Factor
Woodstock, VA
Male, 65
My life in ATC began with 4 years Air Force then another 30 years with the Federal Aviation Admin. working tower & radar at some big international airports. I fought in the 1981 war with PATCO, survived the strike and kept a job that was just too exhilarating to walk away from. While there was nothing better than working airplanes, I did move on through several air traffic supervisory and management positions. It was a long, crazy career but I wouldn't trade a moment of it for love or lucre!
This is a good question and an easy one for me. Thanks for that! Some questions I get require answers that are a bit convoluted. When that happens, I worry that my explanations are not put together in a way that is easy to understand.
To your question; just remember it this way. You must be employed by the FAA prior to your 31st birthday. That’s it! So if you are hired a month before turning 31 and find yourself in class at the FAA Academy on your birthday; don’t worry. You will not be forcibly ejected! You probably won’t get a cake with candles either.
Cheers,
Factor
Share Answer: 
Hello Jim! Thanks for bringing up a very important issue. Whether pilot or controller; thunderstorms are the bane of their workday. All three factors you mentioned can affect the safety of flight. Lightning can be pretty disconcerting but not as dangerous to an airplane as you might imagine. Today’s planes are given extensive lightning certification tests to ensure the safety of their design. That could be why the last commercial plane crash attributed to lightning happened in 1967.
The lack of visibility, although a hazard in some instances, is not a major problem for pilots flying in or near thunderstorms. Rather than looking out the cockpit windows, they’re normally relying on the aircraft’s flight instruments to keep it properly oriented.
By far, the biggest safety hazard relates to the tricky winds found in and around those things! Accident investigation reports are rife with accounts of what can happen when airplanes experience the vertical wind shears and microbursts associated with thunderstorms (See Eastern Airlines Flight 66 landing JFK in 1975 or Delta Flight 191 landing DFW in 1985 as examples). Especially hazardous when planes are operating near the ground (taking off or landing), such winds can cause the aircraft’s wings to lose the lift they need to maintain flight. If this happens to a landing airplane (and it can happen instantly), all the available engine power may not be enough to save it.
When a plane loses the lift needed to maintain flight it becomes more like a brick that someone has thrown. It may still be traveling forward but only due to forward momentum and only for a very short time. I saw this happen from one of the control towers I worked in. An airliner flew through a thunderstorm situated on the final approach course and turned into that “brick” within a mile of the runway. When I finally saw the plane; it was no longer really flying but wallowing left and right as it fell. Fortunately, it fell onto the grass adjacent to the runway and eventually slid to a stop. The aircraft was destroyed but incredibly, there were no fatalities. I’ll tell you though; my shift couldn’t have ended fast enough.
Thank you for writing,
Factor
Share Answer: 
Hey there Frequent Flyer! Thanks for sending a great question. I’m sure you represent the millions of other frequent flyers who’ve had those whimsical daydreams about cutting their way out of a grounded airliner with a can opener. Believe me; their frustration extends all the way up to the control tower.
How do these things happen? The root of most such delays is a reduction in system capacity; either enroute or at the airport. A recent example would be the Asiana Airlines crash on San Francisco Airport. I’m pretty sure that, immediately after the crash, every plane destined for SFO was either held on the ground at its departure point or delayed in the air until a determination could be made that the airport was accepting arrivals. Even when arrivals were resumed, SFO was left with a runway that was closed indefinitely. Closed runways will affect the capacity of any airport, slowing down both arrivals and departures.
Airport capacity refers to the number of landings and takeoffs an airport can handle per hour. Factors that may reduce capacity include such things as aircraft accidents, adverse weather, a reduction in the amount of available runways, equipment failures, controller staffing, workload, etc. There are several more but you get the idea.
Enroute capacity can be affected by many of the same factors that affect airport capacity. If, for instance, there is a large and hazardous storm system affecting the routes from New York to Chicago; the enroute controllers may have their hands full rerouting airborne flights around the bad weather. In such cases, other traffic scheduled to depart New York for Chicago during that time period may be held on the ground for a while. If you’re lucky, your flight might not have boarded yet and you can wait out your delay in the departure lounge. Other planes that have already left the gates may be held on a ramp or taxiway.
Controllers don’t like to see their taxiways blocked by delayed airplanes. If the delays are long enough, some of those planes may have to return to their gate. This can cause additional problems for controllers because flights returning to the gate can complicate the task of getting other departures out to the runways. It’s much like an ‘18 wheeler’ changing its mind half-way up the on-ramp to a busy Interstate highway, then deciding to turn around. A critical mass of congestion can occur. There have been situations where airports became so congested with planes trying to get on or off the ramps while others sat waiting on taxiways that the moment comes when no one could move at all. Total gridlock. When that happens, the last thing needed is more arrivals, so they too are stopped and placed into holding patterns.
Reduced capacity and the resulting delays, especially at the busiest airports, are a major frustration to everyone involved; particularly those who are out in the thick of it, like pilots, passengers and air traffic controllers.
Thanks again for writing!
Factor
Share Answer: 
Good hearing from you Aaron. The gear-up landing at Newark was pretty dramatic. Whenever airplane bellies rub runways; sparks will fly! Your question is a good one because videos like the Newark landing show up in the news periodically, yet it’s hard to understand exactly what’s going on. People watch and wonder if a pilot can actually train for such a thing, how does it happen, what are the risks, etc.
First off; pilots obviously never make gear-up landings for practice. That would be kinda like practicing shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to rehearse for such an event is to practice landing WITH the landing gear extended. The trick will be in how the plane approaches the runway, which is going to be pretty much the same as a normal landing. The airplane will be slowed to the normal landing speed, with the nose pointed straight down the runway. Once over the runway, the pilot will ‘flare’ the aircraft; raising the nose to bleed off more speed as the plane descends those final few feet to the surface. Once on the runway, the pilot can use the aircraft’s rudder to try keeping the plane on the runway centerline.
How gear-up landings occur can vary. The most obvious reason is a mechanical malfunction. There is another, fairly common, reason. My flight instructor once told me that there are two kinds of pilots; those who’ve forgotten to put the gear down before landing and those who WILL forget! It’s not quite that extreme but sometimes pilots, especially pilots with low experience levels, can overlook that one important detail in an otherwise perfect landing. If there is an operational control tower at the airport; an alert controller may notice and have the pilot pull up before it’s too late. If the field is uncontrolled, the pilot may not be so lucky!
Risks associated with these landings are pretty much what you’d expect; lots of damage to the plane, a possibility of fire, personal injury and maybe even damage to the runway and associated lighting. No matter what happens – it’s never good and I do not recommend it!
Thanks for writing!
Factor
Share Answer: 
Flight Attendant
What kinds of passengers annoy you the most?
CBP Officer
Why are so many customs officers huge jerks?
Special Education Teacher
Does it bother you when people use the R-word?
I think I can help you James. I’ll tell you a story that isn’t really fiction but it’s close enough to fool most anyone.
The scene was a fairly large airport located somewhere North of Florida. Characters in this story included a team of tower controllers plus several local and Federal law enforcement officials. One of them had called the control tower and advised the supervisor that they had been tracking a suspected drug smuggling plane ever since it left Central America several days prior. It was expected to land at this airport very soon. The Agent was very specific in his instructions to the tower supervisor. When this flight checked in with the tower, controllers were to act as normal as controllers can possibly act. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, there were additional instructions.
Upon landing, the plane was to be guided to a specific parking area on the ramp, where extensive preparations had been made to arrest the crew. The supervisor briefed his controllers, who immediately grew excited by the idea of taking part in a drug bust! The excitement intensified with each passing minute. Eventually, the airplane did call the tower for landing instructions. All seemed normal as the plane landed. There were no signs the pilot was suspicious as the tower controller instructed the flight to contact Ground Control.
Now, we were all sure that the “preparations” must have looked like a scene out of Miami Vice; with walkie-talkies crackling away in everyone’s ear, snipers hidden in the shadows and a dozen SWAT Team guys, dressed in black and ready to storm the plane. We all watched as it taxied off the runway toward the parking area.
The ground controller appeared a little nervous but responded promptly and professionally when the suspect aircraft called him. After all; this was his moment to shine – his 15 minutes of fame! The response he gave would become permanently ensconced in local ATC folklore. Remembering everything he’d been told about the situation by his supervisor (but apparently forgetting the part about why), he instructed the pilot to “Taxi to the Northeast corner of the ramp. The Federal agents are waiting to meet you there!”
The plane made a quick turn back onto the runway and accelerated. It lifted off, leveled at crop dusting altitude and vanished quickly over the horizon. Nobody heard whether the pilot was ever caught but the tower supervisor sure was. Within minutes, the cab was full of astonished and very irate agents who had brought with them a huge headache for that supervisor.
Thanks for writing and have fun with your fiction.
Factor
Share Answer: 
Greetings and thanks for writing. Although my opinion is worth a little more than a burned out matchstick; I’ll give it to you. I think you should contact the FAA Regional Office nearest you. A list of such offices can be found here:
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/arc/ro_center/
Ask to speak with someone who is directly involved in hiring controllers, Tell them of your situation and ask if they plan on hiring within your specific timeframe. Don’t be discouraged if they say they won’t be hiring. There are nine (9) FAA Regions and just because one of them has no upcoming vacancies doesn’t mean some or all of the other eight Regions won’t be hiring either. Give ‘em a call. When I was trying to get the job, my ‘home’ Region told me they were not currently hiring. They advised me to call another Regional Office (RO). I did - and that Region was indeed hiring. They also told me I’d have to have my application transferred from my ‘home’ RO to their office. Apparently at the time, you couldn’t have your name on more than one Region’s list of applicants. I don’t know if that is still the case or not but it’s a question to ask them.
If you run into a dead end with the FAA and are still determined to be a controller; contact one or all of the private companies who provide ATC services and ask if they’re hiring.
Best of luck to you!
Factor
Share Answer: 
That’s a very simple, straightforward question! So here I go with another long and convoluted answer. I know, I know. There’s that old adage that says to never give ‘em more information than they asked for. Generally good advice but I don’t think it applies here on Jobstr. If people are interested enough to write; they probably want a response that’ll actually help them understand the subject. And uhh, one day I hope to produce such a response! But for now; just read on and test your attention span.
First off; the optimum time on a control position is different than the time limit defined in FAA’s labor agreement with the controller’s union (National Air Traffic Controllers Association). I’m not sure whether that limit has changed since I left the FAA but it used to be two hours. The time limit for working a control position was established back in the 1970s because controllers were frequently being left bleeding to death on very busy positions with no relief in sight. By the time someone showed up to give them a break, they were beyond exhausted. Depending on conditions; even a 90 minute stint could shred your nerves like confetti. I’ll just say this lead to safety issues.
Defining the optimum time on position isn’t as easy as it sounds. “Optimum” is probably one of the original fifty shades of gray. I had one friend who would awake before dawn and drive 1,100 miles to visit his girlfriend in the Florida Keys. He’d stop only for gas or the men’s room. Sixteen hours at the wheel didn’t bother him at all. But me? Driving more than eight hours would probably get me into a news headline that began with the word “Tragic.” Another friend I worked with would become irritable if he was left on a busy sector for more than 60 minutes. In time, the best ATC Supervisors learned what the “optimum” time on position was for each of their controllers and tried to get them relieved before they burst into flames. We were all different; kind of like the contents of that ‘junk drawer’ in your kitchen. Don’t have a junk drawer? I’ll send you a starter kit.
As to the break time; that depended on factors like who you were working for (Captain Bligh or Captain Kangaroo), how busy the shift was or the individual controller’s work ethic. If a controller had taken a particularly brutal beating on a position; most Supervisors would allow them a little extra break time if they could. Some controllers would either refuse a break altogether or take a very short one if they knew their teammates needed them. Then there were the controllers who’d milk their break until an angry Supervisor came and chased them back to work. The optimum break time was always as subjective as the optimum amount of time on position.
Thanks for writing and for making it to the end of this response!
Cheers,
Factor
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