Returning to work after 13 years

Hi
Today I want to talk a bit about returning to a job I loved after 13 years. For whatever reason which I have never figured out, I was selected in the first group of controllers in the United States to return to work. 25 controllers--5 from Hawaii, 5 from the Oakland tracon, 5 from Chicago, 5 from the New York Tracon and 5 from the NY Center-out of about 13000 who were fired on August 3rd, 1981, were rehired. The date was January 10th, 1995.

 I had been 40 years old and at the top of my game back then. I returned at age 53 and not totally sure of myself anymore. Many of the men I worked alongside of back then were now supervisors since they were the ones who had remained during the strike. Since the deal that was struck with the FAA to get us back included us coming back as trainees having to work our way back to the salary we used to have, we were therefore at the mercy of those supervisors and senior controllers who were in charge. And the general consensus in 1995 was "we don't want these guys back".

 Of the 5 who returned with me to the New York Center, 3 were from my old area, area B. The only thing wrong though was that the old area B had been partitioned off to the Washington Center years back. Therefore we all had to go to areas that were unfamiliar to us from the past. And I wound up in the least familiar place of all-the oceanic area. More than half of that area was, by necessity, non radar, since radar did not extend out past 200 miles from the shore.

I checked out in 4 sectors, all of which were radar sectors in about 8 months so that I was just one step from becoming a journeyman controller once again. The big problem for me was that the other 4 sectors were all controlled using non radar procedures which are completely different from radar procedures.

Non Radar Separation

For example, using radar procedures you only have to maintain a distance of 5 miles or more between aircraft at the same altitude. Airplanes on radar going overseas though had to transition to non radar separation by 200 miles from the shoreline. Non radar separation required 10 MINUTES at the same altitude. A plane flying at 500 knots, or about 8 miles a minute, needs to be about 80 miles away from the other aircraft to be separated legally. It is very difficult to go from 5 miles to 80 miles separation in just 200 miles. Therefore the separation had to start when the planes took off. Either they flew at different altitudes or 10 minutes had to be slotted in right away. (there are some additional rules allowing for less than 10 minutes but I don't want to get too technical here).

However, these rules I am bringing up about non radar separation only applies to one aircraft following another at the same airspeed. There are more rules which are used to separate aircraft crossing one another,  descending  or climbing thru the airspace of another,  or a faster aircraft behind a slower plane. The upshot of all this is that I requested to transfer to an all radar area after three years in the "ocean"

Area C

I had gotten along fairly well while in area F,  or the oceanic area. I was treated with a modicum of some respect mainly because I had checked out on the radar sectors so quickly. But the non radar sectors were a completely different animal to me. I did not feel overly confident working under those conditions. So I spoke to an old friend who now was second in command at the NY Center about the possibility of switching to a different area. He told me that it could be done but that I would have to take a hit as a failure in area F and go thru a mock "trial". Although I felt a bit quesy about what amounted to lying about not passing I went along with it. That, coupled with the fact that we did not inform the union leaders amounted to a major mistake on my part.

Cold shoulder

The controllers in area C at the time (from 1998-2000) treated me completely differently than what I had been accustomed to. Just prior to being fired I had been what you might call "one of the boys" and my ability to control aircraft after 13 years was not questioned. When transitioning to area C I was being treated as though I had just started as a controller and worse, as a training failure. It was a very bad time for me as 50 guys that I  worked with in the area all gave me the cold shoulder. First, they weren't happy I was back since I had seniority on all but one of them (which would kick in when I checked out), Second, they thought I was a training failure from area F and third, I was much older than most of them and they thought I was past my prime and shouldn't be controlling aircraft anymore period. 1998 turned out to be a very bad year psychologically for me. I had been involved in flying in one way or another since 1962 and these SOB's would not give me the time of day.

Other areas

By 1998, I wasn't the only "Patco controller" that had been rehired in the center. About 15 other guys had been rehired and sent to various other areas for training. If I'm correct only two of them were able to qualify. Everyone else failed. Could we all have been that bad? I'm certain that there was a concerted effort on the part of the people in charge to keep us from becoming fully qualified controllers again.

Trying my best to not portray this period at the New York Center in such a bad light so I will stop here and simply say that it was a very difficult time for everyone concerned but that I am past that now and wish no ill will on anyone.

Next week I want to return to happier times during the 1970s and discuss how controllers back then spent their off time after work was done.

Hello 
This is post #1 for me. So Hi to everyone out there. I guess I should start out by explaining what "Patco" means. If you were born after 1975 or so and you never bothered to find out or hear about the history of the air traffic control system in this country then I suppose you would be baffled by this word. It stands for Professional Air Traffic Control Organization and it was a union that was formed in 1968 by air traffic controllers.

 I say it was because in 1981 Patco was decertified by our government for striking. Over 13,000 controllers in this country were fired, me being one of them. It's kind of a long story and maybe a little boring for those of you who might be more interested in just getting on an airplane and flying to say, LA or Vegas, and having a good time, but for those of you more serious types, here goes: 

 PRIOR TO 1968 

Compared to today, the air traffic control system was vastly different in the early 60s. Jets had just come into existence around 1960 with the Boeing 707 but there were many propeller driven aircraft servicing the general public. 

Computers were in their infancy for use by controllers and our entire basement was filled with computers to take care of the system at the time. We had radar that we used to track airplanes but it was just a blip on the screen which we tracked with something we called "shrimpboats". 

Shrimpboats

Shrimpboats were little pieces of plastic, pointy at one end, which we followed these blips with as they moved across the screen. At times we could have about 20 shrimpboats being pushed along on the radar screen. The primary way we had to identify these blips was by asking the pilot to "squawk ident" which then made the blips blossom a bit. Otherwise we had to make sure we pushed these little pieces of plastic with the call sign of the flight on them until they left our area of responsibility. For the most part the system worked as long as the radar system worked. But, every once in a while, we would lose the radar and then things could get really complicated (which I could talk about for another hour or so).

 1968-1974

 I was hired in 1968 and was assigned to area B at the New York Center. Each center in the country is split up into areas and each area is broken up into sectors. Each sector could be quite involved and before a controller is allowed to control airplanes in these sectors he has to know everything about them. Normally there are 6 or 7 sectors in each area and to be a fully qualified controller, otherwise known as a journeyman, you have to be totally aware of how each sector operates as well as know the adjacent sectors and how they operate. It normally takes 3-4 years before a controller who has just come out of school becomes fully qualified in their area.

Area B

 At the time area B had the reputation among us as being the most difficult not only because of the amount of traffic but also because of the degree of difficulty in moving the aircraft thru the sectors. It wasn't until 1972 that I finally became a journeyman controller at New York. Now during all that time the radar system wasn't anything like it is now. We did not have alpha numerics like today which means that we used basic raw radar as I've explained earlier to separate aircraft. Today, a tag with the name of the airplane, the type of airplane, the airspeed, the altitude, and numerous other features accompany the blip of the plane as it moves thru the airspace. Back then if two planes were getting too close or were on headings to get too close, we had only our experience to correct the possible problem.

 Today, the computer starts flashing on both aircraft to warn the controller of the impending danger. In addition airliners today have a system in their planes that will take over and descend, climb or turn one or both planes automatically to avoid collisions.

 1974-1981 

There was an improvement in the system made in 1974. Alphanumerics came into existence but was not perfected to the point where everyone had complete faith in it. Therefore the radar screen was set up so that the controller could lower it and make it flat if necessary and quickly make up shrimpboats to keep track of the planes if the system went down. And it went down fairly often. And controllers backs went down with it sometimes since it wasn't easy to transfer the system from vertical to horizontal.

 So in effect we had three separate and distinct systems that we had to know thoroughly back then. The shrimpboat system of control, the new alphanumeric system, and if they both failed the non radar system. Non radar was difficult for various reasons. First of all, none of us were really proficient with it since we weren't using it very much. It was as if a pilot was used to flying one type of airplane for 5 years and all of a sudden was told to go fly a different type of aircraft for the day. And the longer we were working with radar, the harder it would become to stay current with non radar. 

A non radar clearance

I had a situation one day where I had about 10 planes on the frequency and lost my radar and had two airplanes crossing with one of them going into Philadelphia. When I lost the radar they were about 20 miles apart and closing with the Philly inbound descending to 6000 and the other airplane at 8000 on an airway southwestbound. Well I gave the inbound a clearance to cross 10 from the boundary of the airway at 7000 feet or below and asked him to acknowledge leaving 7000. He repeated the clearance but it seemed like such a long time went by before he responded even though I called him several times. I never forgot that little clearance I gave him. It was an Air Mexico 727. Anyway the radar came back soon enough but that one minute waiting for that acknowledgement made me a little older that day. There were numerous days like that back then.

 August 3rd 1981 

One of the worst days of my life. Our union, Patco, took us all to the cleaners. Our national president, John Leyden, who happened to be a controller at the New York Center, was opposed to going on strike against the government even though the equipment we had to maintain safety was shaky. But he felt that there were other ways to get the FAA to update the equipment rather than going on strike. Unfortunately, the 7 other regional vice presidents didn't see it that way and they usurped his authority and made Robert Poli president. After that it was all downhill from there since its rather difficult to fight city hall. 

We were so naive politically

Of course we were all very naive when it came to politics and we were like lemmings going over the cliff. I was a big boy back then and I blame no one but myself for going along with it but it was a no win situation. Public opinion sat squarely on the side of the government as the newspapers wrote that the only reason we wanted to strike was to get raises. 

What really happened later on in the year

Years later a few of us met with John Leyden in DC and he told us that in December of that year the FAA made Patco an offer to take all the controllers back on condition that the officers might have to be indicted. That offer was never brought to the union members attention. It would be over 13 years before any striking controllers were able to return to work.

 1995-2002

 Was rehired and then retired from the FAA. But that's another story for another day.

 My future blogs 

My plan is to talk about my job as a trainee and then as a journeyman controller during both of my stints as an FAA controller showing how separating airplanes has progressed over the past 50 years. I believe I can offer a unique perspective about the job then and now. Even though I have been retired since 2002 I hope to have controllers working today give me their views on current conditions. In addition, since I have been a certified flight instructor for many years I feel I am qualified to discuss the flying portion of the air traffic control job, at least how it relates to single engine flight.

The "R" Man

 The R man, or Radar Controller, in the 1970s, had ultimate responsibility. I got fully rated in 1972 and didn't completely realize the awesome responsibility I had been handed. There was no backup plan if I made a mistake like there is today. 

Today if a controller makes a mistake between two planes the computer makes the screen start flashing to show where, if nothing is done, there will be a conflict between the two planes in question within the next couple of minutes, giving the controller the opportunity to correct his mistake. The controller is then visited by the supervisor, taken off the position,  and shown the error he has made.

 In addition, if no correction still hasn't been made, the airplanes computers will then automatically make the planes in question turn or change altitude to avoid a collision.

 There were no such backup systems when I became fully rated. And since we weren't clairvoyant and couldn't see into the future it was perfectly natural for us to accept how things were.  I basically treated the job like a video game because, I think to have done otherwise,  would have put too much pressure on me. 

 If I went around thinking about the fact that I literally had the lives of thousands of people depending on my words and actions, it might have been much more difficult for me.

A very close call 

 

I had been fired in 1981 for striking against the government.  I got rehired in 1995. Sometime between those two years, the FAA instituted  a system where they set up a command center in Washington. This command center communicates with each of the 20 regional air traffic control centers around the country to determine based on numerous factors when planes could take off  so that there would be minimum or no holding.

 Before that changed, planes would take off from their airports depending mostly on the local weather and the weather at their destination. But primarily the airlines themselves scheduled their takeoff times when they thought the public would want to depart, and that caused major traffic jams. 

 As a consequence, continued flight into the New York center airspace would depend on what controllers could safely handle.

 If a controller at that time felt that he was being saturated and could no longer safely handle any more planes, the controller in the previous center would be told to "spin" the airplane at the boundary.  And it worked the other way too. When we were handing our airplanes off to the radar controller who handled the flights into Laguardia, Newark or Kennedy, they would tell us to spin our planes if necessary. Sometimes planes could be holding out at the various fixes for hours. 

One day, in 1979,  the weather was extremely poor in the New York area and I was working sector 19, which normally handed off to Newark and Laguardia. One of the planes that was holding was a Pan American 747. After holding there for several hours,  the pilot told me that he could not hold any longer and asked me to find an airport for him that had weather good enough for him to land.

 I immediately called Newark and they said that there had been a slight change in the weather and to turn him over. I then put the 747 on a heading for Newark and changed his frequency to Newark's. I then continued working my flights. About a half hour later I received a call from Newark and was told a bone chilling story.

 The Pan Am flight landed OK but as it was taxiing in,  each of the four engines shut down due to lack of fuel and had to be towed in to the ramp!!

"Routine" work

At times the radar controller's job is fairly routine. The thing is, just as in flying, you never know exactly when "routine" could quickly turn into a very scary scenario . A lot of it depended on the weather. 

Many of the sectors we are in charge of are fairly small and all you need is some bad weather to make the planes turn off course to avoid thunderstorms. And sometimes when they do that the planes will start leaving your airspace requiring coordination with adjoining sector controllers to see if there will be any conflicts. One plane deviating isn't too bad but if that happens in the middle of a rush of traffic and both sectors are busy, things can get out of hand in a hurry. This is when the watch supervisor (the person in charge of the whole center for that shift)  had to be on the lookout for situations that could occur like that and stop or slow the traffic. 

Sometimes it was a new trainee. I was working a string of flights going down South one night during what we called "the 9:30 push". I had about 20 or so planes, most of them going to Florida. Everything was very routine. This was during the days when we used "shrimp boats" to follow the targets.

 During that push a trainee decided to put a strip in the bottom of the bay (which lay directly over the scope). Well he did the unthinkable and knocked down all the strips above the one he was handling. All 20 strips came crashing down on top of my shrimp boats causing me to almost have a stroke. I was so upset I threw my pencil into the ceiling where it probably still is today (not really). Anyway I managed to reidentify all of my flights before there was a problem. I never did find out who the trainee was.

How to become an air traffic controller

First of all, there is an age limit of 31. Since it normally takes at least 1 year to be hired after you take the test, it is recommended that you start the  whole process no later than age 29 and much earlier if possible. 

The job can be a very satisfying one since whatever you've done during your shift is final. That is, you don't bring it home and dwell on it normally. The next day is a brand new day. The job is an important job. The people who do it well are respected both by their peers and by the general public.  And the job pays very well.

Recently, however, the sequestration in congress has shut the door on new hires. But that does not mean that hiring will not start in the near future. So all you twenty somethings go to http://www.faa.gov/jobs/job_opportunities/airtraffic_controllers/ to get information.

do this often to see when tests will be given in your area. Also, once they do open up the job again, you are not restricted to the area that you live in. You can apply to any part of the country that you may be interested in.

Since the job is  very much sought after, it would behoove anyone interested in it to at least go to the local library and look at the testing material. In order to be considered, a grade of over 90% is usually what is needed to get hired. So reading the material that shows what must be done to get such a grade is very important. 

Next Week

Next week's blog will get into my return to the FAA after a break in service of over 13 years!

Training To Be An Air Traffic Controller In The 60's

Hello again

FIRST FEW MONTHS

First impressions

To say I was intimidated when I was hired as an air traffic controller would not exactly be true since I had been a controller for 4 years in the air force followed by nearly 3 years as a cop in New York. However, so many things were happening when I became an FAA air traffic controller in April, 1968, that it made me sit up and take notice.

The New York Center

 First of all, I had just graduated to the big leagues of air traffic control. This block building where hundreds of people worked in was huge, no windows, lighting very subdued and people sitting at their positions with headsets on. Some were smiling and talking about personal stuff when they weren't too busy but most controllers were very serious and quietly intent on their jobs. The place could be extremely busy at times since it serviced 4 major airports-Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark and Philadelphia as well as numerous other airports in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In addition, it handled flights going to and from Europe and the Caribbean.

Area B traffic

After about 3 months of classroom training I was assigned to area B, one of 7 areas at the New York Center and supposedly the most complex. Area B handled flights in and out of Philadelphia and into JFK and Laguardia and Newark. It also handled flights out of the 3 majors that were going down to Florida. That was just a very small portion of the flights in the area. There were many other flights that came through our area that were simply passing thru, say from Boston to DC. Or from somewhere in Virginia to somewhere in Maine, etc. It didn't matter actually. The job of the controller was, and still is, to make sure aircraft stay a minimum of 5 miles from each other when they were at the same altitude while in our area of jurisdiction, period.

Classroom Instruction

The time I spent up in class revolved around learning "the area" as well as the center as a whole. We were provided with dummy maps that only had little circles and triangles on them with no names on them representing navigational equipment. We had to learn what each icon was called, what airways went to each of them not only in our area but in the entire center. That was one map. The second map was much more detailed and involved our area only.

How we learned the area

 The way we learned them was to cover the "maps" with plastic laminate sheets on which we could use grease pencils  to learn the airways which planes flew (maybe writing and erasing 300-500  times). In addition we needed to know the altitudes we could allow planes to fly in when in our airspace, the airports in our area and nearby areas, the names of the airlines and their call signs, and numerous other minutia. We also had to learn something called "Letters of Agreement".

Letters of Agreement

 These are procedures that have been ironed out between two or more facilities. An example would be that aircraft coming from such and such an area and landing at such and such a place have to be level at a certain altitude unless prior coordination has been made. There are literally dozens of situations like this with many facilities that have got to be absorbed. And of course we had to learn the "bible" or the book of rules all controllers had to follow.  I could go on with this but I'm sure the reader gets the idea. At every stage of instruction and training, trainees must learn mountains of information or that person would not have a job very long.

Going "on the floor"- the "A" man

There are a number of positions as an air traffic controller. Everyone starts out as an assistant controller or the "A" man. What that entailed back in 1968 was learning what strips had to be put up next to the controller talking to the pilots. These strips back then were necessary because the controller would have had no idea what the name of the flight was, where it was going, what it's altitude was and what time it was coming by, among other things. Sometimes each sector included several fixes, or places where the planes would be flying by,  in which case the flight would have one strip per fix with the time the plane was estimated to be at each fix. So the first thing you learn to do is to put these all important strips up next to the radar screen so the controller would know who's coming ahead of time.

pencil sharpening

Another duty a brand new trainee had to do back then was sharpen pencils! Today pens are used in all situations but back then hundreds of pencils were sharpened every day by newbees so that the senior controller at the sector and his helper would be able to write on the strips. I did those two things for about 18 months which was not unusual. I actually considered going back to the police department as I was told that I could return with full pay and benefits within one year. But even though I was very frustrated at the beginning, I was actually absorbing a lot of information about the job without even realizing it and that would help me a great deal as I worked my way up the ladder.

The "D" Man

After posting strips til you could do it in your sleep, you were then sent to D school to learn the next phase of the job. Here is where you learned how to control planes if the radar went out suddenly. It was a whole new area of control for most of us. As a radar controller in the Air Force, I can't remember the radar going out in the facilities I worked in.

Our bible

 But the FAA has a whole section on it in our "bible", the ATP 7110.65,  where all the rules for air traffic controllers had to be strictly adhered to. (By the way, that set of rules has grown enormously since the 60s and has a different name but its still a very powerful set of rules all controllers must follow).

When the radar is operational the job of the D man is to make sure that all conflicts between two or more aircraft are resolved before they enter his area. Planes could be coming into the area from different sectors  where the two controllers working these aircraft may not be aware that there would be a conflict in the D man's area. So the D man has to call up at least one of the controllers and, generally speaking,  change the altitude of one of the planes.

Next week...

For those of you who might be interested in becoming air traffic controllers or just interested in the subject I plan on continuing my storyline to include the "R" man, or the radar controller. The radar controller is the person most people think of when the subject comes up, whether it is in the tower, the center or, what we used to call "the common IFR room" now called the "TRACON".    I also will be giving some information as to what you have to do to become an air traffic controller.

 By the way, if anyone has any comments or suggestions about this blog please feel free to join in.