[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

There is now a news report saying that the ATC supervisor let one of the on-duty controllers leave work early.....

[ezaircon4jc]

I like how they act like hiring & training a controller is no different than a Starbucks employee. It takes a certain type of person to do the job and many years of training. Just because one wants to do the job, sure doesn't mean they can handle the stresses of not only the job but also the shift work. Mandatory overtime and working holidays ain't pretty. My young son thought Thanksgiving was on a Saturday on more than one occasion.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

I like how they act like hiring & training a controller is no different than a Starbucks employee. It takes a certain type of person to do the job and many years of training. Just because one wants to do the job, sure doesn't mean they can handle the stresses of not only the job but also the shift work. Mandatory overtime and working holidays ain't pretty. My young son thought Thanksgiving was on a Saturday on more than one occasion.

I did a TRACON tour with my pilot's union this past fall and got to sit in with the controller running the West Gates of Denver Approach.

He was..... pretty damn amazing. It's the world's largest Tetris game, with the penalty for failure being life ending/changing if you miss a block.

The controller was accurate AND fast-- he was a hoot to watch-- his brain is obviously overclocked in regards to the job.

I got to play with the Arrival traffic flow in the ATC sim-- I could handle maybe..... 15-20% of what he was doing and although my ability to track the inbounds was reasonably good, it wasn't great. There's definitely some transfer of skills between pilot and ATC controller, but geez, I was impressed with the crowd running the TRACON.

And? It was a slow time of the day (which is why were were able to get in on a tour at that time.)

R.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

I did a TRACON tour with my pilot's union this past fall and got to sit in with the controller running the West Gates of Denver Approach.

He was..... pretty damn amazing. It's the world's largest Tetris game, with the penalty for failure being life ending/changing if you miss a block.

The controller was accurate AND fast-- he was a hoot to watch-- his brain is obviously overclocked in regards to the job.

I got to play with the Arrival traffic flow in the ATC sim-- I could handle maybe..... 15-20% of what he was doing and although my ability to track the inbounds was reasonably good, it wasn't great. There's definitely some transfer of skills between pilot and ATC controller, but geez, I was impressed with the crowd running the TRACON.

And? It was a slow time of the day (which is why were were able to get in on a tour at that time.)

R.

Not to brag too much... I got to work the busiest arrival hour LAX has ever, or will ever have. I and the guy who worked the sector next to me put down 135 arrivals in that hour. Due to the way the airspace and arrival flow was structured, I worked about 90 of those. I had 25L & 25R for my guys as well as 24L, I just had to find someone on 24R to follow. The other guy had 24R. It was the most fun I ever had at work! Even the busy times in the tower (only need 6K feet and airborne (jets) before the arrival crosses the threshold, or before launching the next departure) when I was pumping out the departures during the departure rush.

I sure miss the adrenalin rush!