So you wanna be an Air Traffic Controller?

[Ponch ®]

click on "80 miles" 

http://www4.passur.com/lax.html

[charge69]

pretty cool display! I am an Air Traffic Controller in Houston Center and work busy "pushes" both in and out of the Houston terminal area daily as well as traffic in and out of Austin and San Antonio. Also handle flights overflying the area to points east, west, noth, and south!  See that kind of traffic load regulalrly! Damn fun job when it goes right!

[Blown70]

pretty cool display! I am an Air Traffic Controller in Houston Center and work busy "pushes" both in and out of the Houston terminal area daily as well as traffic in and out of Austin and San Antonio. Also handle flights overflying the area to points east, west, noth, and south!   See that kind of traffic load regulalrly! Damn fun job when it goes right!

GOOD LORD.  ITS LIKE AN ANT HILL.....

[Rolling_Thunder]

i believe air traffic controllers have one of the highest drop out rates dont they ?    I also hear alot of them have stress related breakdowns and stuff

[TruckDriver]

No wonder they paid $100.00 a hour or so

[Ponch ®]

Charge69 can probably explain this better, but it is my understanding that if you have 3 close calls in 2 years, you get fired.

[charge69]

Ponch is right. If you have 3 "operational errors" within 2 years you are subject to dismissal. Depending on where you work (tower, approach control, or Center), an operational error is where you have less than standard separation between 2 or more aircraft. At the Center, where I work, The minimum separation is 5 miles horizontally and 1,000 ft. vertically. The horizontal separation can be as little as 3 miles if you are within 40 miles of a radar antenna in certain instances or as much as 6 miles if there is a heavy jet involved.  the drop-out rate during training, especially early in the training phase is very high. As much as 50% do not make it. And yes, the stress at times can take it's toll. It does take a special person to play the world's most interactive video game at the radar scope because there is no pause button and no start-overs!! You have to win every time! Great money and great retirement , though if you can make it to retirement!!

[Arthu®]

A friend of my family does that work on Schiphol Airport. He took me there one time for a tour. It's a nightmare, I never ever want his job. I can check things twice on cars I repair to make sure that nothing is loose, just because I am scared that people could crash because of a fault I made. And here he is controling airplanes with hunderds of people and he is responsible that they get through his patch of air safely. Not for me, I couldn't handle it not for all the money in the world.

Arthur

[yellowcuda]

I looked into it a couple years ago.  I would like to work in a tower at a small airport like the one I work at.  There were no schools near me though, closest ones were Florida and Tennessee.

[BigBlackDodge]

  I only see six planes at 80 miles out?



Sign me up for a 100 bucks an hour!


BBD

[Ponch ®]

thats weird. either the website is experiencing technical difficulties, or LAX is closed 

[tomonty]

This thread reminded me of the movie 'Pushing Tin' with John Cusack about a couple of air traffic controllers seeing who was better at landing planes..thank god it was just a movie.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120797/

[Blusmbl]

I just saw a close call!    One plane had to climb 3,000 ft to avoid crossing paths with another on decent.  It went from 9000 up to 12000 and back down in the course of about 3 ticker moves.

No way in hell could I handle that job.

[Wakko]

A guy I went to school with said his dad was an Air Traffic Controller for LaGuardia airport...and worked in Miami.  Never verified it but never felt he was lying to me about it.

Is it common to have such a big distance between the ATCs and the airport?

[BB1]

Flight 253 now arriving at gate 8........ gate 9......... gate 10....... gate 11 ...... gate12....... GATE 13...... 

[BB1]

Need to keep those planes out of Hollywierd, and fly more over the Compton area.
I use to work down there. Not as bad as Oakland Ca, spend 1 month at both places for extra cash from the Railroad.

Something about the workers failing drug tests.  And then there's Huston TX 

[BigBlackDodge]

I just saw a plane shoot another one down! He got 100 pts!


BBD