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.