever center controls BTG, they've told me a BTG time locks in once you pass about LKV VOR... So we fly fast til then and yeah usually are flying at .78 til 150nm before BTG when we could slow to .72 3 centers earlier if we knew what was up, so yeah I can see that... That's my area, so looking forward to dealing with that, haha. I think the big problem is SeaTac's size and layout. In a best case scenario PDX can accept an arrival a minute vs. SeaTac can only do an arrival about every minute and a half. You're gonna get big departure delays running arrivals to the L/R runways and departures off the center.
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Jan 6, 2017 14:43
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The Slaughter posted:I've been told many times on that STAR for example to "maintain 260 kts" when what they really mean is "maintain 260 kts, comply with the published speeds at HAWKZ (or pikez)" etc. Phraseology matters for what I'm going to do... So as a (still relatively new) Seattle Center controller that's the kind of stuff I listen for to coordinate with approach. I don't work in the area that actually issues the descend via instructions for the HAWKZ, but the area that vectors you across Oregon to cross Battle Ground at the right time (sorry). But the concept is the same, and as an assistant controller I'm gonna question the radar controller: "are you gonna have them resume published speeds at [whatever intersection]?". Because if not I have to talk to somebody at approach. So I would think my colleagues in that area would do the same, because that is confusing.
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Jun 9, 2017 08:01
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I got pulled out of our training department (already got an R-side class) to D-side because my area probably has the best eclipse viewing in the country. Holy poo poo, I've never seen our strip bay that full. It is bonkers right now.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:24
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MrYenko posted:I don't know about other facilities, but this would mean that we are in full-blown panic mode at mine. They don't take people out of the training department on a whim. Yeah, we kind of knew this going in to work today. Most of the classroom instructors are retired from my area so they are on the floor right now just as extra eyes. We didn't have any class today because this was going on. I get to go back and work everybody leaving now, yay!
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Aug 21, 2017 19:22
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