tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14882446943146629232024-03-13T06:37:30.505-04:00What The Air Traffic Controller SawMy Life On The BoardsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-40842308462248740892017-01-04T14:44:00.000-05:002018-08-02T13:23:53.788-04:00A Process<br />
Yeah, I've been away for a while. Family issues and other stuff have kept me busy. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to be back more often.<br />
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<i>I rarely ever talk to people about my career in air traffic control. Not sure why but I'm never at ease when discussing it. When the topic does come up, I don't know where to begin. Folks often want to know; "How did you do it?" Good question. How does a controller acquire and manage all the faculties needed to get the job done under such fluid and volatile conditions? Wish I knew for sure. I suppose it's simply a process. We've all been through plenty of them.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>We learn the alphabet and that provides us the tools needed to spell words. We take those words and learn to assemble them into sentences. Soon, we're gathering sentences into paragraphs, then putting those paragraphs together into notes, letters, chapters and books that can have the power to move people. By mastering a series of small steps, controllers also eventually acquire the skills needed to move people. And moving people is what air traffic control is really about. With time and persistence, we could even develop a certain efficacy for the work. It took plenty of patience, which, I learned, is not necessarily a renewable resource.<br />
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I crawled, clumsy and concerned, through the primordial slime of my initial training; learning those small steps then putting them together to form a skill. Skills were what I needed to get into the game and I had to learn a lot of them. After that, I'd need to develop some confidence in my abilities. It was part of a process that didn't happen overnight. It would eventually happen though and it got me a career.<br />
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There were unforeseen consequences. Through the years of working air traffic, my patience eventually wore so thin that my temper began to show through. It was a slow process; like the nearly imperceptible way a candle burns down and out. One day there's plenty of wax. Then, sometime later, it's all gone. But growing impatient was simply a part of the job - a part they never mentioned in the brochures.<br />
<i><br /></i> As it turned out; there was little time for patience. If a plan wasn't moving along fast enough to work; I had to take more aggressive steps or be ready to go with Plan B. Of course, Plan B was never as good and, on occasion, actually slowed things down. That made me even more impatient and that's the moment when bad decisions are born.<br />
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When that moment arrives, good judgment can simply dissociate itself from the decision process. What often comes next is a brain wreck.<br />
<i><br /></i>The process of trying to correct a bad decision affecting the planes under my control ranged from hard to hopeless. It could also be risky. Making a correction often meant coming up with Plan C, which in no way resembled the original plan and usually relied on uncertain resources like other busy controllers or equally busy pilots. The unknowns associated with Plan C always made me anxious and, as the original situation continued to deteriorate, it made me even more impatient. Sometimes it made me mad at one of those "uncertain resources." Sometimes it just made me mad at me. Losing my grip on a situation I was being paid to maintain tight control over could do that. For example . . .<br />
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Working the evening arrival rush was usually fun. There was always a carefully metered procession of airplanes streaming into the area and a bunch of controllers who were eager to get them onto a runway. My favorite seat at such times was the Final Control Sector. It was the narrow end of a funnel that started out around 100 miles wide and narrowed down to 150 feet at the runways. Wrestling a seemingly unending supply of arrivals into one or two long lines on final approach was deeply satisfying. All neatly spaced; those lines often extended into the next State. The tower wanted airplanes and I was there to make their wish come true; cramming as many of them into the airport as was legally possible. Final Control was a party where the adrenaline flowed like jet fuel in a holding pattern. The party could end suddenly though. All it took was one bad decision. I seemed to save the worst ones for a rainy day when they'd be most memorable. As luck would have it; Big Time Airport was having one.<br />
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Checking in for the evening shift, I was happy when the TRACON Supervisor told me to relieve Miriam on the Final Control sector. Although we weren't on the same team, Miriam was one of my favorite people. We went through the Academy in Oklahoma City around the same time but had been assigned to different facilities. She started off at a small airfield on the sunrise side of the country. I was dispatched directly to Big Time, where I trained in terror and struggled through every subsequent shift. I'll always remember Miriam for the frequent smiles that always flashed her Hollywood white teeth. Miriam and I shared a lot of good memories of our OKC adventures and I was excited when I heard she was coming.<br />
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Now divorced and single, Miriam was great fun to work with. Her operating initials were "MM" or "Mike Mike" in the controller's esoteric lexicon. But when ending any interphone conversation, she always stated it as "Money Market." One day, I had to ask her; "What's with the money market thing?" She flashed that brilliant smile and said; "Well you know...there are penalties for early withdrawal." I laughed then lied a little, telling her that, back in the wilder years, my criterion for a second date could be described as "No deposit, no return." She shook her head in mock disgust, muttering; "Still the asshole, I see." Of course.<br />
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Miriam had both tower and radar experience but in a much less demanding environment. Over the years, I saw several controllers take a similar career path; starting off in a low-density facility then eventually moving up to a more demanding environment. It was never easy. Their work habits had been fairly well established during those years of working at a slower pace. While knowing what to do, they would quickly fall behind at Big Time and run out of the time needed to do it. Most would eventually work their way up to the pace and efficiency needed to handle hours of heavy traffic. A few would not. There are some old habits that even Houdini couldn't break out of.<br />
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At 4:00 PM the sector was already fairly busy but, as usual, about to be overrun. I plugged my headset in, watched and listened for a minute or so, got my briefing from Miriam then sat down. Traffic was relatively light and planes were moving along smoothly. Miriam still ran a rather guarded operation so there was a little more space between the arrivals than needed. A former supervisor of mine once advised; "<i>Always work it like you're busy</i>." I found that to be good advice and knew I needed to tighten things up. Otherwise, we'd soon be filling the holding patterns. Happy, for the moment, I settled in and started spitting out headings, speed restrictions and altitude assignments. On a day of low ceilings and limited visibility; I wasn't looking for trouble. Actually; no Tracon controller has to look for trouble because, with radar, it's so damned easy to find.<br />
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The arrival sectors were filling up. Traffic conditions weren't too crazy yet but soon would be. Most of the planes came to us, spaced according to the interval we'd specified so I was getting a nice flow from my teammates. All I needed to do was fill in a couple of the wider gaps on final and the rest would be routine.<br />
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I leaned in and began squeezing the arrival flows more tightly together, filling in those few gaps and hoping for the best. But when you're fighting with the sky for space . . . space for just one more airplane (and what radar controller hasn't?)... you will take more audacious steps to prevail.<br />
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There were about nine miles between a Northwest Airlines (NWA) B727 and the TWA B727 ahead. TWA was only three miles from the outer marker. That nine-mile gap was too tempting to pass up. I turned a DC9 off the downwind, figuring I could fit it in about four miles behind the TWA jet. Issuing a small speed reduction to NWA, I then told TWA to maintain his current speed to the outer marker. That should have kept that gap open but the DC9 was a few seconds late rolling into its turn. I cursed quietly and began drumming my fingers impatiently on the console. In similar situations, some guys I worked with would yell at their radar display like a fan watching televised sports. "Turn, goddamn it!"<br />
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Noticing that NWA was still indicating a ground speed of 190 KTS, I realized he hadn't slowed as instructed. My nine-mile gap had shrunk down to eight and still closing. I restated the speed restriction, hoping my plan would still work but it was a bit late. I had a hell of a mess brewing but hell was about to get a little hotter.<br />
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The DC9 was about ready for a turn onto final approach but probably too close to the trailing NWA flight. Realizing this was not going to work, I quickly formulated "plan B," which was to pull NWA out of line for re-sequencing. Doing so opened up a huge gap between the DC9 and another flight that had been about five miles behind the NWA. So, all I had done was to trade one large gap for another. Meanwhile; plenty more nicely spaced planes were headed my way and I needed to fit that NWA flight back in somehow. Mad at myself for making this mess, I finally sorted it all out but not before getting a few "What the hell?" looks from a few teammates and the TRACON Supervisor.<br />
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This and several other incidents during my years working in towers, radar rooms and even in FAA management (especially in management) brought me to where I am today.<br />
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Clearing the B-707 in position "for immediate takeoff, traffic three mile final!" Then waiting till the shadow of the plane I just had to send around passes over the 707 still sitting there.<br />
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I now sit at green traffic lights, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel while waiting for the car ahead to move.<br />
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Don't even mention stop signs. I mutter at the guy in front of me; Does the sign actually say "Stop and stay a while???"<br />
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I stand in the checkout line at the grocery store; shifting from foot to foot while the customer ahead counts out a stack of coupons for the register clerk. And on and on.<br />
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Patience is just another of the many processes we encounter in life. Like reading, writing and radar control; we learn it and, if we don't keep at it, we lose it. Losing patience is also a process but if it happens it'll happen quicker than you can spell the word "temper."<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2018</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-38652462776080231702016-12-24T10:08:00.000-05:002016-12-24T10:08:13.691-05:00Merry ChristmasAll the best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas! Just don't end up like this guy . . . .<br />
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FactorUnknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-21812251785146749592016-11-11T11:31:00.001-05:002016-11-11T11:31:06.575-05:00Photo Finished<br />
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Captain Careless and First Officer Fumbler forgot that <i>roaming charges </i>always apply when receiving service outside their primary provider's area. They also forgot the airline's "No cameras in the cockpit" policy.<br />
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Sincere thanks to all my fellow Vets (and those still in active service) out there on this special day. Be proud folks.<br />
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Factor<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2016</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-29440582334087835942016-08-03T10:46:00.000-04:002016-11-11T11:17:39.819-05:00Keep Your Penny<i>Sometimes a simple old song becomes an express lane, taking me back to my most distant memories. Sometimes it's just a small sound, a scent or maybe even the cent I recently found among some change in my pocket. They can trigger thoughts of what once was. Such thoughts</i><i> usually come back to me in pieces; like fractions of a dollar or fragments of a decades old nightmare. That damned penny though. Suddenly everything came back to me again, with absolute clarity.</i><br />
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It was Monday, August 3rd, 1981. I was awake and drinking coffee behind my house at 4:00 AM. The air was comfortably cool and the sky was about as clear as I'd ever seen it for a normally hazy August morning. It was the kind of morning when I'd usually be anxious to meet my carpool buddies and head into Big Time to greet the incoming lines of arriving flights or watch the departures line up at the runways. Not this morning though. I was anxious alright but it was an uneasy kind of anxious rather than eagerness. I watched a large jet descending in the direction of Big Time Airport, probably a freighter, and wondered who was working in the TRACON.<br />
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My coffee was cold because I had made it more than an hour earlier. I went back inside to start another pot. Thinking maybe I might have missed the phone ringing, I checked for messages. Nothing. It was nearly 5:00 now and still no word. Finally, at about 6:15, the phone rang. It was the mid-shift Supervisor. The strike was on. He said he thought there were enough controllers coming in to meet the reduced morning demand but said I should be there at 11:00. Heartburn. At first; I thought it was the coffee.<br />
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So; PATCO pulled it off and got all those controllers to walk out. I got to thinking about the ones on my team who were probably now on the picket lines. They were good friends and great controllers; most of them with families at home. I wasn't so sure at that time but they were also soon to be unemployed. It was time to shower and get ready for an entirely different world at work. The world I knew all the way up to my most recent shift was gone and would never return.<br />
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Ever been offered a penny for your thoughts? I know I have; probably several times during this lifetime of mine. So many people made these and other promises they were truly unable to keep (I've made a few myself). Foolishly, I sometimes bought them anyway and even let 'em keep the change. There was, however, one particular promise made that I could neither buy or sell because the cost was way too high. Lots of folks bought it anyway.<br />
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Today I have thoughts like; who would test the limits of their car's airbags by driving into a bridge abutment? Or who would test the limits of their employer by participating in an illegal job action? The answer to that question might be; people who believed they'd been short changed.<br />
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The year was 1981; a mere 35 years back. To me though, thirty-five years was a lifetime ago as I was just about 35 years old at the time. The promise was; if <i>we all </i>went out on strike (which obviously was not going to happen), the Federal Government couldn't possibly fire us. The union's demands would grudgingly be met and everyone would return to work in triumph. Sweetened by the illusion of a controller's indispensability, the deal was tempting. Unfortunately, too many controllers, previously known for their sound judgment, took it. That never made any sense to me. These were people who's professional judgment was nearly always keen and correct; guiding tens of thousands of lives safely across the skies. Yet, when it came to another judgment call, affecting a relatively small but intensely personal circle of family and friends, they failed terribly.<br />
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Of an aviation system without controllers, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) Union President Bob Poli was quoted in the news media as saying; "The skies will be silent." If he <i>really </i>believed that and the rest of PATCO's propaganda; I'd have to say he was a bigger fool than I thought. Poli was simply a hustler, peddling another "get rich quick" scheme to a group of people who were hungry to swallow the union's horribly flawed rationale. He was a confidence man who managed to win the confidence of too many good and trusting people.<br />
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The union had its battle plan . . . but so did the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration. Theirs was obviously more shrewd and sensible. To this day, one of my biggest regrets was that FAA Management, at least at my facility, never shared some significant parts of that plan with the pre-strike workforce. It might have made a difference in the outcome. We who were committed to staying on the job were left to recite a weak and hard to believe argument against the strike. <i>"Don't believe PATCO. You really WILL be fired. The FAA can't lose."</i> I wasn't so sure I believed it myself.<br />
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Had they known there would be military controllers and furloughed airline pilots sent into the facilities to help us, more controllers might have stayed on. Had they known the airlines were prepared to make temporary scheduling cutbacks and that general aviation activity would be severely restricted, more controllers might have stayed on. Had they not grossly underestimated their adversaries (Ronald Reagan, Drew Lewis, et al.) or wildly overestimated the level of support they'd receive from other labor unions and the public, more controllers might have stayed on.<br />
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They should also have figured out that the FAA had little to lose in a strike. This wasn't like the steel industry or auto manufacturing, where a strike could cost the company millions of dollars in lost production and/or sales. The FAA would simply terminate a large number of highly paid controllers and hire fresh ones at a fraction of the cost. Sure, there'd be years of training ahead and lots of overtime paid to those of us who stayed on. Still; I suspect PATCO's job action saved Uncle Sam some money. The real costs, in cash and convenience, would be borne by the aviation industry, those businesses who relied on it and the flying public.<br />
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Fear was the currency that bought many controller's decision to support a strike. The more militant union members promised serious consequences for those who stayed on the job. PATCO's faithful would be waiting and watching at our employee parking lot on that August morning. Lists would be made and there would be trouble for those who were seen coming to work. Again though, the FAA was one move ahead of the union.<br />
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Even 35 years ago, Big Time Airport was a huge place with thousands of public parking spaces. Our Management made arrangements with the Airport Authority that, in the event of a strike, we could use the vast system of pay-parking garages, free of charge, for a couple of weeks. PATCO's plans to picket at our parking lot on August 3rd would have little effect. Some of us parked there anyway. This resulted in nothing more than the loud exchange of expletives, plus a report to the folks we were relieving about who was picketing and what to expect out there.<br />
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All the things they didn't know, coupled with the fact that our facility Management and a significant number of controllers were fed up with the pre-strike drama, lead to a perfect storm that would tear PATCO apart, along with the lives of so many good people. Sadly, most of us who stayed on had actually hoped the strike would happen. The threats, intimidation, hatred and hubris would finally stop - at least for a while.<br />
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I suppose its a good thing this all took place 35 years ago rather than in today's world. These days, warning the Federal Government of plans to shut down the U. S. air transportation system might be seen as a terrorist threat rather than a relatively simple labor/management dispute. Sure; PATCO was ultimately decertified as a union and a lot of people lost their jobs but at least no one was charged with insurrection.<br />
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The controllers I grew into my profession with were close knit, professional coequals and I miss many of them. The August 3rd strike and Bob Poli's worthless promises are now a full lifetime behind me. And what of the controller's union we all knew back then? If there was a point of origin for all the high stakes lying, bad decisions, blind faith and ill conceived actions that ruined so many lives; it might look like this . . .<br />
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These are my thoughts. Keep your penny. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2016</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-24027732217338995562015-12-23T09:02:00.000-05:002016-08-01T12:33:39.868-04:00Claire Clarified<i>I wrote about Claire back in March of 2010. Hmm . . . with my steadily shrinking attention span, it's hard to imagine myself nursing this blog along for all those years. Anyway, I wrote about her in a post titled: "<a href="http://lifeontheboards.blogspot.com/2010/03/first-time.html">The First Time</a>." Claire was one of my most memorable characters from the Big Time days. Sharp, witty, self confident and knowledgeable; she became one of the most well respected controllers in the facility. She was also quite easy on the eye and happily married to a guy who flew jets for a living. Still; there were issues. </i><br />
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Some facts, such as Claire's extraordinary skills, may stand out some people's memory. Others may remember Claire for the fact she was the best looking woman in the facility. Okay; so there were only two in a staff of nearly ninety controllers. After all, it was the Seventies; back when "diversity" was just another nine letter word. The whole concept was lost among a workforce made up largely of WWII, Korean and Vietnam War veterans. They were a staunch, stubborn and profane bunch. Those guys put their headsets on like crash helmets, bent rules with their bare hands, pushed limits, pulled off incredible maneuvers with their traffic and did whatever else it took to keep things moving. To many of them, women in the control room were just a misplaced novelty. Some would call them a distraction and some would go a bit further; stirring up a riptide of rumors.<br />
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Claire was training in the radar room when I first arrived at Big Time so, as a lowly tower trainee, I didn't see much of her. The guys downstairs, however, got to see a lot more of Claire; especially during our Summer season. Here's why.<br />
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The climate in Big Time's 'Truman era' tower and radar room was controlled by a series of ancient air ducts. Their insides were thick with the accumulated scum left by the recirculation of various body odors, cigarette and cigar smoke, aircraft engine exhaust and seasonal humidity. Our Summertime TRACON was a calescent environment, made even warmer by constant complaining and the ceaseless heat emanating from our cathode ray tubes. A tired air conditioning system strained and rattled in some distant utility room; pumping barely enough cool air into the TRACON to keep us all from bursting into flames. We wore anything we could get away with to beat the heat. Tee shirts were frowned on by our Assistant Chief. Funny thing though; he never complained about Claire's low-cut cotton blouses. Neither did the battle-worn boys who ruled the airspace around Big Time. Instead, some of them let their imaginations run away from reality<br />
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When it was hot, Clair might sign onto her shift wearing something low-cut and cool. As I said; she was easy on the eye and it seemed the more some guys saw of her, the "easier" she appeared to be. In time, rumors she was sleeping her way to her radar certification began spreading like an oil spill and would be nearly as hard to clean up. Now, to accuse Clair of such a thing would be akin to accusing her of under-inflating the balls at her local bowling alley - a ridiculous assertion but well within the parameters of believability to a few bowling pin-heads. What was being said about Claire was equally absurd and no less believable to some. These were the same fools who believed PATCO when, in 1981, the union told them "They can't fire all of us." In the language of bowling, what happened next is called a strike. You know; when they all fall down.<br />
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The malicious rumors eventually made their way to Clair's radar instructor then on to Claire. A bright girl and never one to duck controversy, she quickly figured out which of the tower's gossipmongers had started the rumor. When she did, there was a very loud and quite public confrontation in the break room at shift change. Till then, no one knew Claire could go off like a pipe bomb.<br />
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We never had to watch our language around her. Claire knew the four-letter lingo of the control room and could speak it as fluently as the rest of us. She spoke it a lot that day. It was a delicate situation though. Trainees generally knew better than to take on any of the journeyman controllers. Doing so could adversely affect the quality and quantity of training they'd receive and possibly even their reputation in the facility. I worried that Claire's protesting might come off sounding like petty bitching or whining, with a response like; "What's the matter? Can't take a joke?" She had some unexpected help though. A few of the more senior controllers, who didn't particularly like the guy who started this mess, quickly spoke in her defense.<br />
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By far, her biggest advocate was Claire's main radar instructor; Teddy. Teddy was the biggest, in more than one way. He bellowed and berated the guy; using the words "horse shit" to withering effect. Teddy, at about 300 pounds, was also physically huge, which, when he stood up and pointed a fat finger at his target, added fierce emphasis to his words.<br />
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There was plenty of denial of course but it came off sounding like our air conditioning system; weak and ineffectual. Righteously blamed and shamed; he stood up, left the breakroom and no one spoke of it again. Claire threw her headset into her locker, slammed the door and went home.<br />
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Fortunately, the source of this synthetic scandal was not on our team or there would undoubtedly have been many awkward moments in our future. You needed to trust your teammates and it was even better if you also liked them. As it was; we only saw this guy at shift change or if he worked an overtime shift with our team. I did see him fairly regularly on the picket lines during the mass hypnosis that was PATCO's 1981 job action. Rumor had it he became a "dot-com" millionaire a few years after being fired but you know how rumors can be. Like the one he started about Claire, they're often quite the opposite of reality. She clarified that one for several people, a long time ago - back in my Big Time days.<br />
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<i>I never again worried about Clair's ability to defend herself. She easily held her ground in the testosterone rich environment she worked in. I was always concerned over Teddy though, and could never understand how, with all the extra weight, he managed to pass his annual flight physical. Big and getting bigger; I worried that he would one day grow too fat to fit into his own future. That would have been a sad passing. Teddy was truly one of the good guys. He transferred out of Big Time a year or so after the strike and I never heard of him again. I don't know what ever became of Claire either but I don't worry.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2016</span><i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-74876948877855504932015-10-05T10:20:00.001-04:002015-10-05T10:20:04.371-04:00Persistence Of Memory, Part II<i>My eyes aren't as sharp as they once were. Maybe it's their way of telling me I've already seen too much. These days, my memory isn't so sharp either. That might be good news for someone who'd rather not recall certain things. Unfortunately, my worst memories are still as brilliant and annoying as a pair of oncoming high beams. To me, bad memories are like volcanoes. They may lay dormant for a while but, sooner or later, they'll erupt again; sending me running to find quieter thoughts. Regrettably, </i><i>experience has proven I can never outrun the flow of sad, bad or completely mad memories. One of them caught up with me recently - most likely triggered by a news headline I saw somewhere. </i><br />
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You've probably had a few of those 'jump up and click your heels' kind of mornings. It was one of those rare days at work. No bedlam, no bad weather and none of the usual workplace bullshit. The day could only have been better if it was raining hundred dollar bills, so I was actually happy when the boss sent me upstairs. I mounted the last few steps into the tower just as the local controller, my old Air Force buddy Rob, cleared a medium sized twin engine airplane for takeoff. I watched as the flight rolled onto our longest runway and surged off toward the blue sky ahead - all the while wondering where it was headed and wishing I could be along for the ride. The day was as fine for flying as it was for air traffic control.<br />
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Spring filled the air - along with the usual swarm of airplanes buzzing around Big Time like gnats. The airfield between paved surfaces had already begun turning a very seasonal chartreuse; easy on the eye and a welcome change from the achromatic tones of Winter. Yeah, on a day like this, a few hours in the tower were just what I needed.<br />
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Looking around, I took in all the normal activity on Big Time's bewildering maze of taxiways, ramps and airline gates. Tugs, baggage trains, catering trucks, maintenance vehicles and planes were all moving to the cadence of another busy day. There was some repaving in progress at the intersection of two key taxiways; requiring a tricky reroute to the departure runway. The project had been going on for weeks so most of us were pretty tired of bitching about it. Billy, on Ground Control, was chattering non-stop at his traffic. He had a funny habit of pointing at each airplane he called; claiming it helped him keep the picture. It seemed to work. Never a "still life with planes," Billy's traffic was always a moving picture show. Even though his voice kept that West Virginia mountain twang of his roots; the pilots understood, complied and rolled into lines like a precision drill team. One of the tower trainees started referring to him as "Skillbilly" - an appellation that caught on quickly. Billy was a masterful tower controller,<br />
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Another departing flight rolled onto the runway and held as the twin became airborne. I watched the wheels retract as it began climbing but my attention was mostly on Billy; who I had been sent upstairs to relieve. Several air carriers were pushing out of their gates as others were already forming lines and moving toward the taxiways. Billy was doing a lot of pointing. Our first departure rush of the day was beginning and I couldn't wait to get into it. Glancing at the flight plans and our list of the center's departure restrictions, I tried to figure out what Billy's plan was. Then I heard Rob mutter something that sounded like "Jeezus!" <br />
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Glancing left I saw the twin engine aircraft, now midfield and five hundred feet or so above the runway. Seemingly poised in space, its nose was pointing nearly straight up but beginning to lean leftward. From there, it tilted into a vertical dive, hit the ground with a thump we felt through the tower floor, then vanished in a flash of flames. A roiling mass of black smoke rose from the ground and spread across the blue sky like spilled ink. It looked as though a hole had opened up next to the runway and swallowed that airplane.<br />
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Several other aircraft were lined up on the parallel taxiway awaiting departure but none of them said a word on tower's frequency. I guess everyone was as awe-struck as we were. No doubt there was widespread horror among those passengers who were unfortunate enough to see what just happened.<br />
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There was a graveyard kind of silence in the tower cab. I began hearing sounds that were normally masked by the cacophony of control instructions, complaints and cursing; things like the tower's ventilation system and the low murmur of electrical equipment. Our supervisor never spoke either. He simply turned, picked up the emergency hotline and started talking quietly - undoubtedly restating the obvious. This was not the usual emergency notification like an inbound flight with an engine out, unsafe gear indication or on board medical emergency, This was a story that was actually beginning at the end.<br />
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I had only been in the tower for a few minutes. That's all the time it took for my memory to record an image that, in all the ensuing years, has not faded. As a radar controller; I'd been involved in a few aircraft accidents over time but each one took place many miles from Big Time Airport. I never had to actually see the aftermath. Those off-airport crashes were traumatic enough for the controllers involved but this one was especially grim. I tried to imagine the pilot's thoughts during those final few seconds of life. Frustration? Resignation? Was there any time for realization or regret? And how about the passengers? I still wonder. For me it was simply stubborn disbelief.<br />
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The intense fire was eventually extinguished and the smoke blew away. Once again it looked like Spring across the airfield - except for that large black spot next to the departure runway. In the days ahead; FAA would do its required reviews, interviews and reports. The NTSB would investigate and draw its conclusions. I never heard what they decided about a probable cause.<br />
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I do know one thing for sure. From that day on, whenever I went to the tower, a bad memory followed me up the stairs. It was as inevitable as your dropped coin that rolls <i>under </i>the vending machine. Good thing smart phones hadn't been invented yet or I'd still be dealing with the "You Tube" videos.<br />
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<i>Bad things happen and sometimes you can protect yourself from them. Friends of mine recently had one of those "safe rooms" installed in their garage. Unfortunately, it'll only protect them from things like fires, hurricanes, home invasions and, with luck, cable news networks. I wish someone made a product that could lock out my bad memories. They don't always fade with time. Alcohol can blur them for a short while but, when they come back into focus, they seem even worse than before.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2015</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-48076217879114039382015-07-01T09:49:00.001-04:002015-07-05T23:09:28.986-04:00The Importance of Being Earnest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>No; this post is not about Oscar Wilde's hilarious "Trivial Comedy for Serious People." We all know the aviation industry is far from trivial. However, we folks at the ATC end of it can certainly attest to how comedic it can be at times - comedic, frustrating, intense and tragic. Above all though, it's damned rewarding and, as far as I'm concerned, the best job ever. (Only those known to run with scissors need apply) Yeah, you've gotta be a bit crazy too.</i><br />
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And speaking of things rewarding; have you followed the <b>Society of Airway Pioneers </b>link in my "Recommended Reading" list? Although each of those links will take you to interesting places; I'm pointing this one out because it'll take you inside the aviation industry like no other website does. If you are or ever were involved in air traffic control or any of the other qualifying aviation related professions listed below; you ought to sign up. It's your Society.<br />
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From the Society's Website:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>"Membership in the Society of Airway Pioneers is open to those individuals whose endeavors, current or past, include: development, installation, testing, maintenance, </strong><strong> </strong><strong>operation, engineering, Flight Inspection, General Aviation/Air Carrier Airworthiness, Certification, Licensing, Training and Administration of any programs associated with the Federal Airways System which continuously provides safe and expeditious services to those utilizing the air transportation system.</strong><strong> </strong><strong>It additionally includes current or previous flight crew members, dispatchers, or DOD Air Traffic Personnel."</strong></span></div>
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Between The Society's Internet presence, their quarterly newsletter and annual magazine, I've gotten an extra large helping of great reading. I have also discovered many comrades and colleagues among their membership roster and noted the passing of several folks who strongly influenced my FAA career.<br />
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In this Blog, I have shared many of my memories; both funny and not so funny. For me, it's a cheap form of therapy. I'm sure you have your own stories as well. Are you willing to share them? If so; there's no better way to do it than by joining the <b>Society of Airway Pioneers</b> and telling those stories. Think of your writings as belated entries in your personal journal. You will enjoy recalling and writing about them. You'll probably even enjoy re-reading your own recollections as much as others will. Maybe even more. To quote Oscar Wilde himself; <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> C'mon, admit it; you've had a sensational career.</span><br />
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When it comes to standing with your extended aviation family by joining and actively supporting the Society of Aviation Pioneers; the importance of being earnest cannot be overemphasized. Your Society needs you now. I urge you to log on, join up (or pay up) and remember; The Society of Airway Pioneers is not just history - it's your heritage.<br />
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My thoughts.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2015</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-82273113394461501792015-04-25T11:57:00.000-04:002015-04-25T15:42:59.534-04:00Rather Easy<i>When I came to that fork in the road, you know the place, where it's time to decide what to do with the rest of your life, it's a damned good thing I didn't stop to see if there were matching knives and spoons. I might have decided to become a professional pilot rather than a controller. Who knows? Maybe I would have had a few more laughs up there in the flight levels than I did on the ground working airplanes.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>That brings me to this day's training video. There guys are good but when it came to irritating people; no one did it better than us controllers. Pilots, FAA management, other controllers and even the early rising idiots who'd call the tower to complain about jet noise - we pissed 'em all off. It was actually rather easy and even good for an occasional laugh. </i><br />
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<i>But these guys do have all the necessary skills . . . </i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2015</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-77790431449629584842015-03-23T09:04:00.001-04:002015-05-26T06:24:51.941-04:00Like It Or Not<em>Thinking of revisiting the past? I can tell you this; it's nearly as impossible as the idea of returning to a place you've never been. I keep trying to do it though. I keep trying to travel my mind back to those halcyon days of headaches, havoc, heartbreak and even a little hostility. Or was it the days of kinship, certitude and camaraderie among my fellow controllers? I'm not sure but, either way, it's like going the wrong way on an exit ramp. Going against the flow of time is an exercise in crazy. But if, like me, you insist on attempting the trip; you won't need any baggage. Baggage is what you carry into the future. The past is where you pick it up. </em><br />
<em><br /></em><em>Damn. Instead of trying to return; maybe I should have just stayed there. Sometimes, when I hear certain music from the past and the wine I'm drinking is working just right; I feel like I'm still there. I can still recall some of the communal minutia of our conversations: the controller's common likes and dislikes - especially the dislikes. To wit . . .</em><em> </em><br />
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Airline pilots. We idolized them, envied their salaries and occasionally wished we could shake them by their collars till the little gold wings fell off their uniforms. Perfectly groomed; they perambulated through the terminal building, leading their flock of flight attendants to a gleaming stretch eight, B-707 or maybe a waiting hotel limo. With neatly pressed uniforms, hat bent into the requisite "fifty mission crush" topping a shock of gray hair; their eyes seemed to reflect the cloudless blue flight levels they traveled in. Everyone called them "Captain" or "Sir." Many of those same people typically referred to us as jokers, jerks, assholes or, on a good day, troublemakers. They had no idea. We were all that and more.<br />
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We were air traffic controllers; government drones who's workday was spent in rancid radar rooms and smoke filled tower cabs. Immersed in the incessant murmur of control instructions, requests, rumors and occasional rage; we were rebellious, disrespectful, sartorially senseless, often unshaven and damned proud of it all. But ask a tower controller about the airline pilot who, on being instructed to taxi into position and be ready for an immediate departure ("Traffic three miles out."), turns his flying machine onto the runway like it was full of eggs balanced on beer bottles. Yep. Here comes the first go-around of the day. We often wondered if the slow taxi was a not-so-subtle way of screwing with a rival airline's bottom line. That go-around cost them money, worried their passengers and could even lead to missed connections. Usually though, it was the tower controller who'd eventually be called on the carpet for "exercising poor judgement."<br />
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There's also the guy driving his swift and sleek 727 who's been issued one or two speed reductions but clearly hasn't slowed up. Now he's gaining on preceding traffic. You tell him to reduce speed or face a few delaying vectors. One left three-sixty puts him back in line behind two flights that were originally following him. Later on, he calls the Watch Desk to complain about the inept and impertinent controller who caused him to miss his scheduled arrival time.<br />
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One of my personal favorites is the flight crew that never seem to be paying sufficient attention on arrival into a busy radar sector. After some frazzled controller has to call them at least twice for every instruction (a waste of everyone's time); the pilot is liable to hear a very blunt "Listen up Captain!" or something far worse. Since every other airman on the frequency (sometimes dozens) hears the admonishment, it can be an embarrassing blow to someone's overpaid ego. Odds are good the Watch Supervisor will soon be taking a call from the pilot. The controller involved will likely be "questioned and released."<br />
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Such things are infrequent and quickly forgotten - until the next time. That's when we recall all previous peeves and may get a little pissed off - especially if we're the ones being yelled at by a management who's job score is built mainly on points made with the airlines.<br />
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In fairness; I should add that controllers can come up with a thousand ways to anger an airman - sometimes deliberately. After all; we could cost them lots of money. Time spent on delaying vectors, in a holding pattern or parked on a taxiway could easily have cost their company more than my monthly salary. The worst they could do was get us a good ass chewing or possibly a letter of discipline in our official personnel file. For some choice examples, read any of my blog entries recounting the years before PATCO called for a strike. One genius I worked with actually responded to a pilot's query about when he would get out of the holding pattern with; <i>"Maybe when you declare minimum fuel Captain."</i> Sure, it had been a long, stressful shift and the guy had actually been given an "expect further clearance" (EFC) time when he entered holding. But . . . really?<br />
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On the flip side of all this; we also <i>loved </i>airline pilots. I couldn't possibly say how many times one of them helped me out when I really needed it. Take the plane I mentioned earlier that was instructed to taxi onto the runway and be ready for an immediate departure.<br />
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Pilots who were as interested as we were in keeping things moving efficiently could make a tight situation work. They looked out the cockpit window and could see the approaching airplane on final. They knew they had to be airborne before that plane touched down and they knew how to make that happen. Rather than lumber onto the runway as though every one of the tires were flat; they'd swing smartly into position, stand on the brakes and begin sliding the throttles forward - waiting for the green light. When cleared for an immediate takeoff; the pilot did things with the plane that would make any aircraft manufacturer proud.<br />
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ATC was always a joint effort between controllers and pilots. The controller can see what needs to happen but oftentimes it's the pilot who either makes the plan fly or fail. For example; the controller can see a usable gap in the long line of landing flights. Holes in the landing sequence are a waste of airspace. A skilled controller sees the chance to fit an airplane in there. To make it work though; immediate action on the flight crew's part is needed on any request for speed adjustments and heading changes. A few seconds of delay makes the chance go away.<br />
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The best controllers I worked with were, in a way, lazy controllers. They didn't want to be bothered with vectoring an arrival out to the end of the line if they could squeeze it into the middle somewhere. Pulling it off usually required some help from the higher ups.<br />
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Genetically, most controllers I knew were averse to Management. While some air traffic facilities were guided by a highly competent, fair and empathetic leadership; others were run by folks who were far too intoxicated by the power, influence and prestige of their position to listen when they should have. They dealt with the controller workforce in a consistently authoritarian manner, which only set the stage for more conflict. Bound by contract to negotiate with the bargaining unit (us controllers) only meant they had to work a little harder to win the day. Working in such a facility, we knew the hand holding all the Aces also held us jokers by the neck.<br />
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Other things we didn't like were bad weather, sudden or scheduled equipment outages, short staffing, disapproved leave requests, incompetent supervisors and many other things that even a sane person would find disagreeable. What we liked was the adrenalin rush we got from working heavy traffic when everything clicked. In fact; the exuberance we felt during and after such a shift was more than enough to keep us coming back for more - no matter how bad it got.<br />
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Speaking of that; I'll tell you another thing we liked. After an evening shift, good or bad, we liked going to a rundown roadhouse just outside the airport. Like Big Time itself, it was in the worst part of town, where just parking a car after dark was risky.<br />
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The barroom floor was sticky from years of spilled drinks, walls were infused with cigarette smoke and the men's room often smelled like vomit. In retrospect, I guess it was a lot like our TRACON.<br />
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On weekends, a couple of sad looking strippers went through the motions on a small stage, then worked the room for tips. Caught up in our carping and camaraderie, we paid little attention to their dancing but we tipped them well anyway. I liked the place because I could learn a lot by listening to my teammates as they washed down the shift's successes and distresses with a cold beer. As a relatively inexperienced controller; it's where I learned many of the "do and don't do" aspects of the job.<br />
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Good or bad, like it or not, it was all part of my past. Everyone has their own way of dealing with a career in air traffic control, Some drank to excess, brought their job related problems home and eventually got divorced, Some became progressively more disgruntled until arriving at that emotional tipping point. They'd go on strike and be fired or maybe just retire. Some moved on to another facility; believing the grass would be greener in another place. There were those who bid on every staff job they saw; hoping to be promoted out of the controller position they now had difficulty dealing with.<br />
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Me? At one time or another, I tried it all. I know I can't go back and change a thing. Actually; I wouldn't want to. My path had some tricky curves that, like it or not, brought me to where I am now. I like that.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2015</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-81197715261272681762015-01-09T08:33:00.000-05:002015-01-09T08:33:00.997-05:00Airborne Bliss<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-46230065477560705642014-12-22T11:21:00.000-05:002015-02-24T12:42:53.907-05:00Quite Rightly<i>Returning to our regularly scheduled programming . . . . </i><br />
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<i>We hear a lot about the black boxes whenever an airplane meets with an untimely end. Like the inscrutable Oracle of Delphi, these things speak in utter gibberish but somehow bring clarity to those who are esoterically inclined. Knowledge bestowed by the black box often provides insight about what went wrong and why. It's a useful tool that offers great learning opportunities but it sometimes makes me wonder. What if I'd come with a black box? It could have revealed the "how" and "why" of every idiotic thing I've ever done in life. The big question is; would I have learned anything from it? I sure learned a lesson or two from the absence of a personal black box. For example; if an event is not recorded in some way, it's anyone's guess what really took place. I also learned that guessing never helps. </i><br />
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I think it was sometime in March in the late Seventies and the day was starting off badly. I knew we'd have to stay 'on our toes' during this shift, never imagining we would end up on our ass instead. Clouds, just a couple of hundred feet above the treetops, rolled across the area; dumping what seemed to be an interminable rainfall on the city. Wind gusts jabbed at my old Ford Fairlane from the left and right as me and my two other carpool fools made our way down the Interstate toward Big Time.<br />
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We were still miles from the airport but I could already smell the noxious odor of a rotten day. There were no thunderstorms out there but I knew this would be a day marked by high winds, low ceilings, heavy rain and headaches. It was the kind of day when some guys I knew might climb out of bed, peek outside, pick up the phone and call in sick. One of our teammates did just that. No surprise there. It happened to be our carpool buddy Joe; who was chronically averse to a mixture of bad weather and air traffic control.<br />
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On days like this, one less controller was like having a missing molar. We could still take a bite out of the traffic but chewing it up like we usually did was difficult and even a bit painful. To begin with; we had a facility management who guarded their overtime budget like it was the family jewels. This meant there probably wouldn't be anyone called in to replace Joe. Most of our trainees were only tower qualified and nearly useless in the radar room. That left the journeymen controllers to spend the entire shift rotating endlessly through busiest radar sectors. Like a match head; we'd burn brightly at first but, as the shift ground on, we would eventually fade and fizzle. Essential tools like awareness, efficiency, judgment and patience would dissipate like the smoke from Bobby's cigar (you could still smoke 'em at work). In their absence, intolerance and irritability might seep in to fill the void and things could get a little sloppy. Delays would grow, tempers would rise and we'd start bitching about everything. All combined; it left us fighting the foul weather, both outside and inside the facility.<br />
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We were pretty sure our carpool buddy Joe wasn't physically ill. He was known for occasionally sparing himself the stress of a bad weather day. We referred to his particular malady as "Ceiling Sickness." Me and my riders did wonder what his official excuse was this time. I mean; if your going to take a mental health day, you should, at least, try to be a little creative when you call in. On becoming a Supervisor, I'd sometimes hear a truly epic excuse that I would buy like half price beer. Other times, the excuses were so prosaic that I'd sooner buy paper napkins made from recycled toilet tissue. Joe was never a very imaginative guy. We all figured he was home, watching daytime TV with his usual "headache" or "upset stomach." I wondered; why stay home and deal with such things by yourself when you can go to work and deal with them along with fifteen other guys?<br />
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I punched in the combination to our security door and we went to work. It turned out the airport had been below landing minimums for the last two hours, so 7:00 AM in the TRACON seemed more like 5:00 PM. Arrivals were spinning at the outer fixes, phones were ringing, strip bays overflowed and worried Supervisors paced around nervously behind the radar sectors. Today; everything in the air would be on instrument flight plans; including those planes trying to get into or out of the many uncontrolled airports scattered around the region. Normally, we have little awareness of what goes on at those small airfields situated in hidden valleys, behind hillsides and other areas that our radar's eye would never see. Air traffic usually comes and goes from those places under VFR conditions. We don't even know they're out there unless they call us for traffic advisories. IFR days are different. If the pilots needed to fly and had an instrument rating, they'd call us.<br />
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This morning they were phoning relentlessly, looking for IFR clearances. There were a couple of VFR towers in our area and they too had to call us to get clearances for their departures. All these calls came in at our TRACON Data position On days like this, the two controllers working there would most likely be going through Hell. TRACON Data wasn't actually Hell but, after an hour or so, any noticeable differences seemed unimportant. It was like trying to determine the significant difference between slipping off a roof as opposed to being thrown off. The pain is the same.<br />
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Working the Data position on days like this always made me feel like I was being chased by a mob of angry clocks; waving their hands wildly and making me run like I was out of time. Everything was urgent and everyone impatient. I could barely keep up with the demands. The constant chaos could wear you down. Data was the most "physical" of all TRACON positions. It would be a couple hours spent tearing flight strips off the printers and running them to the radar sectors, answering phone calls from everywhere, coordinating IFR releases for satellite departures and, of course, complaining about everything.<br />
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Today's Flight Data staff included two trainees who were only certified in the tower and TRACON data. Unfamiliar with how the radar room actually functioned, they got by on a superficial knowledge and a narrowly defined set of duties. These were like the guys holding those revolving "Slow" or "Stop" sign you see guiding traffic at road construction sites. They knew nothing of highway engineering, heavy equipment operation or line painting. Just "Slow" and "Stop." It's a simple job but the consequences for failure can be serious.<br />
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A fellow teammate named Min Yan sat at his radar sector. Min had been raised in the city's "China Town" section and was the only controller I ever knew who had a Masters Degree in music. Always cool and fully focused; Min worked his traffic with the consistency of a metronome. His operating initials were "MY"and he terminated every landline call with them. Not by properly stating "Mike Yankee" but with "Mellow Yellow" - a sobriquet we all referred to him as. Keep in mind; these were the days before the blight of political correctness infected the Federal Government. We could call an Asian guy Mellow Yellow without fear of being sanctioned. Whenever we did, Min would usually smile, nod his head in time with whatever song was currently playing inside it and reply "Quite rightly."<br />
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Today's Flight Data staff included Ed and George; two trainees who were excellent tower controllers but at TRACON data they were like fugitives on foreign soil - lost and running for their lives. Nearly under water but struggling in a most mettlesome manner to stay afloat, they rushed across the floor; stepping over headset wires and dodging Supervisors to deliver their strips. One of the strips was for Min. It was a satellite departure waiting for his IFR release from one of our small, uncontrolled satellite airports. George set it down next to Min, who was too busy handling a flurry of Big Time arrivals to even look at the departure's flight plan. Without taking his eye off the radar scope, he apparently muttered "Hold for release." Min couldn't let the guy go because he'd already cleared an arrival for the VOR Approach into that airport, terminated radar service and was now waiting for the pilot to cancel his IFR flight plan. What George heard among the cacophony of a busy TRACON was not recorded and therefore unverifiable.<br />
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As Min's arrival descended into that unseen void below our radar coverage; George returned to the Flight Data position, picked up the phone and did what he thought he heard Min instruct. He released the waiting departure. The first fix on that flight's route was a VOR that sat about ten miles from the airport. Unfortunately, this was the same VOR from which another flight was now commencing an approach. Both pilots were probably caught up in the clouds and heavy rain. Although our radar's eye could see neither; they were both well within radio reception. Then Min received a completely unexpected call from the departing flight, reporting; "We're out of two thousand for three."<br />
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From where I sat in the radar room, I could only see "Mellow Yellow" suddenly stand up at his sector; arms raised like an orchestra conductor. Now red-faced, he looked as though he was trying to swallow a sponge. I couldn't hear what he was saying but clearly he was upset; which, until this moment, was something we'd never seen. He tried to call the arriving flight but it was too late. The pilot had already switched his radio to the airport's Unicom frequency.<br />
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Only later did the rest of the team learn what had happened and that somehow, the two planes, on collision courses, had passed each other without suffering so much as a paint scrape. It truly is, as they say, a very big sky. We all figured the guy on the approach must have descended to his minimum descent altitude (MDA) as soon as he could (a good move in any case) and the departure must have climbed like a homesick angel to get out of the bad weather. We'll never know for sure.<br />
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We'll also never know for sure exactly what was said between "MY" and George the Flight data guy. Their verbal exchange, critical as it was, had not been recorded. Nearly everything a controller says while working is recorded. Whether it's to another controller via landline or to pilots; it's all retrievable. But one thing that wasn't recorded back then was the open verbal exchanges between control room personnel. Normally, this was considered a good thing because much of what we said was either scurrilous, inflammatory or insensitive and could easily have gotten us fired. In this particular case though, would a recording have been as helpful as the little black box found among the ruins of a fallen airplane? Would it have provided a learning opportunity? I say "Quite rightly."<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2014</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-31700470781857390802014-05-06T07:25:00.000-04:002014-05-07T06:50:47.828-04:00Gravity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Isaac Newton warned us that "what goes up must come down." That got me thinking about my first Supervisor at Big Time. Jon must not have believed Sir Isaac. Most of us controllers wished Jon would go up and never come down. You know; like Voyager I or II. He went up alright but didn't keep going. He came down; suddenly and swiftly. It wasn't a soft landing either.</i><br />
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Air traffic controllers are a befuddled bunch. Most of us spend roughly half our career attempting to refute Sir Issac's law and the other half enforcing it. Planes go up and we like to see that they stay up there until it's time to come down. That's why we invented holding patterns. Then, when it is time to abide by Isaac's law; we try to ensure they come down gently and, hopefully, onto a runway. I've known airplanes to come down like Thor's hammer. When you see that happen, you keep the images filed under "Things I'll never forget."<br />
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Anyway, this piece isn't about the kind of gravity that makes planes come down. It's more about the gravity that brings down careers in air traffic control. We scratch and scrabble our way up through the training program, try to rise above average in our abilities as controllers and some of us even ascend into the murky realm of management. That's where Jon eventually went - but not before asserting his credentials for higher office on a young trainee or two. Then one day, unable to escape the gravity of bad decisions, he came down hard - didn't even bounce.<br />
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It was early 1975 and I was due for my first Performance Appraisal. Having been in the training program for a year and exceeding expectations (both my own and the facility's) along the way; I didn't anticipate any problems. Well under the Training Department's average times for position certification; I was already checked out through all tower positions and now training in the TRACON. I actually thought the appraisal would be a pretty good one. Jon called me into the supervisor's office one afternoon and began talking. His voice was downbeat and parental - like a father explaining to a child why he wouldn't be getting a new bicycle this year.<br />
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Jon had come to Big Time by way of the nearest enroute facility where he'd been a controller for years. He had never worked in the terminal world and, understandably, it showed. Unaccustomed to our equipment and tighter separation standards, his operating methods were rather restrained in the radar room and a total terror in the tower. Fortunately, as a supervisor, he didn't have to work much traffic. This reduced the volume of complaints from pilots to Rick; our Area Manager. Jon was a glad-hander though and could camouflage his incompetence with robust repartee or by repeating the harrowing tales of his days at the Center. We learned to never get him started at our after-work watering hole. Having consumed three or four beers, you couldn't get him to shut up about one of the Alphabet Areas, Sector Whatever and all the planes he hustled into a couple of other busy terminals. The journeymen controllers politely pretended to listen but sometimes the smell of exaggeration could be overwhelming. Bored and unimpressed, they'd eventually just get up and leave.<br />
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Jon sat across from me, smiling. My rating was rolled up tightly in his fist. He sat tapping one end of it on the desk while explaining his philosophy about how a trainee's performance should be evaluated. Now, I had been at Big Time long enough to understand there were at least two ways a supervisor could approach a rating. One way was to let the appraisal accurately reflect the trainee's performance - good, bad or indifferent. Other supervisors subscribed to the idea that time on the job was more important than talent when it came to describing someone's performance. When Jon began talking about what nice work I was doing for my very first year at Big Time; I knew what side of the debate he came down on. Apparently I was moving in the right direction but neither up or down. Newton would have been puzzled. Jon finally unrolled the rating and placed it in front of me on the desk. <br />
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Perplexed, I listened to Jon and stared at each page as he thumbed his way through the document. It seemed to portray my performance as a middle ground somewhere between puss and porterhouse steak - not too bad but not so good either. He eventually summarized his monologue by saying that he expected I would do much better next year. Unfamiliar with the FAA's wily and weaseling ways, I was actually surprised and disappointed. No matter. I initialed where needed, put my signature next to Jon's then went home to think about it. After all, I was nothing but a damned trainee - an inferior subspecies of the Controller race. I couldn't possibly complain because it would sound too much like whining. Unwritten rule: Whine once and you're labeled a whiner forever. Even as a trainee I knew that much.<br />
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I came to work the next day; pretty much over the whole thing. My career would be a long one and there'd be lots more performance appraisals. When I came down from the tower for my lunch break; Rick called me over to his desk. I noticed he had my rating in front of him. Had Jon forgotten to document some glaring deficiency in my performance? I took a few deep breaths and sat down. Rick had read the rating and signed it. That's what a second line Supervisor does. He signed but not before discussing it with Jon. Apparently there was some disagreement between them over my actual performance but that Jon had refused to change the rating. He held that it needed to indicate some room for improvement or I'd never work any harder than I had been.<br />
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Rick didn't agree with the appraisal but told me that Jon would not make any changes. I remember being surprised that Rick, Jon's immediate Supervisor, couldn't compel him to make even the slightest alteration to make it fit me better. There was, however, an alternative. At the bottom of every performance appraisal form was a space where an Area Manager could make his or her own observations about the controller being rated. Rick took Jon's original copy and wrote a very nice paragraph or two about my performance; from his own perspective. He said it would actually carry more weight in the Regional Office than the views of a rookie Supervisor.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Idlewild Airport, now known as JFK.</td></tr>
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Rick had grown up as a controller at Idlewild Tower, eventually transferring to an enroute facility during the "shrimp boat" days. He did time at the Regional Office, where he learned all the things not to do as a Manager. He also made a lot of powerful friends along the way. Everyone respected Rick. We all knew he was one of the original building blocks of our profession and that his management philosophy was grounded in fairness.<br />
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Of course, Rick's endorsement would end up deepening the chill that had already settled in between me and Jon. Assuming I had complained about the rating, he grew into an even more annoying pain in my ass. Several were the times I thought of hiring some worldwide head removal service to rid me of Jon; even hoping there'd be a discount if the head was empty. The rating matter also created a rift between Jon and Rick - but it would all be short-lived.<br />
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Jon's aim was always a bit high. Upward mobility could eventually make him a Facility Manager somewhere. It could also get him out of the 'deep end' at Big Time, where he was in over his head and floundering. A few months later, he was selected for a job in the Regional Office. I'm sure he got Rick's highest recommendations for the job. Another unwritten rule of the day: Anyone with career ambition had to do a year or so at the "R. O." We all figured it took at least that long to lobotomize, brain-wash and reprogram any management candidate. In a few weeks; Jon was gone without fanfare. His memory gradually dissipated from the control rooms like a noxious odor.<br />
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Time passed. I earned my Facility Rating without Jon's bromidic guidance. One day we heard he had been selected to manage a fairly busy VFR tower in another part of the Region. Everyone shook their heads and silently wished the citizens of that tower all the best. Two years later, we got an update. Apparently Newton's Law had finally kicked in on Jon. He had been summarily removed from his Facility Manager position - something to do with falsified travel vouchers. I had to laugh.<br />
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One thing nearly everyone learned very early in their FAA career was to treat a travel voucher like it was your tax return. Several sets of eyes would review it, check receipts, do the math and maybe even approve it - as long as everything added up. Only an idiot would attempt to inflate expenses to obtain a bigger reimbursement. So, no one was surprised to learn that Jon had apparently done just that. He was quickly reassigned back to the R. O. where he'd remain, for years, under the watchful eye of the Division Manager. Too busy with my own career to care what happened next; I couldn't help but wonder how his performance appraisal looked that year. Like a mirror; it probably reflected his true performance rather than his years of service.<br />
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Mirrors and performance appraisals both have the ability to show us just how far we've come. Unfortunately, they can also reflect just how far we've gone. Jon had gone a little too far that year and it was entirely downward. Gravity had finally caught up with him.<br />
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Why would he do such a stupid thing? Who knows. Newton once said: <span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.”</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> Having lived long with my own madness; I believe him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">© NLA Factor, 2014</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-91078720183570083522014-01-27T07:12:00.000-05:002014-02-22T17:48:15.932-05:00Radar Love<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b>adio Detection And Ranging, known more affectionately as "Radar," appears to be going the way of dinosaurs and Dodos; replaced by a system of satellites that would deign to look down on the ever changing, challenging and, to me, charming world of aviation. Me and my radar always looked up to that world though. I guess we always will. </i><br />
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</i> <i><b><span style="font-size: large;">C</span></b>all it </i><i>progress, like the days when low frequency radio ranges (LFR) were being replaced by a network of VHF omnidirectional ranges. Sure; the VORs were far more precise but still a long leap of faith for airmen. </i><i>Or how about the first pilots to descend their planes into thick clouds and/or rain squalls while watching a couple little instruments on the console; ending up relieved and amazed, just 200 feet above the surface, with the runway in sight.</i><i> They all must have experienced the trepidation of change; as I would over the advent of "NextGen." Fickle though it was, I did love my radar. We worked a lot of planes together, moved millions of people and even saved some lives. We kept each other company during those long, tail-end hours of every mid-shift; when my frequencies were silent and radar's eye saw nothing but empty sky. There were a few brief separations but, as we know, the lack of something we love and rely on serves to intensify our desire for it.</i><i> I know this to be true and have the gray hairs to prove it. </i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b> remember the first radar PVD (plan view display) I ever laid my nineteen year old eyes on. It was inside a Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) radar trailer at the Air Force's Air Traffic Control School. Up till then, I'd never even heard of radar. Learning how to work airplanes from inside a GCA , using a relatively tiny PVD was tough enough when I had no idea what I was looking at. Even so; I felt a stirring of love at first sight. There was an allure to the ceaseless sweep of energy around the scope, the itty-bitty blips it revealed and the glow of the compass rose. Even the little back-lighted knobs used to adjust the display were pure magic to me. They were warm to the touch; like a woman's nipple. Maybe it was just the heat from all those circuits and such behind the radar display but they made me hot.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">U</span></b>nlike the fixed radar antenna you might see spinning at your local airport; GCA units were designed to be moved - sometimes frequently. They have wheels; which means they can be rolled onto an airplane or across the landscape, to end up along the runway of some far away airport. Whether it's a war zone or just another time zone; GCA units make it possible for military controllers to take their old friend Radar along whenever they have to travel.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">G</span>CA trailers can also be installed semi-permanently on a large turntable and rotated whenever the wind dictates a change in landing direction. Whether rolled or spun, the unit must be re-aligned whenever it is moved. At my Base, radar reflectors, which looked similar to satellite dishes, were mounted at each end of the runway. Whenever the unit was turned around, the display had to be re-calibrated to align perfectly with the reflector. Chances are the GCA might have shifted a little during the turn but that reflector was <i>always </i>in the same place. They were permanent echos, at a known range and azimuth. Alignment could be tricky but if you didn't do it correctly; the next precision radar approach you conducted could end up heading for the base housing area or worse. The Airman's Club, with all its cold beer, was out there somewhere.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b>rriving at Big Time Tower in the early Seventies, I had never seen an ASR-7 display. My first impression? It was huge; like looking at today's flat screen TVs compared to that little portable you once kept on the kitchen counter. And to deepen my love affair with radar; it had been adorned with some dazzling accessories like digital data-blocks that displayed, among other things, each aircraft's callsign, altitude and ground speed. Everything was all wired into a large antenna that spun continuously atop its tower between the runways. Altogether, it did a fine job of helping us guide our traffic into, out of and through Big Time's airspace. Well . . . most of the time anyway. As I said; radar could be fickle.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b>hose radar scopes needed a relatively dark room. Light, even a modest amount, would bleach out the display; making it nearly impossible to see what was happening. If you came into the TRACON and saw all the lights on; it was either very late at night, when the janitor did his cleaning, or the radar had failed. If the room was quiet, you could assume the former. Assume the latter if there was a lot of noise and commotion. No, the controllers wouldn't be the ones causing all the stir. It would be the shift management. One Supervisor might be talking to a departure sector at the center. "Do you see Lear five eight alfa, ten east of Big Time, leaving seven thousand?" The answer; "Yeah, he's radar. Climb him to twelve and switch him." Another Supe would be pumping one of the radar technicians for answers about what went wrong and how long it would take to fix. Above it all, the Area Manager would be terminating one discussion with the Regional Office and starting another with the Command Center. But how about the controllers? What happened during those first few minutes after the radar quit?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b>long each side of the radar room; controllers would sit at their now opaque radar scopes, intensely focused on finding a way out of the Hell that comes with sudden blindness. Just moments before; departure controllers would have been sorting out airplanes that burst off the airport like a fountain display, vectoring them toward their route of flight and handing them off to the enroute facility.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">N</span></b>ow the departures, stalled on ramps and taxiways, were stopped indefinitely. This was not the time to be in the tower working Ground Control. At times like this; you were liable to hear the dark side of a few otherwise affable and professional pilots who suddenly found themselves stranded; up a creek without a prognosis.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b>pproach controllers would have been tweaking their long lines of airplanes; merging, slowing and spacing whatever they had between the outer fixes and the outer marker. Most of their traffic would be in-trail and at the same altitude. Now, the flow of additional traffic from arrival fixes was stopped. Holding patterns were filling up. With a blind eye, approach controllers scrambled to gain some kind of "non-radar" separation between the planes already on vectors to the final approach course. That meant diverging courses, altitude changes for some or, if fortune smiled, visual separation. Anything to keep the planes apart.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">E</span></b>veryone was concentrating - trying to recall what the radar picture looked like in their sector just before it blinked out. At times like this; good flight strip management paid big dividends for controllers. It meant they could still tell who was following who, what altitudes the planes were cleared to, the last assigned speed restriction and maybe even the last assigned headings. Next to radio communications, our flight progress strips were the only other clue as to what was going on just before the radar died.<br />
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</b> <b><span style="font-size: large;">S</span></b>ome controllers were meticulous about their strip marking and could recover from radar loss fairly quickly. Some tried their best but would get so busy they'd forget to keep their strips updated. Like me; they relied heavily on their habits and past practices to fill in the blanks. For others; strips were merely a distraction that diverted their attention away from the traffic. They were the ones voted most likely to shake, sweat and swear when the radar stopped spinning. Even if the radar was running, problems could arise when it came time to relieve one of <i>those </i>guys. But if the radar was out? Inherit the sector and, for better or worse, you also inherit the outgoing controller's flight progress strips.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>M</b></span>y first unexpected radar failure occurred while I was working an arrival sector, in the middle of a moderately flurry of inbounds. My display flickered a few times then, just as radar's eye swept past the 'seven o'clock' position, it went dark. Everyone in the room gasped and studied their strips; hoping it was simply a 'blink' rather than an extended outage. I had seven or eight planes on vectors at the time but there were more coming. Fear, hope and despair kicked in immediately but there was no time to deal with it. I gave my traffic the bad news, advised them that radar contact had been lost then called my adjacent center sector to break the news. They'd have to hold whatever was headed my way. I climbed or descended some of my planes to get a little altitude separation then reached above the console to grab a copy of Big Time's non-radar "cheat sheet." This included a set of maps showing non-radar (pilot navigation) routes from our outer fixes to the approach in use, timed approach procedures, some unpublished holding patterns where we could hide a few airplanes till the dust settled and other information we couldn't remember due to its infrequent need. Everyone on the frequency got a new clearance limit, along with some detailed holding instructions, while we sorted this thing out. I may also have pooped myself but, through the miracle of selective memory, I prefer to forget certain things.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">I </span></b>felt as blind as the radar. With those 'first time' jitters rattling my self-confidence; I began to recall some radar failure horror stories the old timers used to tell around the camp fire - just to frighten us new campers. There was the one about the DC-9 in a holding pattern somewhere, who's pilot took a descent clearance intended for another flight. The plane ended up spiraling down through three or four holding altitudes occupied by other aircraft - in instrument conditions the whole way. Nobody else in the pattern saw or said a thing. The controller only realized there was a problem when the DC-9 reported reaching the altitude intended for another aircraft. Unfortunately, that aircraft <i>was not </i>supposed to be<i> </i>a DC-9. The descent clearance was <i>supposed </i>to be for a DC-8; which was still holding 1000 feet <i>above </i>the altitude now occupied by a death-defying DC-9 driver. Apparently there's some truth to the "Big Sky Theory."<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b>he other popular "scary story" involved a controller running timed approaches from a holding pattern at the outer marker. A light twin engine aircraft had been cleared for the approach and was now on the tower frequency. The next flight to be cleared was an air carrier. Somehow, as if by magic, the air carrier landed ahead of the light twin and without a scratch. I didn't know whether these stories were factual or simply ATC folklore but they haunted me just the same. Left groping for my traffic picture; I kept hoping the radar would come back for me. I loved my radar and was truly sorry for the times I'd cursed its infrequent foibles.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b>adar returned in about 45 minutes but we controllers learned long ago to not jump right back into a 'business as usual' operation. Traffic was resumed tentatively; as though we expected radar's recrudescence to be temporary - a sucker play. Our confidence in the system had to be regained before we could get back into the furious radar operation we used to move so much traffic with.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>M</b></span>ost controllers have been through an unexpected radar failure at least once in their career. Like sex; they probably remember that first time. But unlike sex; they hope it never happens again. It's just one of those things you do not want to repeat simply for a chance to improve your score.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">"We've got a thing that's called radar love.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">We've got a line in the sky, radar love."<br />Golden Earring - 1973 </span></span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">© NLA Factor, 2014</span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-44186779816031904872014-01-07T13:03:00.000-05:002014-02-10T10:04:47.879-05:00Fuels Rush In<h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">© NLA Factor, 2014</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-59326286391449571322013-12-24T06:52:00.001-05:002014-01-05T07:38:32.583-05:00Speed Reduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Any pilot who's flown into an airport where the arrivals are radar vectored to a final approach course would be familiar with the controller's use of speed control. It's ATC's tool of choice to keep one aircraft from overtaking another. Oh I know it's a hassle. You've got to start messing with power settings, flaps, the trim tabs and who knows what else. Sure; slowing up is a drag (unworthy pun) but if you don't, there could be a loss of required spacing between your trusty craft and the plane ahead. For the controller involved, that would mean paperwork, long reports and possibly a little remedial training. There's also that annoying wake turbulence thing. It could end up spilling the coffee all over your pre-landing checklist. So you slow. Either that or you could get a vector or two for spacing. Maybe a simple "S" turn will do. If not, the controller might ask you to sky-write another letter; the letter "O" - better known as a left or right "three-sixty." Stick, rudder and roll Cap'n.</i><br />
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<i>I've also been thinking about another kind of speed reduction that's common among controllers . . .</i><br />
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I began my career the way a cork ejects from a Champagne bottle; loud, messy, full of effervescence and fast. None of it lasted though. I learned that being loud isn't as effective as quiet determination. I found that air traffic control is about order (we try) and that "messy" is unacceptable. The youthful effervescence that thrust me into this career went flat over time. But how about the "fast" part? What happened to that?<br />
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At some point along the road to retirement, I began noticing how the FAA and ATC had their way of incrementally reducing my speed. Advancing age, accompanied by normal occupational wear and tear can do it. One too many bad days while working heavy traffic surely slowed me some but there would be more speed reductions ahead. The most significant one hit me when an overwhelming majority of the controller workforce left for a strike in 1981. It was energizing at first but eventually the 'drag' from all those 'flaps' that took place before, during and after "Poli's Charge" reduced me to near stall speed. Then came the years of "S" turning through different management positions and running in circles for the various egomaniacal potentates in our Regional Office. The day finally arrived when my on-the-job enthusiasm, having frequently accused me of arrant neglect, finally packed its bags and left. I never saw it again until I retired.<br />
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The first noticeable speed reduction came in the early Eighties, while I was still out in the traffic pattern somewhere; hoping to eventually land in a management position. That's when I was selected for a specialist job in the facility's Training Department. It might have put me closer to my goal but getting into staff work definitely reduced my speed in the control rooms. No surprise there. Working airplanes became secondary to writing lesson plans, teaching and testing trainees, going to meetings and doing other things that seemed important at the time. Whenever I tried keeping current in the operation, I could tell I was getting rusty in the radar room and a bit tentative in the tower. I was slowing up.<br />
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It can be a humbling and sometimes embarrassing experience. When I was working traffic full time with my team, we'd often become impatient when a staff guy came into the operation for an hour or two of proficiency time. They didn't do this stuff every day, so their controller reflexes began to suffer. They'd start lagging behind the tempo of things and could eventually become more of an impediment than an asset. Now I was suddenly that guy. I had other things on my mind, which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the currents that ran through the control room. Spending time working airplanes was putting me behind on my desk work deadlines but I had to do it. Those appearances in the control room were vital to maintaining some small modicum of credibility but they weren't enough to keep me proficient. This is the curse of any controller who takes a staff job.<br />
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I checked in with the Area Manager one afternoon; hoping to get a little radar time. He said I could relieve the Final controller. Great! Final was always one of my favorite positions. With lots of vectoring, altitude play and speed control in a relatively small sector; Final represented the pinnacle of the radar controller's art. It was a sector where you had two masters; the approach controllers (we'll count them as one) who expected you to keep taking their handoffs, no matter what. To that, add the Local controller in the tower who, based on weather, runway configurations and departure load, could dictate the arrival interval you provided. This was stated in terms of required miles in trail between landing flights. In theory, the specified arrival interval would provide the tower with enough space to get departures out between landings. Final was fast paced, challenging and almost like flying a dozen airplanes at once. But there was a small problem that day.<br />
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I should have checked the work schedule before leaving my desk because the team on duty included a guy named Richard. He was one controller I never liked much because of his frequent complaining. He was a good controller but there was a heavy price to pay for working with him. You had to listen to his bitching about everything and everyone; especially the staff people. As a loyal PATCO acolyte; Richard was naturally averse to anyone who, like me had "<i>sold out</i>" to management. He rarely had a good thing to say about anyone else either. Richard thrived on his sarcasm and mistrust. This was a guy who'd complain if he found a whole cashew nut in the can labeled "<i>Halves and Pieces</i>." Fortunately, Richard was never on <i>my </i>team - but he was on <i>this team</i>.<br />
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Crossing the TRACON, I saw that Eddie was signed on at the Final Sector. I plugged in my headset and we went through the position relief checklist. Visibility was good. The tower must not have had many departures to go because Eddie was jamming visual approaches in with his ILS traffic; handing the tower about three miles and decreasing between landing planes. The approach controllers were happy, which made the Center sectors that fed our arrival fixes happy. Big Time's mid-afternoon rush was running well. It looked like fun and I couldn't wait to get into the picture. I relieved Eddie and was quickly absorbed into the rhythm of turning, descending, slowing and clearing airplanes for the approach. I'd soon learn that Richard was working Local Control.<br />
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Traffic was still running pretty much as Eddie had left it. Approach controllers still had plenty of airplanes left and they kept them coming. When arrival demand is this high; the Final controller has to work fast. I took the planes, turned and tucked them onto the final as tightly as I dared; keeping pressure on the landing runway and hoping the tower wouldn't complain. So far, so good.<br />
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Along came one of those bad-ass Boeing 727s I loved so much. I took the handoff as it descended onto the tail end of my left downwind leg. The line of planes on final stretched out to the far limits of the sector, while more were filling up the right downwind. There was a turboprop commuter about a mile from the threshold, with a DC-9 about six miles behind and closing. My 727 had reported the field in sight and was just about abeam the landing runway. I saw an opportunity, took a few seconds to consider my plan, then went for it. Six miles was a nice sized gap that I could fill with that "three holer" (a term of endearment for the B-727, with its three engines on the tail) and I was going for it.<br />
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I gave the Boeing a turn to base leg, cleared 'em for the visual approach and asked that he keep it in tight. After exchanging traffic information between the 727 and the DC-9 (now approaching the outer marker), I switched him to the tower frequency. The DC-9 was maintaining visual separation but I kept it on my frequency for a moment - just in case. My Boeing rolled into a tight turn, lowered his landing gear and went into a free-fall toward the runway. Here was a pilot who clearly understood the controller's definition of a "short approach." Unfortunately, the DC-9 seemed to be closing the gap more quickly than I had anticipated. I asked the pilot if he could reduce speed any further. That's when I heard Richard's voice in my headset. All he said was; "It's not gonna work." He was right. By now, the 727 was rolling out on a one mile final and the DC-9 was closing the gap. There wouldn't be enough time for the three-holer to get to a taxiway before the 'nine' touched down. I had to get him out of there.<br />
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Think of your most treasured expletives. Chances are good I uttered them to myself at that moment. Oh, and if you don't have a treasured expletive, I can send you a starter kit.<br />
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Issuing a climb clearance to the 'nine,' I turned him back toward the downwind. The approach guys, now not so happy, went about the challenge of making extra room in their already nicely spaced traffic patterns. There were still several other planes in my sector looking forward to landing, which meant I didn't have time to dwell on how poor my judgement had been in trying to make that 'three holer' fit where it couldn't. Another jet I had vectored onto the localizer just moments before was approaching the outer marker. I issued an approach clearance and sent him over to the tower frequency.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Courtesy of my former associate Richard . . .</i></span></td></tr>
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I knew what had gone wrong. It was an error in judgment befitting any first-year radar trainee - but it was me. Those "few seconds" I wasted trying to decide whether to go for the gap or not was what cost the DC-9 another trip around the traffic pattern and more work for the arrival controllers.<br />
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With two airplanes heading toward each other, even though slightly offset (one on final and one on the downwind), you have to consider the rate of closure. My DC-9 was traveling at a ground speed of about 150 knots, while the B-727 was moving at 190 knots. That means they were closing on each other at a rate of about 340 knots. There was no time to deliberate - even for a "few seconds." I needed to see that gap coming, trust my judgment and go for it. Either that or decide just as quickly that it wouldn't work. My staff time was starting to show. I was beginning to slow and air traffic control is no place for that kind of speed reduction.<br />
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Knowing Richard's unvarying contempt for staff specialists; I was surprised that he didn't break my balls the next time we saw each other in the locker room. I guess he'd already achieved maximum mileage out of the incident with the other controllers in the tower that day. As for me; the reduction in speed of my analysis and decision making skills gave me pause to think. Such problems could lead me to<i> "paperwork, long reports and </i><i>and possibly a trip to the front office for a little remedial training."</i> Like a prodigal son, I was thinking I'd better get back home; home to working airplanes for a living. Conveniently, PATCO would soon show me the way.<br />
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<i>Unlike the movies; real life happy endings can be a long time coming. It took a while but this story eventually ended well. At one point, I was finally able to resume normal speed. That point was what I fondly refer to as "retirement." All previously imposed restrictions were canceled when I left the FAA. Now I can finally push my throttle fully forward and, for the first time in over 25 years, feel the wind in my hair. </i><br />
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<i>There are at least two pieces of good news for me in all that. I still have plenty of thrust left and I still have my hair. Life is good!</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-26981161905766246912013-12-05T07:33:00.002-05:002013-12-08T10:17:15.941-05:00The Persistence Of Memory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Those who've been following this Blog understand it's mostly about memories. In the beginning, I was afraid </i><i>I'd forget the many things that happened before I could capture them in print. </i><i>You know, </i><i>before too much</i><i> time passed. I now understand those memories are persistent, palpable and perpetual. They're always here with me. I can even feel them. </i><i>Salvador Dali illustrated it pretty well in his masterpiece "The Persistence of Memory." With apologies to Salvador, I flew an airplane into his painting because, to me, the memories of air traffic have a persistence all their own.</i><br />
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<i>Time, on the other hand, is of no real significance. It comes and goes; preceding each passing second and concurrently vanishing; leaving us with a "now" that is just too short to measure. Thankfully, it does leave those persistent </i><i>memories of ours behind; scattered across the panorama of our lives. </i><i> </i><br />
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</i>As to my life, it seems I spent most of it diligently winding clocks and watches, setting alarms or trying to correct the time if it was running fast or slow. According to the clock; I usually ended up being too early or too late anyway. It took a while but I finally figured out that I shouldn't even bother trying to set, sway, speed or slow the hands of time. The Universe calibrated my clock, then synchronized it to my life - and life isn't measured by hours and minutes. It's measured by events and those events always happen precisely when they're supposed to; which could be described as "right on time." I may never have believed my entire life happened on schedule - but it did. Take the early Seventies for example . . .<br />
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</i> Life was moving at the speed of continental drift since my departure from military service. My application for an ATC position, eagerly and optimistically submitted, had apparently vanished into some minor FAA functionary's file drawer. I found an odd assortment of menial jobs to keep me busy. If you're interested, they're described somewhere in the back end of this blog. The work kept me afloat financially but my spirit was being swamped by waves of anxiety. I knew it was crazy but whenever my travels took me past the local airport, I'd glare at the control tower, mutter a few expletives and shake my head. Frustration brought me to a point where I was seriously considering the idea of going back into the Air Force - just so I could work airplanes again. Looking back on life, I have to love that and every other mistake I almost made. <br />
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Living high on the extravagances that a minimum wage income allows, I moved into an affordable efficiency apartment on the north side of town. Although the classified ad called it an "efficiency," I referred to it as the "deficiency." There were so many deficiencies that I lost count half way through the list of health violations. Small, slightly smelly and unnecessarily outdated; it was the kind of apartment where police might one day discover 200 cats and a desiccated corpse. It was affordable though - as long as I stuck to my diet of deviled ham and bananas. I worked onward but could never quite reach my future.<br />
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Years passed. In the long run, the FAA did make me a job offer. Ironically, I had to think twice about accepting. By then, I'd worked myself into a pretty well paying and enjoyable job. I even had a better apartment! Going with the Feds would mean an initial (and substantial) decrease in pay. There was also a requisite relocation in the deal. The move would put me in an expensive metropolitan area that I couldn't possibly afford on a GS-7's salary. The offer was a "take it or leave it" deal though. I had one week to respond. That wasn't much time but it didn't really matter. My decision was preordained, so naturally I had to accept. There was simply no choice because, by the end of my Air Force career, air traffic control had become a vital organ that I couldn't live for long without.<br />
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I remember the subsequent months being a blur. The only time that mattered was my training time. Then, in nothing but an eight month <i>instant</i>, I found myself checked out through all tower positions and working on my radar certifications. Two years from that first foot in the door, I was fully certified at Big Time. Now that wasn't so hard, was it? Looking back, I'd say no. But back then? Looking ahead was intimidating. <br />
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It wasn't long before my first round of mids as a journeyman was scheduled. Trainees were always sent to the tower on mid shifts. But now, as a full performance controller, I could pull TRACON duty. Driving in to work, I knew what I would find when I got there. After all, I'd been home all evening, watching the lightning and listening to the din of heavy rain on the roof. I knew the crew on duty was dealing with a mess and that there'd be plenty left for me and my teammates to clean up when we arrived.<br />
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Mids, for me, usually began with a touch of circadian sleep disorder. Failing in my attempt to nap that afternoon, I would arrive at work a little out of sorts, off-balance and unshaven. By 10:45, traffic would normally be light and most of the radar sectors combined at two or three positions. Not tonight though. Walking into the TRACON I saw a Supervisor tearing strips off the printer and running them to the sectors. There were five still open and all were busy. Three of the evening shift guys would be held over for a couple hours to help us put a lid on the madness.<br />
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My mid shift teammate relieved both departure sectors and combined them into one. I was told to relieve the Final controller and let her go home. Airplanes that had been delayed at their departure points, some of them thousands of miles from Big Time, were only now beginning to show up at our arrival fixes. It was exciting. The approach controllers talked non-stop and their lines of planes stretched more than 40 miles from the airport. Radar vectors were flying in every direction. At least the bad weather had moved out and the field was VFR for the first time since that morning. After a brief consultation with the tower, I tried cutting some downwind traffic in tight on visual approaches. The first two worked nicely so I told the approach guys to start tightening up the arrival sequence. Everything was going well. The departure backlog was gone by 1:00 AM. Our holdovers from the evening shift left at 2:00 but the persistence of air traffic continued till after 3:00. The mid-shift Supervisor sat silently at his desk; counting strips, calculating the delays and catching up on log entries. In the ensuing years, there would be many more such mid shifts.<br />
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In sharp contrast with the FAA; I remember mid shifts in the Air Force being abnormally quiet. Still in the early stages of learning how impossible it was for me to sleep during the day; I'd lumber up the tower steps with my mid shift teammate, moving like a reanimated cadaver. Where I was stationed; most of the military air traffic was down for the night before 11:00 PM, so we'd be greeted by a bored looking NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) who'd dutifully mutter his way through a review of the tower's daily log. I would dutifully nod with feigned interest in what he was saying. He and his evening shift crew would then rush down the steps as though the fire alarm had just sounded. In a moment, my partner Vince and I would be left in the complete silence of an empty tower cab, overlooking an empty runway. It was on such a night that a most incredible thing happened. My memory of it hangs on like the melted clock on Dali's tree limb.<br />
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By 3:00 AM, each of us had pretty well covered what we knew of the latest Squadron gossip and were settling into our chairs, feet up on the console, for a little quiet time (sleep). A light appeared across the airfield, just above the the horizon. It was moving slowly in a northerly direction; almost parallel to the runway and definitely inside our Control Zone. Certain it was a plane without a working transmitter; we simultaneously hailed it on both UHF and VHF emergency frequencies while signaling "Cleared to land" with the tower's light gun. As the craft continued north, we could see there were actually several lights glimmering; like the windows of an airliner's fuselage. But unlike the lights of an aircraft, these were indistinct; almost ethereal. They glowed like pale blue neon.<br />
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Curious about any sound this thing might be making, Vince dashed down the first flight of steps and out onto the catwalk. I called the radar unit. Did they see a target just Northeast of the field and moving North? I expected a wise-ass comment about flying saucers in the traffic pattern and I wasn't disappointed. Of course, the radar guys saw nothing on their scopes. After listening to the requisite dose of sarcasm and good-natured ridicule; I was told to leave them the hell alone and go back to sleep. Vince returned to report the night outside was as quiet as a crypt. None of the jet or propeller noise we were used to hearing. Nothing. The strange lights soon vanished over the northern horizon.<br />
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Me and Vince had an odd feeling about what had just happened. I picked up a phone and dialed the Watch Desk at our local Center. I was afraid that telling this story to anyone else was a mistake but decided it was worth the risk for a chance to have it corroborated. The Supervisor, clearly much older and vastly more experienced than me, listened to my story. I could tell he was writing things down and figured he was making notes for a future discussion with our Squadron Commander. I'd be in trouble for sure. But no. He said my description of the object, its low altitude, slow speed and direction of flight matched reports some of his controllers had received from pilots flying across the region. Several people claimed to have spotted it but no one ever saw a radar image. <br />
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I remember watching the sunrise that morning, making a fresh pot of coffee for the day shift crew and talking to Vince about what we should do. The Air Force had a reporting program in place at the time. Named "Project Blue Book," it was a way of officially documenting what <i>may </i>have been a UFO sighting. Vince and I concluded there would be<i> no report</i> and no further mention of the incident to anyone; especially the incoming day shift guys. Along with the wry ribbing, we'd likely be labeled as lunatics by the Squadron brass; thus hobbling our chances of ever seeing another promotion. It was decided that what we saw that night must surely have been a weather balloon or another of those spontaneous outbreaks of swamp gas. We just left the tower, lingered over breakfast then moved on to the first open bar we could find. By the third round of beers, we were ready to admit what we'd really seen - but only to each other.<br />
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Another mid shift sticks in my memory - one clear and very cold night in the 1970s. A Center controller's urgent sounding voice came across the handoff line. "<i>Hey Big Time, you talking to that guy twenty east of MALYN squawking 4543 at eleven thousand?</i>" It was nearly 5:00 AM and for the last hour or so I'd only been talking to myself. I saw the target he referred to though, so I pushed the handoff line button and responded. The center controller said he'd been working the plane, a Piper Navajo, for the last 45 minutes but had recently lost radio contact. It was also way off it's planned route, now about 70 miles off course and headed toward some very unfriendly terrain. After checking with the other sectors, it was clear the pilot wasn't talking to anyone at the Center. The controller was now calling all towers and approach controls along the aircraft's flight path. It seemed no one was talking to the Navajo, which was still holding its last assigned altitude of eleven thousand feet. The situation would change but as we know; change isn't always a good thing.<br />
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I called the tower and, between us, we transmitted on every frequency we had. No joy. The plane flew on and soon left my radar coverage. It wasn't till nearly 7:00 AM that the Center sector called and told me the plane eventually began losing altitude then vanished from his radar screen. Wreckage was never found and we were left with our theories about what happened. The most plausible one was that the pilot had dozed off - his plane eventually running out of fuel. With luck, he died in his sleep. This incident lodged itself in my memory like a fishhook and became a shot of adrenalin whenever I felt myself getting sleepy on mid-shifts or long drives.<br />
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I have so many many memories; some good and others, well, not so good. They don't go away though. They accumulate over a long career and, like my old record collection, become disorganized and eventually take up a lot of space. I've put some of them away in storage but still retrieve them now and then for my own enjoyment. In a way, memories are a lot like my old records. They can both be played over and over again. Someone or something just needs to push the right buttons. Case in point; I recently discovered one of my old teammates from the Big Time days, on a social media site. That pushed some long unused buttons and the memories started playing immediately. Like me; this guy was brutally insane in those days. We shared secrets and experienced many control room tantrums, terrors and temptations together. The memories of them persist, even after all this time. <br />
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<i>Time passes. I don't even care where it goes. It takes nothing of mine when it leaves but it leaves me with plenty. Those persistent memories; they stay like my skin color. I don't know exactly where each one is at the moment but, like my old Big Time buddy, I'll eventually find them again. </i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-75866441184301123632013-10-24T09:31:00.002-04:002013-12-09T20:30:40.316-05:00Trouble Ahead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-8998885979926347062013-09-08T08:44:00.000-04:002013-09-08T18:22:56.973-04:00Viewing Life Through A Skylight<i>I recently drove to a little town, several state lines away from home, for a distant cousin's wedding. Apparently I just wasn't clever enough to figure a way out of it. So, after seven or eight hours on the road, I was unpacking the car in a part of the country I hadn't seen in decades. Returning to that area and surveying the familiar southern countryside was somehow comforting. It still seemed to fit me as well as my old Air Force fatigue jacket. </i><br />
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<i>And speaking of fatigue - I was exhausted from driving all day. The road left me smelling a little like fast food fryer grease and a lot like a high school locker room. I opened the door to my hotel room, dropped the bags on a chair then stretched out across the bed; putting myself to sleep by recalling some of the many memories made nearby - over 45 years ago. They were still fresh as snowflakes and nearly as numerous. Early the next morning, one of them joined me for coffee.</i><br />
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I was sitting on a bench outside the hotel lobby, chatting with another guest, when a sudden, thunderous blast literally stopped our conversation mid-sentence. It was a familiar sound to me, almost like what you'd get by putting a couple bowling balls in the dryer to tumble a while. I listened; smiling inside at something I had not heard in decades. Back then, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it but on this warm, sunny morning, it was like hearing a song that was number one on the charts when I enlisted. It was a blast from my past.<br />
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Looking up when I heard an airplane was a reflex acquired through the years but there was nothing to see beyond a hazy morning sky. Still, the unmistakable sound persisted. My fellow early riser looked puzzled. Not me though. I recognized the sound as that of a jet fighter's afterburners - ripping through the serene morning air and echoing off every building between me and the airport. I could even feel the bench vibrating.<br />
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I wondered what the rest of this small, southern town though of the noise. There was no military base here - only a civil airport that hosted a dozen or so commercial flights each day. Still, a fighter jet had clearly come calling.<br />
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The noise evoked memories of the first time I watched a flight of F-100 "Super Sabers" taking off. It was at an Air Force Base about 75 miles from here. Flame from their after burners was immediately visible. Then, about a second later, the sound reached us in the tower and rattled the windows. It was deafening - even from behind all that glass. The jets rolled forward, slowly at first but rapidly gaining speed as those Pratt & Whitney engines inhaled the cool morning air and exhaled pure fire and thrust. Pilots referred to F-100s by their nickname; "Huns." The planes were also known, less fondly, as "lead sleds." This term was a wry reference to their engine-out glide ratio which, according to them, was slightly better than an anvil, dropped from 28,000 feet. </div>
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In those days there was very little wear on my Air Force uniform and just one stripe on the sleeves. I'd only had the uniform since checking into basic training a few months earlier. Now, fresh out of tech school, I was beginning my career as an Air Force air traffic controller. It was incredible! Assigned to the tower, I worked with several other new recruits and a few senior enlisted men. Some of them had already been to Vietnam at least once. Their professional wisdom, wardship and war stories quickly made me realize this was no ordinary career field I'd gotten into. It was a career that would catapult me across several decades and land me here in this sultry southern town.</div>
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As I climbed the tower steps toward my first day in an Air Force air traffic control facility, my pulse rate climbed along with me. It wasn't so much from the exercise but from the increasing weight of insecurity and anxiety over what awaited me. There were three airmen working the control positions and one sergeant watching everything from the center of the cab. His name was Dunton and he seemed to have an angry expression on his face. I soon learned that was the way he always looked. It was rumored to be the after-effect of something that happened while he was stationed at Da Nang but Dunton never talked about it.<br />
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I scanned my new world. Below me, the ramp was crowded with jet fighters, transient cargo planes and a handful of helicopters. There were several planes in the traffic pattern and a couple more waiting to go. The atmosphere was nothing like I expected. Tech school left me believing controllers heard one voice at a time and made their uninterrupted response. The reality I had just climbed into was a cacophony of overlapping voices. Everyone worked with hand-held microphones rather than headsets. Each control position had its own speakers; one for each frequency they used. Even calls from the radar unit blared from speakers mounted in the consoles.<br />
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Across the airfield, an F-4's left wing dipped slightly just before touching down. It rolled about two thousand feet down the runway then lifted off again. Two of the 'Huns' began taxiing into takeoff position as another pilot called the tower from somewhere in the traffic pattern, I had no idea what was going on but, like other 'first time' experiences, it was memorable. Everyone in the cab was looking in different directions and talking. I stood in the back and took it all in. It seemed no one knew I was there; not even the angry looking sergeant. I was '<i>there</i>' though and would be <i>there </i>for nearly 35 years.<br />
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I recognized Jimmy; one of the guys from my barracks. He was working the Ground Control position. Jimmy turned, gave me a smile of recognition and was about to say something when a flight of four on the ramp called ready to taxi. He turned and looked at me, held his mic out and said; "<i>Do you want to give 'em taxi instructions?</i>" I stared at his outstretched hand like it was a rattlesnake. Talk to a real airplane? I could already feel the rush of panic setting in. This was not tech school and these were not other students posing as pilots. They were real pilots seated in real airplanes and they were waiting for instructions. My throat was closing up. Talk? I couldn't even swallow. In an instant, everything they'd taught me back at Keesler was gone.<span style="background-color: white;"> I took the microphone, along with </span><span style="background-color: white;">a very deep breath, and stammered through my first transmission. Dunton looked down at the floor and slowly shook his head. Jimmy grinned as the four jets began moving off the ramp in tandem. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Moments later, I learned another lesson about ATC that no one ever mentioned in Tech School. Controllers will witness things they may never be able to forget. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Standing to my left, the Local controller was responding to a call from a flight of F-100s. The tone and tempo of his voice changed abruptly. Moments earlier, they had checked in on a long 'initial' (explained below). They appeared as specks in the sky, some 10 miles from the runway and were instructed to "<i>Report break</i>." A few seconds later I heard one of them exclaim that his engine had just flamed out. Far too low to attempt an air start, the flight leader told his wing man to eject. The reply was that he thought he could glide his plane straight to the runway. "<i>Negative! Eject, eject!</i>" The flight leader's voice smacked of urgency. Both jets were clearly visible now. One was much lower than the other and was descending fairly rapidly. Every eye in the tower was fixed on it. I had no idea what would happen next but noticed Sergeant Dunton lunge toward a red phone on the console. He looked like he'd just bitten his tongue. I saw the plane's cockpit canopy tumble off into the sky, followed by an ejection seat. By the time its parachute deployed, the F-100 had disappeared below a distant treeline. No smoke, no fire; just a plume of dust about two miles from the runway. Above it all, a parachute settled slowly toward the ground; its cargo swinging gracefully below. Everything happened within a minute. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">An HH-43 Huskie helicopter, callsign "<i>Pedro One</i>," was soon airborne and heading toward the crash scene. I listened as the flight leader directed "Pedro" to the spot where his wing man had come down. Maybe 15 minutes later, the 'copter called for clearance to the base hospital. I watched it dart across the airfield; knowing they had the luckless pilot on board. It wasn't until the following day that we learned he'd died from injuries incurred during the ejection. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Learning I had seen the last moments of this guy's life had a profound effect on me. I couldn't erase the voice that said he could make it to the runway. I couldn't forget the sight of his parachute against the powder blue sky. I was a kid in a grownup's world and had never been exposed to sudden tragedy. There would be more in the ensuing years but the first one made an indelible mark on my memory.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Looking around, I realized I'd spent 18 years knowing nothing of what was going on in the world around me. Even worse was that, at 19, I still didn't. It was as though I'd been viewing life through a small skylight - a sliver of reality where things moved across my narrow field of vision on their way to unseen and completely unimagined horizons. Who knows? An airplane might even have flown by. If so, I'm sure it was going somewhere. But me? I'd been going nowhere. My life, to date, had been self-centered, cloistered and meaningless. So much was happening in the world that I might never have experienced. That was changing though. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><i>Lost in the good old daze, I hadn't even noticed the guy I'd been talking to was gone. So was the sound of those afterburners; just as 'gone' as those long gone, guileless days of my life. </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">"Three-Sixty Overhead" approaches are mainly used by the military. The aircraft makes its "initial ' approach to the runway, at least five miles out, remaining at traffic pattern altitude until over the threshold. At that point, the plane "breaks" left or right, beginning a 360 degree descending turn toward the runway. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-77527199925289244212013-07-12T08:24:00.001-04:002013-12-18T03:29:53.895-05:00To Square One And Back<i>High school left me with very little education and a whole lot of bad memories. When the time came, I hurried through my graduation ceremony then ran off to find the most menial and low paying job a substandard grade average might qualify me for. I got lucky! The job I landed not only met my servility standards and apparent desire for a pitiable pay scale; it was also pretty disgusting work. So this was it; square one of my working life. </i><br />
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<i>Something happened though. After a few months I began to realize that "disgusting" wasn't as satisfying as it's reputed to be. Quite the opposite. Thus, the arrival of my Pre-induction Notice from the Draft Board actually came as a welcome relief. With my usual low expectations in tow, I traipsed off in search of the nearest Air Force Recruiter.</i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Volunteer day at Barber's College? Nope.</td></tr>
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A few months later, on a sweltering Spring afternoon, I stepped off a bus at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I couldn't know at the time but Basic Training would be the prelude to my rebirth from callow youth to air traffic controller.<br />
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Within the first 24 hours, we were required to memorize our eight-digit service number. If you don't know; this is the military's "personal identification number." It gets stamped into every GI's dog tags, so that anyone could figure out who we were - just in case we were unable to say. But memorizing numbers was no easy task for a guy who'd eventually have to quickly memorize a traffic pattern sized dose of tactical callsigns and aircraft registration numbers.<br />
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Everybody got the haircut. Then, after the issuing of uniforms, we all began sweating our way through the ensuing weeks of verbal abuse, physical training, close order drill, shooting at things and other stuff contrived to make us appear almost military. But we were still just kids; only now with guns and no hair.<br />
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Somewhere along the way, we were all asked to pick from a list of jobs we'd like to spend the next four years doing. I wondered which one required the least amount of skill - like, for example, shaving the heads of basic trainees. I studied the list methodically, as though I actually understood what I was looking at, while never really correlating my eventual choice with a post-military career or its earning potential. As I saw it, being asked to choose a job was like asking me to choose which color of bus I'd like to drive over a cliff. It simply didn't matter. I just knew the end result would be the same - a long fall onto the rocks. Bewildered, I finally settled on ATC, although I had no inkling as to what the job entailed. It didn't sound too disgusting though. In fact, it sounded interesting.<br />
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After selecting the career we hoped to get and after working through a series of aptitude tests and interviews; someone would make a decision on our fate. There were no guarantees. Assignments were based mainly on the needs of the Air Force.<br />
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Basic training plodded along. Then, in the final few days before leaving Lackland, our big moment came. All graduating Airmen were marched into an auditorium, where a sergeant stood holding a clipboard full of papers. As names were called, someone in the crowd would yell "Here!" and the sergeant barked out their next duty assignment. His papers were arranged alphabetically, so I had time to appreciate the queasiness in my stomach. I watched him flip through them, one by one, never looking up. Finally, in his very military, staccato voice; "Factor! Air Traffic Control - Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi!"<br />
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The sense of elation I felt at that moment was misguided and premature. There'd be trouble ahead, and plenty of it. Nonetheless, here I was; about to begin my Air Traffic Control technical training. Here I was; about to land on square one again.<br />
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Biloxi in those days was a sad looking town; worn away by years of Gulf hurricanes and off duty GIs. Not originally from the deep South, I didn't know what to make of it. I was now in a place where black folks stepped off the sidewalk to let me pass - neither of us ever making eye contact. It was a place where nearly every bar in town was on the Base's list of off-limits establishments. Everyone carried that list because off-limits establishments were the only bright spots in a Biloxi night. The beaches were the only bright spots during daylight hours; when you could appreciate how dreary the town looked. Littered with broken glass and the aluminum pull tabs from countless beer cans, you either wore flip-flops on your feet or you wore bandages. The only other places to be were in the barracks or attending class. But that was no fun.<br />
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When I arrived in Biloxi, our involvement in the Vietnam War was on the upswing. The Air Force needed lots of air traffic controllers. In response, Keesler ran the ATC school in three shifts. Mine was the 6:00 PM till midnight shift. At the appointed time, my class would meet up in front of our barracks and march across the airfield to a converted hanger that housed the classrooms. There were several courses; each one lasting about a week and acquainting us with certain aspects of the job. As I recall, the first block was titled "Weather." From there, we went through instructional blocks on aircraft recognition and flight characteristics, Federal Air Regulations, Airport Traffic Control, Mobile radar units (known as GCA Units) and Approach Control. I may have forgotten some but it's been a lot of years since then.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GCA Units at ATC School, Keesler AFB</td></tr>
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One day, sometime around my fourth week of class, the trouble caught up with me. I was called into the lead instructor's office. My grades were a perfect reflection of my off duty activities, which never included studying. That's because one of my barracks buddies had a car and <i>that car </i>was our means of touring the off-limits bars after class. We had to be careful though. Bed check occurred around 1:30 AM. So, after some guy with a flashlight came around and peeked into our rooms, we all tiptoed out of the barracks, met up at the car and headed for town. I should have noticed my ATC career disappearing in the rear view mirror of that big Chevy Impala but was always too caught up in the excitement of what might happen next.<br />
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The lead instructor was a chubby, red faced Tech Sergeant who didn't look much older than I was. He could turn a phrase though; describing a sad mental picture of my future. It was a bleak picture that included failure and peremptory reassignment to one of the Air Force's more servile and, very likely, disgusting jobs. There, I'd serve out the remainder of my enlistment with no hope of promotion. In other words; back to square one again.<br />
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I had indeed driven the bus over a cliff. Or maybe I was the second steer in line at a slaughterhouse and suddenly realized I was about to become dead meat. I gulped, groveled and grew penitent. I pleaded and promised. For an 18 year old kid with low self-esteem, very little sense of responsibility and no vision for the future, the threat of a long fall from a short career was just what I needed. Staring, once again, into the face of failure was a strong motivator. I went back to my barracks and began studying for the next test; knowing I wouldn't be seeing much more of my drinking buddies and even less of those buxom Biloxi barflies. I wouldn't be seeing much more of those nauseating, daily hangovers either.<br />
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Graduation from ATC school brought more anxiety.Where to next? Vietnam? I wondered; would they send a controller with no actual ATC experience to Vietnam? Then I realized that most of the people over there, the ones pulling triggers and dropping bombs, had no prior experience either.<br />
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Marched into another auditorium with another hard-assed sergeant holding a clipboard, I was about to get an answer. Wherever I ended up; I would arrive there as a new kid, with only a superficial understanding of what air traffic control was all about. I knew I'd be working in a real control tower though, with a crew of real controllers. Everyone would watch me carefully, train me candidly and eventually evaluate my fitness for the work. On the day I picked ATC off the Air Force jobs list, I had no idea what I was getting into - but things were a little different now. Now, at least I was smart enough to know how little I knew. I had also passed the ATC course; a fact that boosted my self-confidence level from zero-sum up to <i>some</i>. This would be another beginning for me; another step back to square one and another step in my long adventure.<br />
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I've since made a lot of trips to square one and back. By now, I know the way without some guy with a clipboard shouting orders. Just don't ask me for directions. Eventually, we all find our own way.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-83120855784301757372013-04-15T10:47:00.001-04:002013-04-15T10:49:40.599-04:00How To Raise Hair On A Controller <i>Learning to trust others takes time and can be difficult. I don't understand all the dynamics of how trust happens but I'm sure it's one of life's building blocks. I also know that trust is a requisite resource that controllers must be able to draw from if they're going to succeed. They need to develop a trusting relationship with coworkers pretty quickly because there are too many obstacles in the business that cannot be overcome individually. It's never long before you need help from someone you can count on. </i><br />
<i><br /></i><i>Apparently, learning to trust one's self is an even lengthier and more complicated process. In some cases, it might take a lifetime. It is, however, an essential tool of the controller's trade. Call it self confidence if you like but I'll tell you this. If you can figure out where it's being dished up and are planning on becoming a controller; you'd better go back for a second helping. Thinking about all this reminded me of a particular evening shift I worked long ago . . . </i><br />
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I never knew a fat FAA Supervisor. Watching our TRACON Supe that evening, you'd understand why. He was a man in perpetual motion, burning his calories and shoe leather at a steady rate. He'd spent the last 90 minutes or more pacing back and forth behind the Arrival Sectors, leaning over shoulders to point at specific targets on their radar displays then rushing off to consult with the guy working Final Control. Periodically, he'd sprint up to the Area Manager's desk to report on our arrival delay status. It was only about two hours into our shift and several team members were already exhausted. I don't know . . . maybe they were worn out when they signed in for this, our third evening shift. One of the two main arrival runways had been closed for weeks due to a re-paving project. All the landing planes were being funneled onto one runway instead of the usual two or three. They say good things don't come easy. In these conditions, neither do the airplanes.<br />
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The day shift crew looked worn out when we got here. Holding patterns began filling up around noon and some mildly IFR weather meant the small, propeller-driven planes that normally landed on a shorter VFR runway had to share the same instrument approach the big guys were using. It gets tricky. Put a DC-10 behind a Cessna Skymaster (we called the "suck and blow Cessna" because of its front and back propellers) on the ILS and you'll need to start off with about ten miles of spacing if you hope to maintain legal separation till it touches down. You have to make it work. Tell the Cessna they're being followed by a DC-10. Ask them to keep their speed up as much as feasible. Ask them to land long so as to reach the first exit taxiway quickly. Then ask the jet to reduce to, ohh, maybe stall speed? Well, something close to it anyway. Rinse and repeat over the course of eight hours and its easy to see why the morning crew was beat. Now it was our turn.<br />
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When my carpool buddies and me walked into the TRACON, somebody told me to relieve Departure Control. That was a good way to ease into what would probably be a crazy eight hours or so. There weren't a lot of planes waiting to go because many of our future departures were still hung up in holding patterns. I watched the approach sectors. Because of mounting arrival delays, the tower supervisor had given Final Control carte blanche to run traffic as tight as he could.<br />
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The early part of the shift was going as well as any of us could expect for prevailing conditions. I turned another departure over to the Center, sat back in my chair and admired the Final controller's artistry. He was jamming planes into the airport like a madman. Miles away, other flights were slipping out the bottom of their holding patterns and banking toward the downwind leg. Everyone else in the stack was dropped down a thousand feet and the Center would clear another one into the top of the pattern. You could have set the whole thing to music.<br />
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I was relieved from Departure Control after a couple of hours and went off to the break room for coffee. On return to the radar room, Pete told me to relieve Tommy on the East Arrival Sector. It looked like I'd finally have to do some work.<br />
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It was getting dark outside. I imagined the airfield lighting was being turned on and the tower crew would see all the orange "Caution" lights blinking along the closed runway. Big Time's East Arrival fix was always pretty active. There were several planes on vectors toward the Final Sector and the holding pattern was stacked and spinning. Tommy had it all under his thumb but, as usual, was working without a handoff man. There were handoff positions next to all the radar sectors but rarely enough controllers around to staff them. A good handoff controller could monitor the radar sector, mark strips and handle most of the coordination between sectors and other facilities. This relieved the radar controller from a lot of workload and potentially dangerous distractions. I listened carefully to the position relief briefing; scanning the flight strips to see who was holding at what altitude. Everything matched what Tommy was saying to me, so I settled in and started working the sector.<br />
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Everything looked good. Final had taken the first two handoffs and in a moment, I would flash the next flight at him. I had laddered all the planes in my holding pattern down a thousand feet and was just waiting for the floor Supervisor to tell me how many more I could run toward Final. The number would be based on how many flights the other Arrival Sectors had off their holding fixes, how many planes the Final controller was already working and how the spacing on final was looking. The Supe would figure it all out. Working traffic during these extended holding periods wasn't really so tough as long as everyone stayed on top of things. After a while, you kinda fell into the rhythm of it. This evening; it was all good!<br />
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Actually, it was more like cruising down the Interstate, car radio howling rock and roll music, and never noticing that huge pothole up ahead until you found yourself standing along the roadside, staring at a broken axle.<br />
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I had cleared a foreign air carrier (Lets call it "Air Anywhere.") to the next lower altitude in the holding pattern and was waiting for the pilot to report reaching that altitude. While waiting, I revised a few other flight's 'Expect Further Clearance' times, issued a couple vectors, a speed reduction, then switched a plane over to the Final controller. I watched the other arrival sectors to see how many planes they had off their holding fixes. Air Anywhere reported reaching his assigned altitude so I started another plane down to the altitude he'd just vacated. A short time later, Air Anywhere transmits. "Uhh, Big Time, you have another flight holding at our altitude?" Well uhh . . . not as a rule.<br />
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My mind raced. This was one of those "heart in the throat" moments. I tried to wash it down by re-checking my strip marking on the flights still holding. Strips looked good. I turned on the alphanumeric data blocks associated with the holding flights. These were often turned off during extensive holding scenarios because all the overlapping data was impossible to read. I asked the next lower flight to "verify level at" whatever altitude they had been cleared to. All the while, I was considering what to do next. If there were two flights at one altitude, I couldn't very well climb or descend one of them. They were sandwiched in by other planes holding above and below. Perhaps I could assign an exit vector to Air Anywhere to get him the hell out of the pattern? All this happened within five seconds after his last transmission.<br />
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I keyed my radio. "No sir." It was all there was to say but I could hardly hear the sound of my own voice for the pounding in my eardrums. His reply - "We see landing lights coming toward us." Yes, the flight holding directly above him was indeed turning inbound, about ten miles away - just as Air Anywhere turned outbound. Dark skies, a few clouds, an optical illusion and, next thing you know, a coronary occlusion! I told the guy he was looking at opposite direction traffic a thousand feet higher. "Okay Big Time" he replied.<br />
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I really should have gotten over this as quickly as it happened but I couldn't. It rattled me. Thank goodness there were too many other things to do at the moment, leaving no time to brood over this. But later, in the break room, while pretending to read a magazine, I began thinking about the level of trust I had in myself. I thought it was pretty high. My strip marking was nearly always up to date and I made sure I got a pilot readback of any new altitude assignment. Still, I had to concede this holding pattern thing hit me with some serious, albeit momentary, self-doubt. For an instant, I was actually ready to believe I had two planes holding at the same altitude! I'll tell you - that's a hair raising experience for any controller!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-69947944407309157652013-03-18T16:21:00.000-04:002013-03-18T16:21:22.592-04:00A Slow RecoveryIn the years following the PATCO strike, FAA hired some interesting people to help us out with recovery efforts. Some were great! Others - not so much.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-46397853502143085892013-02-15T15:29:00.000-05:002013-03-18T16:06:58.361-04:00Going Home ~ The Best Way<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>Once upon a time, way back before Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii, Pliny the Elder wrote that "Home is where the heart is." More recently, Thomas Wolfe qualified old Pliny's wisdom when he wrote "You Can't Go Home Again." True enough ~ especially if you lived in Pompeii. What I get from these two guys is that you can't always follow your heart; even if it's heading home.</i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Sunrise" By <a href="http://www.stevenkenny.com/Steven_Kenny.html">Steven Kenny</a> - 2005</span></td></tr>
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Many of us have that special dream every now and then. It's a colorful, hopeful dream and it leaves us believing, even just briefly, that we are capable of accomplishing something impossible, or at least highly improbable. Perhaps we dream of a return to something that still shines brightly in some seldom visited corner of our memory. In that dream we soar across time - toward a day long past. Maybe it existed years or even decades ago. Maybe it never really existed at all. Dreams, like recollections, can be inventive, you know ~ and very kind to the past. In time though, most dreams become like badly spliced scraps of faded film footage; void of color or continuity. They gradually decay into monochromatic images that eventually vanish completely. But not always.<br />
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I've been having one of those improbable dreams since my retirement. They're becoming less frequent and more confusing as years pass but the basic theme is always the same. In the dream I'm back at Big Time, standing in the TRACON. It looks much the same as when I left and I also see many familiar faces. They look exactly as they did when I last saw them so many years ago. That's the comforting part. I stand and watch the controllers working. There are so many damned airplanes. I think to myself how much busier it's become since I worked there. Then I realize I'm there to enter training and get re-certified. Knowing there's no way I can do it, I'm overcome with dread. Thankfully, that's when I wake up. It's craziness, I know, but it won't go away. I guess the memories of a long, adventurous career, with its schemes and scares, schisms and scandals, scuffles and scars, are still too vivid to forget. They keep calling me back.<br />
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By the mid-eighties, half burned out by the strike recovery, I had already taken a couple of small steps away from full-time air traffic control. There were the unhurried years working in Big Time's Training Department followed, in time, by fast moving years spent as a First Line Supervisor. In each case, the work was challenging, satisfying and good for the career. But one of the best things about those jobs was being able to go back. I could return to the tower or radar room with my headset in hand. There, I'd still be able to go home to a world that few others could ever imagine. I needed to keep at least one foot in that world. It was the foundation of my career aspirations, the essence of my identity and it was home.<br />
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Then along came the infernal Area Manager (AM) years. I was still physically 'home' in the control rooms but it was like eavesdropping on family members from another room. It was as though a door had closed. Gone was the requirement to stay current on control positions. The luxury of only having to concentrate on the fast moving madness of air traffic was gone too. As an 'AM' my workday was fragmented into dozens of vastly different tasks punctuated by an occasional exigency in the front office. At first, I tried to keep current on a few radar sectors so I could at least relieve the Supervisors for meal breaks, etc. Other demands eventually rendered those altruistic aspirations impossible. In time, my workday evolved into a sausage mix of tasks that, by day's end, I couldn't even identify. I often thought of Pete; the battle hardened Area Manager of my early controller years. He always made it look easy and, in a way, it was. That's because Pete was among the few people remaining in this profession who's roots were connected to another time.<br />
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Prior to the '81 strike, the FAA seemed a more close-knit organization. Back in the late Fifties, Pete had actually worked airplanes with the guy who, by the mid Seventies, had become our Facility Chief. Pete knew most of the people he talked to or yelled at on the phones. The Chief knew nearly everyone he had to deal with in the Regional Office. They'd all entered service during the Eisenhower Administration, worked the first jet airliners, drank together and kept each other's secrets. Some had even joined the fledgling PATCO before entering into Management. Their value system was chiseled in stone, their work ethic exhausting and their sense of loyalty to one another was as unquestionable as gravity.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Talkin' bout my generation." - </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Who</span></td></tr>
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Those of us lucky enough to be recruited in the early Seventies were strongly influenced by those guys. At Big Time, they started retiring three or four years before the strike; most of them exhausted, disillusioned and ready to leave home. They'd already endured earlier job actions. Now they could see another one brewing and didn't want to deal with it. I couldn't blame them. Some stayed on though and were still around in the Summer of '81. A few of them were loyal PATCO janizaries who were actually eligible to retire within months of the strike. In spite of the pleading by some of their former friends in upper Management, they went out; betting their retirement benefits and the future of their families on a successful job action. They lost everything except the camaraderie of their fellow strikers. The few 'old timers' who remained hung on for a couple more years but it was easy to see they were losing their edge.<br />
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Many controllers hired after the strike had little patience for their professional predecessors ~ or me for that matter. They were a solipsistic mix of inexperience, impatience and intolerance. They thought they knew it all and had their college <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">degre</span>es to prove it. The older guys couldn't relate to them. With unmistakable annoyance, they trained their younger <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">protégés</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span>under a more liberal and less effective succession of mandates. These were set forth in an endless blizzard of Directives the FAA hoped would change their autocratic image. Far from fooled; the old guys kept an eye on their calendars ~hoping they could reach retirement without having a "deal" (controller-speak for an operational error).<br />
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Within a couple years after the strike, they were gone. In their place were the so called 'strike baby' controllers hired after 1981. Gone also were the mid-level managers like Pete. They were replaced by guys like me who were caught between eras. What we knew about the business we had harvested from those who were all but forgotten fossils ~ pressed in the strata of aviation history. Far too young to retire, I had to adapt. The home I had once known now resembled a foreclosure. Much of its contents, the familiar things I had grown up with and my professional 'family' had been removed. It was beginning to look like Thomas Wolfe was right.<br />
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I needed a plan. This wasn't the time to become one of those guys who held court in the break room, boring everyone with tales of the old days. For that, I'd wait till the next century and maybe start a Blog. But for now; these were new days and new challenges ahead. It was time to adapt and try reinventing myself. This wasn't going to be easy. By the late Eighties, FAA's Management, diluted by inexperience, was beginning to reveal its lack of depth. No wonder. The majority of our collective history had retired; including many highly skilled Managers. Many others had been fired. Who was left to ascend into Management jobs? The answer was guys like me, along with some fast track strike babies. <br />
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I made my way through a series of Staff Officer jobs; managing the Plans and Procedures, Quality Assurance and Training Departments. Although challenging, none of it was like working a busy, IFR evening shift in the radar room. The younger specialists working for me did much of the heavy lifting while I attended meetings, which were lined up on my calendar like planes in the departure queue. The problem was; you couldn't stop the meetings. Other facilities, the union, the Regional Office, airline representatives, airport management officials, General Aviation advocates ~ everybody needed their meetings as urgently as I needed aspirin afterward. My immediate Supervisors, the Asst. Manager, seemed addicted to these things. She insisted on regularly scheduled meetings; regardless of whether there was anything to discuss or not. You'd have thought she had nothing better to do.<i> </i>Meetings might have been a security blanket for her but for me; they stole much of the time needed to get real work done.<br />
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Meanwhile, back home in the tower and TRACON, all seemed normal. Controllers continued pushing planes in and out of the airport, griping about Management and gossiping about each other. Shifts were still being swapped, holding patterns were still filling up, people were hollering into handoff lines and everybody was sweating. It was all as it should be. But whenever I went into those control rooms I felt like a visitor in my own home. My heart was still there but I didn't fit anymore. Matters were made worse by the fact that I was growing bored and frustrated with my own job.<br />
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The endless meetings were enough to get me there. Even worse was the gnawing notion that I couldn't trust most of the Management people I worked with. Without that on-the-job interdependence controllers rely on to make things work; Management relied on their simple pecking order and subtle intimidation to get things done their way. Tasks were completed because someone higher up asked for it. Any resistance or refusal usually had unsavory consequences. Posturing was preeminent and professional differences were seen as subversive. I couldn't stand it much longer. Home didn't feel like home anymore and the interests of my Management peers didn't coincide with my own. It was time to leave. There was a song that went . . .<br />
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<i>"This old airports' got me down</i><br />
<i>it's no earthly good to me."</i><br />
<i> - Gordon Lightfoot</i><br />
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I took a position working for our Regional Office; where I bided my time till retirement. Surprisingly, the work was a lot of fun. I made new friends, met some memorable people and had many interesting experiences. While there, I never missed my old facility. I didn't miss the controllers or the airplanes either - not until I retired. That's when I realized my 'heart' was still somewhere else and it was controlling traffic. In time, I started having those colorful, hopeful, impractical and impossible dreams of going home again. I still have them now and then but always wake up smiling. I smile because, in those dreams, my heart goes home but I stay right where I am. The way I understand Pliny and Wolfe, it's best that way.<br />
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<i>Here's a short epilogue. </i><i>I have no lingering regrets over my career decisions and I won't whine about them. Durrell once wrote that we create our misfortunes and they bear our fingerprints. Wise words. Besides, there are a lot of positive lessons to be learned from negative experiences. Whether it's taking a job you really weren't cut out for or breaking a second floor window with the lawn mower; you learn something useful. I've also come to realize that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. The further I get from my controller years, the more fun it is to look back ~ even on the worst of times. And those folks in Management that I once might have enjoyed strangling with a length of barbed wire? If I met any of them today, I'm sure we'd speak of nothing but the good times. To do anything else would be pointless. </i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-76700151317255084432013-01-16T06:51:00.001-05:002013-01-16T06:51:28.038-05:00A Good Shift<i>It was the drug of choice for most controllers and could actually make us pretty high. </i><i>It induced an undiluted euphoria and served as an effective antidote for it's ugly antipode. </i><i>I'll call this drug "the normal day." It was one of those seldom seen shifts when little to nothing went wrong. Everything seemed to click into place like the tumblers inside a combination lock. </i><i>Kind of like the "</i><i>Seinfeld" show, it was a shift about nothing ~ nothing broke, nothing happened we would regret or be chided for and there was nothing to complain about</i><i>. There was nothing to it. Sweet nothing. Those were the shifts that reminded us why we loved being air traffic controllers. </i><br />
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It was just past shift change and I was already busy on Local Control. My first choice would have been a TRACON assignment but Pete sent me upstairs. He said I "needed some tower time." Since most of my shifts were spent working radar, I suppose I <i>was </i>a little rusty. As it turned out, I was glad to be in the tower. It was one of those <i>'Ray-Ban</i>' kind of afternoons when you could see forever. A steady wind kept the city smog at bay and Big Time International seemed to glitter under the setting sun. The last song I heard on the car radio was still spinning in my head as I scanned the airport, one runway at a time ~ trying to keep up with everything that was happening at once. Airplanes, like cars lined up at an Interstate toll booth, moved incrementally along the parallel taxiways; hoping to get out of town on time. It was the afternoon rush and there were a lot of planes waiting to go. I'm sure the pilots queued up in line gazed envyingly out their cockpit windows whenever a departure rolled by, lifted off and vanished with a receding rumble.<br />
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The guys in the radar room were doing a hell of a job, jamming the localizers with airplanes. Jets were whistling down the glide slopes, squeaking onto runways, slowing up and ducking into the high-speed turnoffs. My farewell transmission of "<i>Ground point nine.</i>" was always cheerfully responded to. I was doing what every busy tower controller does; making cold calculations, bold predictions and decisive moves ~ squeezing departures out between landings as fast as I could without pissing off the Departure Sectors. It was all part of the grand spectacle of an unencumbered airport running at peak performance. Well ~ almost peak. One of the main arrival runways had been closed for rubber removal on the thresholds. Not a big issue today. Weather was good enough that doing the 'mixed use' runway thing wasn't worth whining about. Tower and TRACON Supervisors, who usually tried to match the strongest controllers with the most challenging positions, were standing back to enjoy the show. They knew the show would only be as good as the actors in it.<br />
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Winds had been forecast to change direction sometime before 6:00 PM. That's exactly what happened but it happened a bit more abruptly than anticipated. In just a few minutes, the wind direction moved about 130 degrees clockwise. A few pilots started complaining of tailwinds on final, making the decision to turn the operation around appear unavoidable. Although timing couldn't have been worse, the odds of something happening to screw up a perfect day couldn't have been better. You learn to expect it. Pessimism isn't just part of the controller's genetic make-up; it's also a built in safety feature. Problems should never come as a complete surprise.<br />
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Winds don't often change direction so quickly. They usually worked their way around a few degrees at a time; giving us a chance to see a trend and take action before there was an unavoidable crisis. Changing runways right now was going to be ugly. I figured Pete was already on the phone to the center's weather unit - looking for a fresh wind forecast. Pete was always way ahead of the game. The TRACON Supervisor would be making calls to every tower we had a line to - asking what their surface winds were doing. Nobody wanted to cause delay and dismay based on a short lived quirk. From what we heard, it appeared a cool front was moving in sooner than expected. Pete made his decision to turn the ship around.<br />
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Changing the landing direction and moving all the active traffic from here to there can become an epic exercise in patience. Planes waiting to go, eight to ten deep at the runways and more taxiing out of the ramp areas, would have to be moved or redirected to the other end of the airport. The trick was to make sure the original departure sequence didn't change ~ or at least not change too much. Whoever was number one to go now would expect to be number one after the turn-around or there'd be some bitching. Down in the TRACON, approach controllers had dozens of flights on vectors to final approaches that would soon turn into departure corridors. They'd all have to be delayed somehow.<br />
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The tower Supervisor got a call from his TRACON counterpart. "<i>How many yah got to go?</i>" was the question. After a quick look around, the reply was; "<i>Looks like about twenty or so.</i>" Negotiations began immediately over which aircraft in the pattern would be the last to land and who would be the last to take off. The rest would have to be taken for a tour of the area while the Ground Control guy went nuts trying to move all his traffic to the other end of the airport. It was a little past sunset and dusk was settling in.<br />
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Billy K. was a decent Ground Controller, as long as everything clicked along normally. Like me, he spent most of his time in the radar room, so working tower positions during peak traffic was more than a little challenging. But Billy ~ on Ground after dark, during a peak hour? That was like firing a gun on the ski slopes. All it took was a small shock wave, like maybe a pilot turning onto the wrong taxiway, and Billy would soon be buried in an avalanche of confusion. In the time it took him to straighten one problem out, there'd be another mess somewhere else. Worse was the fact the airport was changing from an array of discernible airplanes, taxiways and runways into a huge black hole adorned with dark silhouettes and colored lights ~ some moving and some not. Billy looked tense. Nobody was landing or taking off right now, so I did what I could to help him out.<br />
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Tampa, our Supe of the day, knew what was coming and took quick preemptive action. He called the TRACON and, within minutes, we saw Eddie bounding up the tower steps. Good news for the flying public. "<i>Relieve Billy on Ground.</i>" was all Tampa said ~ but with an undertone of urgency. There were lines of planes taxiing down the runways toward the new departure lineup. A few arrivals, the last to land with a tailwind, were stopped at intersections to let the departures roll by. Seemingly forgotten flights sat on their ramps, waiting for taxi instructions. Potential conflicts in traffic flows were brewing all over the place and the Ground Control frequency squealed with the sounds of frustration. Billy K. gave Eddie the position relief briefing like a burglar listening to police sirens. As soon as he was done, he made a hasty exit from the tower. <br />
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Eddie was probably the best tower controller I ever saw. Chattering away non-stop, pointing at planes, waving his hands and bouncing up and down on his tiptoes, he marshaled the traffic with aggressive efficiency. Still; Billy had left him with a mess on Ground and sorting it out would take some doing. Eddie didn't mind. He had the finesse to fix this. Although bold and confident, he maintained a delicate touch. Watching Eddie, I imagined he could have written his name on a soap bubble; even dotting the I's. He also knew how to keep the traffic picture at night ~ a tricky exercise in planning, shuffling departure strips around and getting the eyes on the ground (a.k.a. the pilots) involved. Soon after Eddie took control, the departures were repositioned to the new runway configuration with a minimum of complaining from the cockpits.<br />
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I glanced up at the tower's BRITE radar display. It appeared the Approach controllers had pretty much reorganized their arrival flows. The sky was full of airplanes and a few were close to turning toward the airport. In the back of the tower cab, Tampa spoke quietly to the TRACON Supervisor. Yes, there was a new ATIS. Yes, the approach lights and ILS systems had been switched around, etc. The conversation over, he said simply; "<i>Release the departures</i>." The entire turn-around had taken less than 20 minutes. There were a few reportable delays but nothing out of the ordinary. Soon the airport was again running at a full gait. For the remainder of our shift, all we had to do was keep the 'planes in - planes out' pressure on our runways. There must have been a meal break in there somewhere but during times like this, eating was the last thing on my mind. Tampa pulled his usual sandwich and banana out of the brown bag he carried whenever he came to the tower.<br />
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The remainder of our shift was high volume happiness. 'Strings of pearls' ~ long lines of landing lights strung out across the night sky, moved in an endless pageant toward the airport. The ground shaking grumble of jets taking off was barely audible from the tower cab but we could see their lights racing along the runways then vanishing against the city backdrop.<br />
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An hour after shift change, me and my carpool buddies joined a few other crew members who were already leaning on the bar at our favorite watering hole. Eddie wasn't there but Billy K. was. Unlike the hours after a bad shift, when we'd each be citing the calamities, casting blame around and wishing we'd taken sick leave ~ tonight there was hardly a word spoken about the past eight hours. There simply wasn't much to say about nothing, so we drank beer, told jokes and surveyed the place for any flight attendants who might have stopped in on their way to one of the nearby hotels. What the hell. After such a shift; anything seemed possible.<br />
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Carpool Carl, our driver, said something to Billy K. as we left the bar for home. Billy was assigned to the Final Control sector that afternoon after leaving the tower. There, he dealt with an impatient backlog of arrivals that had been spinning in holding patterns or riding out delay vectors while the runway change took place. The TRACON Supervisor knew Billy was a guy who could always meet or beat our hourly arrival rate, no matter what.<br />
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Billy ran the Final Sector like Eddie ran Ground. It was instinctive. He attributed his skills to the year spent in a mobile radar unit (GCA), recovering fighters at one of South Vietnam's busiest air bases. In that time, he provided radar approaches to thousands of jets returning from missions in monsoon weather conditions. Many of them were down to "Minimum" or "Emergency" fuel status, which meant he had just one chance to get these guys onto the runway. Every vector had to be on target. Sloppy or unnecessary turns caused delays that could mean losing an airplane and possibly it's crew to fuel exhaustion. Billy had developed a good vectoring eye and perfect timing long before entering the FAA. Carl slapped him on the back and said; "<i>Nice job with the finals, man!</i>" We all shook his shoulder gently as we passed behind. Billy smiled but I don't think he ever looked up from his beer.<br />
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Nobody mentioned the tangle he had created earlier in the shift while working Ground. That's because a functional team of controllers compensates for their member's weaknesses and capitalizes on their strengths. Criticizing controller deficiencies was someone else's job and they usually did it well. We always passed out the praise when warranted though. It was a rare occasion when someone else did that.<br />
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The next afternoon, as our crew checked in for the evening shift, we all stopped at a small bulletin board outside the TRACON. Early each morning, the previous day's airport traffic count was posted there and everyone wanted to know how we did. Although not a record setter, the arrival and departure numbers were high, while reportable delays were low. There was nothing else to say. It had been a good shift!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2013</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-56339925001634909852012-12-25T15:08:00.001-05:002012-12-25T15:08:12.515-05:00So Indispensable!<i>Merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone! Enjoy this behind the scenes look at an air traffic controller.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2012</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488244694314662923.post-75056337097495520422012-10-26T11:45:00.000-04:002012-11-22T12:24:55.970-05:00The Dim Bulb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;">© NLA Factor, 2012</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1