Factor
Woodstock, VA
Male, 65
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!
Good question. The vote is still officially out on that but, from what is known so far, it appears doubtful. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may have imposed the ban because they weren’t sure what impacts cell phone technology would have on aircraft. From what I’ve read, evidence is inconclusive. So if you are the FCC, you err on the side of safety.
The ban may actually be supported by some airlines. Rather than a concern for disrupting anything radar or communication-wise, the real concern might be for disrupting passengers. Airlines may not want to deal with complaints of having spent hours on an airplane, seated near the cell phone user who wouldn’t shut up!
Cheers,
Factor
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Wow! That’s the hardest ‘easy’ question I’ve had yet! Here’s the easy part of my answer. By international agreement, English is the global language of aviation and, with few exceptions, must be used between pilots and controllers, regardless of nationality. Air traffic facilities and pilots around the world must have enough basic English skills to communicate with one another. The reason? There needs to be a language standard so that, no matter where you flew or what your nationality, you and the local ATC folks would be able to communicate. It is also important to understand how critical it is for all pilots on the same control frequency to be able to understand what other pilots are saying. It helps them keep that important “big picture” of what’s going on around them. If, for example, one pilot warns of the severe turbulence he just experienced on final approach; other flights following that aircraft will be interested in knowing so they can be ready for it. But what if that warning was broadcast in Chinese?
The hard part of my answer relates to the quality and clarity of the English used by other nationalities. I worked at a couple of big international airports with lots of foreign air carriers flying in and out. The pilots always spoke English to the best of their ability but that wasn’t always good enough for us to understand. They didn’t always understand us either. Talk about a recipe for disaster! Or, at least, a severe headache!
There are no translators in our ATC facilities. The only time I ever saw a translator position in a control tower was when I was an Air Force controller stationed overseas. It was a joint-use military base where hundreds of student pilots from the host country’s Air Force learned to fly high performance fighter jets. They were controlled by ATC personnel also from their host country, in their own language. We controlled all U. S. and other English speaking flights. The translator was supposed to keep us informed of what the other guys were up to and vice versa. It was a fiasco. I attribute many of my gray hairs to those days. If interested, check my Blog (the link is in my profile above) for an entry from March of 2010 titled “Desolation Tower.” You’ll see what I mean.
Thanks for tuning in!
Factor
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Stories I can share? Hmm. I suspect this forum is rated “G” or, at best, “PG-13” so sharing the craziest stories from my Air Force days might get me thrown off “Jobstr!”. There are a lot of interesting memories though; several of which you can find on my blog (click the link on my Profile above). Once there, search the “Tags” section for “Desolia” and click on it. You’ll find three blog entries about my time at an overseas Air Base I’ve named “Desolation” to, errr, protect the innocent. My tour of duty there definitely ranked high among the crazier times.
Thanks for writing!
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Blair, I am so glad to finally hear from you! Your first question gives me the chance to tell Jobstr readers all over the world just how badly I suck at math. It’s true. It took me months to learn that milk plus cereal equals breakfast! Learning algebra, like learning to play a musical instrument, may be useful in your future and you should learn both. However, neither will do you much good as an air traffic controller.
Controllers must employ several skills that are hard to teach in schools. They must be able to think on their feet, have excellent short term memory and the ability to concentrate in the middle of a dozen distractions. They need to be able to assess situations and know how they will evolve over time. Keep in mind; controllers are dealing with machines that travel at hundreds of miles per hour. Take a snapshot now but you can bet the picture will have changed dramatically in two or three minutes. Understanding how it will change helps controllers in their planning. It’s never enough to simply keep up with the traffic. You need to stay way ahead of it. Oh, and the ability to work well with others and keep calm under pressure are big assets!
There is also plenty of book learning involved. Making it through ATC school is similar to learning another Country’s language and the laws of their land. It was bewildering to me at first. Learning the language of aviation, its many rules and occasional exceptions took time and I spent a lot of that time memorizing things. By the time controllers actually begin to work with live traffic, their heads are packed with national ATC rules and regulations, aviation weather, aircraft flight characteristics, plus volumes of information specific to the site where they’re working.
It’s a complex career field that is constantly evolving and improving. Rarely boring, the job is different every day. To me, it is the best job there is! Here’s a bonus. Become a professional air traffic controller and you can still learn to fly airplanes on your own time. I did and was much better for it. Flying is almost as much fun as ATC and it broadens your understanding of the aviation community.
I wish you all the best Blair and hope you achieve your goals! Let me know how it works out.
Cheers,
Factor
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That’s a fair question but I’ll have to give you a kind of unfair answer in response. I do hold a commercial pilot license so, if I absolutely had to, I’d give it my best shot! Of course success or failure would depend heavily on what kind of plane it was and the destination weather conditions! I’d be more likely to succeed in a smaller plane during clear weather conditions. But if I was sitting at the controls of a B-747 and the weather was horrible? Well . . .better hope everyone else on board had their affairs in order!
You never know what you’re capable of though! Several years ago, as a newly hired controller, I heard something that taught me a lot about hidden potential. I was working in the tower one afternoon, when we all heard an obviously panicked woman calling on the emergency frequency. She was the only passenger in a small, twin engine plane. The pilot had suddenly gone unconscious. Terrified, she didn’t know what to do. A controller who was also a licensed pilot began talking to her. He took her calmly, step by step, through all the things she’d need to know to land the airplane. Meanwhile, other controllers radar identified the plane. The guy talking to her explained how to turn the airplane and maintain altitude.
I’ll make a long story short. With the controller’s help, she flew the plane to the nearest airport and landed safely – having never piloted a plane before in her life. It wasn’t a pretty landing but as they say; "any landing you can walk away from is a good one!"
It was determined that the pilot had actually died during the flight.
Thanks for writing!
Factor
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This is an important question. I’ll attempt to answer it with callous objectivity - tainted by a sprinkling of subjective sentiments and a smidgen of erratic rationale. Always the controller.
The Country actually needs more controllers at the busiest FAA facilities and fewer to none at the less active locations. I would suggest a redistribution of resources except for the fact that controllers from the closing towers are not FAA employees. They work for private air traffic control services under contract to the FAA; the same FAA who pays them around a half million of our tax dollars per year, per tower. The airports these contract controllers work at did not meet the threshold in air traffic volume to justify an FAA tower. While I hate to see anyone lose their job; I’d say that closing these towers is “a healthy trimming of fat.” They are a legacy of better times.
The “scary reduction in safety” card is being played mainly for political purposes. One Congressman stated; “Closing control towers is equivalent to removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads...” This is not only a bad analogy but isn’t even amusing hyperbole. Closing those towers will be more like adding a few small speed bumps to air traffic operations. While some operations at these airports may be slowed down a bit; safety won’t be compromised. I’ll note here that all pilots are trained in how to conduct flight operations at uncontrolled (no tower) airports. Controllers are too. I worked at two busy radar facilities that had control jurisdiction over dozens of towerless airfields. Operations were conducted efficiently and with no derogation of safety.
Closures are slated to occur at low density airports with less than 150,000 takeoffs and landings per year. Doing the math; that amounts to a little over 400 aircraft movements in a 16 hour day (assuming no midnight shift) or about 25 takeoffs and landings per hour. In comparison, Atlanta Hartsfield Airport averages around 2,500 operations a day. If airport operators, users and other interested parties feel strongly enough about keeping their particular tower open, I suspect they could approach their State and/or local government about funding it.
Cheers,
Factor
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Requirements have changed some since I signed on. For the absolute latest developments, I suggest doing a web search for air traffic controller education requirements. The last time I checked, applicants had to enroll in one of the education programs authorized by the FAA, pass a pre-employment aptitude test for the job and have either completed four years of college, have three years of work experience or a combination of both. It was also possible to get in with military experience. Once accepted into training, expect 12 weeks of intensive instruction at FAA’s Academy in Oklahoma City (a great town!). It’s a tough three months and about 50 percent of the trainees are washed out during this phase. Graduates are assigned to an air traffic control facility where they start off with more classroom time. Then it’s on to the control rooms for on-the-job training. From there, it can take between 18 months and three years to become a fully certified controller. If you are considering ATC as a career, those are the tangible requirements. After many years in the profession, I can tell you that the intangibles are at least as important. Maybe more so. ATC can be either the best or the worst job ever; depending on your attitude and expectations. Like a drug; it’ll take you high as the sky. Just be aware that what goes up must come down. Things can and will go wrong now and then. It happens to all of us but when it happens to controllers, it’s a hard landing. Cheers, Factor
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