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!
Hi Liv. Your question is most interesting because there are so many ways to answer! It’s like asking if there is a particular electrical appliance that should not be plugged in and thrown into the bathtub while someone is bathing. There are so many!
In answering your question, I suppose I need to separate, in my own mind, the character traits that are merely annoying from the ones that make ATC the wrong choice for a career. There are also common traits shared by every successful controller I’ve worked with. Lacking one of these traits may not completely disqualify a person for the job but they may wish it had. Keep in mind that what I say here is based solely on my experience and opinions. Far from scientific.
One trait I believe should disqualify an ATC candidate is an inability to track several developing situations simultaneously, take action on each one at a precise moment while assessing new situations as they develop and predicting when they’ll need further attention. Whew! If the aspiring controller can’t manage an ever changing air traffic picture continuously, over the course of one or two hours; they might want to seek a different profession. Unfortunately, deficiencies in this area are usually uncovered sometime after the candidate has been hired. Pre-employment aptitude tests are no substitute for the crucible of a live air traffic control facility.
Another ‘must have’ trait is self-motivation. Controllers work independently; without direct supervision. Normally, there won’t be someone there to tell them what to do and when to do it. If our candidate is the kind of person who needs frequent direction and guidance to get through the workday; they should stay away from ATC.
A good controller must also be able to accept, if not embrace, change. The ATC environment is constantly changing. It’s not just the volume, type and complexity of air traffic either. There are continuous changes in weather conditions and changes on the airport surface that require controllers to immediately adjust. And let’s not forget about technological changes. ATC equipment – the tools of a controller’s trade – are ever changing. New aircraft, such as the Boeing Dreamliner, are coming on line and with them; new flight characteristics the controllers must adjust to.
There are the more obvious ‘show-stoppers’ such as substance abuse, alcoholism, and flatulence. (Maybe I’m just kidding about the flatulence but try spending several hours in the confines of a control tower with someone who has it!)
I could go on but don’t want to bore you. The bottom line is; there are several behavior or character traits that don’t really work well in the ATC environment. Unfortunately, the FAA’s pre-employment screening process isn’t 100 percent effective.
Thanks for a great question! Hope I wasn’t too long-winded.
Cheers,
Factor
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Good hearing from you Aaron. The gear-up landing at Newark was pretty dramatic. Whenever airplane bellies rub runways; sparks will fly! Your question is a good one because videos like the Newark landing show up in the news periodically, yet it’s hard to understand exactly what’s going on. People watch and wonder if a pilot can actually train for such a thing, how does it happen, what are the risks, etc.
First off; pilots obviously never make gear-up landings for practice. That would be kinda like practicing shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to rehearse for such an event is to practice landing WITH the landing gear extended. The trick will be in how the plane approaches the runway, which is going to be pretty much the same as a normal landing. The airplane will be slowed to the normal landing speed, with the nose pointed straight down the runway. Once over the runway, the pilot will ‘flare’ the aircraft; raising the nose to bleed off more speed as the plane descends those final few feet to the surface. Once on the runway, the pilot can use the aircraft’s rudder to try keeping the plane on the runway centerline.
How gear-up landings occur can vary. The most obvious reason is a mechanical malfunction. There is another, fairly common, reason. My flight instructor once told me that there are two kinds of pilots; those who’ve forgotten to put the gear down before landing and those who WILL forget! It’s not quite that extreme but sometimes pilots, especially pilots with low experience levels, can overlook that one important detail in an otherwise perfect landing. If there is an operational control tower at the airport; an alert controller may notice and have the pilot pull up before it’s too late. If the field is uncontrolled, the pilot may not be so lucky!
Risks associated with these landings are pretty much what you’d expect; lots of damage to the plane, a possibility of fire, personal injury and maybe even damage to the runway and associated lighting. No matter what happens – it’s never good and I do not recommend it!
Thanks for writing!
Factor
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Absolutely! We’ll shove as many departures into the sky as we can before a storm shuts off the exit routes. Of course, we can’t put more planes in the air than the receiving controllers can safely handle. Wouldn’t want to throw too many balls to the jugglers! But still; we’ll try our damndest to get as many flights out of town as we can before it's too late. The same applies with arriving flights. As long as we can get planes to the airport before the storm gets there; we’ll keep on running the traffic. Once the weather blocks an arrival route, we can sometimes get the impacted flights routed onto another arrival route. ATC’s actions during severe weather can go even further than that to keep traffic moving.
In areas like the Northeast, where there are several large cities and many busy airports, consideration is given to which airports have the most airplanes waiting to go. For example; the New York area has LaGuardia, Teterboro, Kennedy and Newark Airports. Each one can be very busy. At any given moment, each could have several flights waiting to go. There is an element of ATC known as “Traffic Management.” Their staff will assess the four airports and determine which has the most departures waiting. That airport may be given priority consideration for a while to get their traffic going – while the other airports keep theirs on the ground.
There are many other initiatives, too numerous to mention, that ATC will take to reduce or avoid weather delays. One thing we try especially hard to avoid is having so many airplanes waiting on taxiways that the landing flights can’t get to their gates or parking areas. That’s a situation we call “gridlock” and it’s not a pretty sight! There are certain airports out there, busy ones, that were built in the early days of commercial aviation for piston-powered airplanes. These places are prone to gridlock because of runway/taxiway configurations that were not designed for today’s jets and the heavy traffic volume. They get special attention when the skies turn unfriendly.
Thanks for the great question!
Factor
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I appreciate your interest in the profession Aaron. Although I've spotted a lot of crazy things and witnessed a few serious mishaps; I've never personally had to tell a pilot to abort the landing because of an observed problem with the aircraft. I have, however, been in the tower when other controllers had to.
During my Air Force career, a teammate waved off an F-4 Phantom pilot who was about to land without his plane's wheels down. The pilot later sent a case of beer to the tower, which we quickly consumed after work!
While working overseas, another tower controller tries to warn a pilot of the same problem. Unfortunately, the pilot wasn't paying attention and landed, gear up. There were a lot of sparks but luckily - no fire.
One night in the tower, I watched a TWA B-707 takeoff. It looked a little odd to me because it seemed the runway lights were all behind the plane as it passed, left to right, in front of us. Sure enough; the guy had taken off from the parallel taxiway. Realizing what he'd done, the pilot quipped something about how blue the runway lights looked. Not another word was spoken.
I saw an Eastern Airliones B-727 make an intentional gear-up landing due to mechanical problems. It was textbook perfect. The plane slid to a stop and was immediately surrounded by emergency vehicles. Everyone in the tower cab clapped.
Then there was the foreign air carrier pilot who advised, as he approached the airport, that he was going to test the plane's new 'autoland' system. Cool! We cleared him to land. It was one of the craziest landings I ever saw. The plane bounced, swerved and actually rolled off the runway edge then back on again before eventually finding a taxiway to turn onto. Suspecting the pilot may have a bit, err, "impaired" - we called the airline's operations office on the airport. After explaining what the pilot told us, the company representative said that particular aircraft was not fitted with an autoland system. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to that pilot.
No matter how well trained we are or how far the technology advances; aviation remains far from being an exact science. It's crazy but maybe that's why I love it.
Thanks again for writing!
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Hi Yoanda. Thanks for the nice compliment on my blog! I should also congratulate you for being the first person ever to ask that question. The phrase “No longer a factor” actually means a couple of things to me. I’ll begin with the more esoteric meaning; familiar mainly to controllers and pilots.
Let me set this up. Pilots can have a hard time seeing other airplanes, even under the best weather conditions. No surprise, given the speeds that modern airplanes operate at. Pilots might not see converging traffic until the two flights are very close together, and that may be too late. Think about two planes, each traveling at, say, 300 knots and moving toward each other. Their actual rate of closure is more like 600 knots. Assuming the pilots saw each other at some point, there would be very little time to react if they needed to avoid a collision. This is where a controller working a radar sector can help.
As you might guess, radar can spot airplanes long before a pilot can. ATC could be working both planes or just one of them but either way; if it looks like the two might pass in close proximity to each other, the controller will issue what we call a traffic advisory. That way, the pilot or pilots won’t be surprised when they see the other aircraft. In the congested airspace around busy airports, traffic advisories can be very important in helping pilots be aware of what’s going on around them.
Traffic advisories are always issued in reference to a twelve-hour clock. The aircraft’s nose is always at the twelve o’clock position. For example; if the controller saw a radar target on a converging course with your flight, eight miles ahead and to your left, he or she might advise you; “Traffic, ten o’clock, eight miles.” By cranking your head around from the 12 to the 10 o’clock position, there is a pretty good chance you’ll see the other airplane. If that traffic is under ATC control, the controller may add that the other flight is not at your altitude so you won’t worry so much. Once the other plane has passed the potential point of conflict; the controller will tell you; “Traffic no longer a factor!” In 500 words or less, that’s the ATC insider’s meaning of the phrase.
Using the phrase as my screen name is just my way of saying that, as both a controller and a pilot, I once was a “factor” in the aviation industry. As I am now blissfully retired from ATC, have not flown in years and my blog provides only tangential contact with the industry; I am officially “no longer a factor!”
But you can call me “Factor.” Thanks for writing!
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I think I can help you James. I’ll tell you a story that isn’t really fiction but it’s close enough to fool most anyone.
The scene was a fairly large airport located somewhere North of Florida. Characters in this story included a team of tower controllers plus several local and Federal law enforcement officials. One of them had called the control tower and advised the supervisor that they had been tracking a suspected drug smuggling plane ever since it left Central America several days prior. It was expected to land at this airport very soon. The Agent was very specific in his instructions to the tower supervisor. When this flight checked in with the tower, controllers were to act as normal as controllers can possibly act. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, there were additional instructions.
Upon landing, the plane was to be guided to a specific parking area on the ramp, where extensive preparations had been made to arrest the crew. The supervisor briefed his controllers, who immediately grew excited by the idea of taking part in a drug bust! The excitement intensified with each passing minute. Eventually, the airplane did call the tower for landing instructions. All seemed normal as the plane landed. There were no signs the pilot was suspicious as the tower controller instructed the flight to contact Ground Control.
Now, we were all sure that the “preparations” must have looked like a scene out of Miami Vice; with walkie-talkies crackling away in everyone’s ear, snipers hidden in the shadows and a dozen SWAT Team guys, dressed in black and ready to storm the plane. We all watched as it taxied off the runway toward the parking area.
The ground controller appeared a little nervous but responded promptly and professionally when the suspect aircraft called him. After all; this was his moment to shine – his 15 minutes of fame! The response he gave would become permanently ensconced in local ATC folklore. Remembering everything he’d been told about the situation by his supervisor (but apparently forgetting the part about why), he instructed the pilot to “Taxi to the Northeast corner of the ramp. The Federal agents are waiting to meet you there!”
The plane made a quick turn back onto the runway and accelerated. It lifted off, leveled at crop dusting altitude and vanished quickly over the horizon. Nobody heard whether the pilot was ever caught but the tower supervisor sure was. Within minutes, the cab was full of astonished and very irate agents who had brought with them a huge headache for that supervisor.
Thanks for writing and have fun with your fiction.
Factor
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It’s high time for this question Starberry. Although we magicians are never supposed to reveal our secrets; I’ll share a little aviation magic with you – like how an airplane can gain around 100 extra knots of groundspeed, save fuel and shorten the time enroute to its destination. The trick involves using a relatively narrow band of fast moving upper air current known as the jetstream.
Although it shifts around from day to day, the jetstream remains basically a West to East wind that can be found in the 23,000 to 39,000 foot range. The altitudes commercial and other types of flights use, such as those you mentioned, are often based on where the jetstream happens to be that day. Pilots will want to get their plane into it and take advantage of the boost in speed this powerful wind can give them. Conversely, if the direction of their flight happens to run opposite to the jetstream, pilots will try to plan their route and altitude so as avoid it. After all; being able to shave 30 minutes or so off a transcontinental flight is truly magical! On the other hand; adding additional flight time because you picked a route and altitude that put you into that hefty headwind is more ‘tragical’ than magical.
Thanks for writing,
Factor
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