My life in ATC began with 4 years Air Force then another 30 years with the Federal Aviation Admin. working tower & radar at some big international airports. I fought in the 1981 war with PATCO, survived the strike and kept a job that was just too exhilarating to walk away from. While there was nothing better than working airplanes, I did move on through several air traffic supervisory and management positions. It was a long, crazy career but I wouldn't trade a moment of it for love or lucre!
Hi Mathew! Having retired from the profession, I don't work at an air traffic facility anymore. I can tell you though; all air traffic facilities are awesome places to see. Some are impressive from an architectural standpoint, some for the cutting edge equipment the controllers use but all are amazing for the high level of responsibility their staff takes on when they’re controlling traffic.
Another amazing but rarely seen or acknowledged group of professionals are the ones who maintain the myriad of equipment that controllers and pilots rely on. They install and maintain the radio, radar and telecommunications gear that makes air... Read More +
Hi Mike! Yes, it is quite common to bid a flight “Adieu” when it leaves a controller’s jurisdiction. Flight crews usually do the same; whether entering or leaving a particular controller’s world. It’s a way of injecting a bit of calm into the cold, clinical chaos of air traffic control.
Err, have a nice day . . . ?
Factor
Now there’s an interesting question. When it came to clever quips and scorching sarcasm, most controllers I knew were quicker with their tongues than a rattlesnake. By necessity though, we stuck to our script most of the time – the ‘script’ being a voluminous FAA Order that specifies precise phraseology for every normal and most abnormal situations a controller might encounter. The main reason for this is to standardize the way controllers communicate, thus standardizing what pilots and other controllers expect to hear in a given situation. It’s about safety. Standardized communication even helps compensate for hard to understand accents... Read More +
Will answer soon.
Cruise Ship Officer
CBP Officer
Call Center Employee (Retail)
Hello Jim and thanks for asking another ‘above average’ question!
The average airport surveillance radar (ASR) has about a 60 mile reach from its rotating antenna. Anything that stands in the way of the radar beam (terrain, buildings, bridges and such) will keep it from seeing objects behind and below that obstruction. The radar will, however, see the airplanes flying above it!
Think of your radar antenna as flashlight. From the street, it would light the front of your house but not the back yard. Shine it over the roof of your house and it will illuminate the tops of the trees growing along your back fence. The propensity of... Read More +
All I can say for certain at this time is that it’s unwise for anyone to postulate or prognosticate about what happened or why. Yet that is the only kind of narrative we’ve been receiving up till now. No surprise. Whenever such things happen; the news media drags out the same writers and “talking heads” that blathered on about the last tragedy and all those before. Each of them amply compensated and hoping to be proven correct at some point, which could enhance their credibility and careers. Tripe. About the only thing I haven’t read or heard yet is the possibility of an alien intervention.
Once air traffic control loses visual, radio... Read More +
Hello, Hello! Although the Federal Aviation Administration is in the process of transitioning to a hybrid GPS for tracking air traffic; it is not completely there yet. Most ATC controlled flights are still tracked by radar. The labeling you refer to is done by computer. Each radar controlled plane transmits a discrete code to the computer; which then uses that code to label the radar target with a”data block.” Data blocks typically contain information such as the aircraft’s call sign, current altitude, groundspeed and several other pieces of information the controllers can use. If,for any reason, the airplane stops transmitting that discrete... Read More +
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