This process started with an initial application to a public announcement for off the street hiring for Air Traffic Controllers in April of 2008. From that initial application to graduation from the academy today it took 496 days.

2 years ago I would have never imagined that I would be where I am right now. This job has been #1 on my top 5 list for a long time. (#2 being a professional pilot). However I learned early on that being a professional pilot was not it all it was cracked up to be. (So air traffic controller and pilot switched places on my list many years ago) Long hours, low pay, no job security... Sure, the flying was nice but I couldn't imagine going through life wondering if I would have a job next week. Such as we have seen lately, when the economy tanks the first things to go are the luxuries. Corporate aircraft get sold, pilots lose their jobs; flying isn't supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I made a decision a long time ago to keep flying enjoyable.

Up until a few years ago the only way to become an air traffic controller was to go through the military or go to a CTI (College Training Initiative) school. CTI schools are like technical colleges. Students study air traffic courses. (But still have to attend the FAA academy for actual air traffic basics) By the time I found out about CTI schools it was too late. I was married, had a steady job, and certainly couldn't afford a CTI school OR to attend one and not have an income for several years. I stumbled upon a job vacancy notice on the FAA website one day offering OTS (off the street) applicants the opportunity to apply for air traffic controller positions. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'm back home now. I arrived Thursday afternoon. My honey do list is partially complete. There are still several things left to do but I hope to work on those throughout the next few weeks. We had a nice birthday party for Madison on Saturday. It was touch and go in the weather department Saturday. The weather finally broke early in the afternoon to produce a nice low humidity evening which everyone enjoyed. The mosquitoes even stayed away.

I begin work Monday morning. I'm looking very much forward to beginning my new career. I've worked hard to get to this point. However I still have a long way to go. Over a year of on-the-job training lies ahead of me. There is still lots to learn and I'm looking forward to it.

This has certainly been an adventure for me. I am glad I was able to produce this weekly blog to keep people up to date on the happenings out in OKC. I think that a lot of people enjoyed reading it. I would regularly get several e-mails a week asking when I was going to post the next one.

Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll be able to keep up with my weekly posts of whats going on. I will certainly try though. I believe that the most interesting stuff is yet to come. However I now have more responsibilities than just going to work. Wife, Kid, Home, etc... now all come before my blog. I will certainly update my page but it just might not be as scheduled as it has been.

Lastly, I wanted to post a photo of all my classmates. These guys became like a second family while I was in OKC. I plan to keep in touch with each and every one of them.

 

From left to right

Top: Joe Spencer, Adam Reigel, Philip Dorian, J'San Cleveland, Keith Clark

Middle: Jim Gardner (instructor), Elle Clark, Jerlysha "J" Williams, Melissa Ross

Bottom: Chris Brannon (instructor), Ryan Tecklenberg, Zachary Boivin, Chris Barnes, Marcos Vallejo

Well. Here we are. Graduation day. I passed my PV! There isn't going to be a big ceremony. No family will fly in to see us walk across a stage and there won't be any graduation music. Just a congratulatory handshake and pat on the back from our instructors. At 3:30 we will leave the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center not as Air Traffic Basic's students but as Air Traffic Controllers; Developmentals each going our own separate direction across these United States and in life. Some of us are going to big facilities - Seattle-Tacoma in Washington State, Newark New Jersey and even to Fairbanks, Alaska. Some of us are staying a little smaller - Charleston West Virginia, Albany New York and Montgomery Alabama. Wherever we go I hope that we will be successful in our endeavor to become fully trained Certified Professional Controllers.

With the class ending and our classmates disbanding I take measure of what we have learned AND what we have accomplished. We have accomplished what so few people have done. However the hardest, and best, is yet to come.

Our time here in Oklahoma City is over. Some of my classmates will be leaving OKC this afternoon. "Getting the hell out of dodge" as my grandfather would say. Some will stay until tomorrow morning and catch their flights home. (yours truly will part of that crowd).

It's a mixed emotion right now. Everyone is happy to have passed and is ready to move on to continue their training at their facilities. We are also a little sad. For the last 3 months we have become each other's friend. In some cases seeing more of each other than our own families. We have shared a camaraderie with each other over these last 90 days that we won't soon forget. But life moves on. I'll remember all of you and this place here as a pit stop in my life. A memorable one to say the least. But for all of us this pit stop is the beginning of something great. A new life or fresh start that, with a little nurturing, will grow into something spectacular.

I wish everyone happy trails. Have a safe trip home and good luck. Perhaps someday we will meet again.

Until then...keep 'em separated.

Chris

This process started with an initial application to a public announcement for off the street hiring for Air Traffic Controllers in April of 2008. From that initial application to graduation from the academy today it took 496 days.

2 years ago I would have never imagined that I would be where I am right now. This job has been #1 on my top 5 list for a long time. (#2 being a professional pilot). However I learned early on that being a professional pilot was not it all it was cracked up to be. (So air traffic controller and pilot switched places on my list many years ago) Long hours, low pay, no job security... Sure, the flying was nice but I couldn't imagine going through life wondering if I would have a job next week. Such as we have seen lately, when the economy tanks the first things to go are the luxuries. Corporate aircraft get sold, pilots lose their jobs; flying isn't supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I made a decision a long time ago to keep flying enjoyable.

Up until a few years ago the only way to become an air traffic controller was to go through the military or go to a CTI (College Training Initiative) school. CTI schools are like technical colleges. Students study air traffic courses. (But still have to attend the FAA academy for actual air traffic basics) By the time I found out about CTI schools it was too late. I was married, had a steady job, and certainly couldn't afford a CTI school OR to attend one and not have an income for several years. I stumbled upon a job vacancy notice on the FAA website one day offering OTS (off the street) applicants the opportunity to apply for air traffic controller positions. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'm back home now. I arrived Thursday afternoon. My honey do list is partially complete. There are still several things left to do but I hope to work on those throughout the next few weeks. We had a nice birthday party for Madison on Saturday. It was touch and go in the weather department Saturday. The weather finally broke early in the afternoon to produce a nice low humidity evening which everyone enjoyed. The mosquitoes even stayed away.

I begin work Monday morning. I'm looking very much forward to beginning my new career. I've worked hard to get to this point. However I still have a long way to go. Over a year of on-the-job training lies ahead of me. There is still lots to learn and I'm looking forward to it.

This has certainly been an adventure for me. I am glad I was able to produce this weekly blog to keep people up to date on the happenings out in OKC. I think that a lot of people enjoyed reading it. I would regularly get several e-mails a week asking when I was going to post the next one.

Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll be able to keep up with my weekly posts of whats going on. I will certainly try though. I believe that the most interesting stuff is yet to come. However I now have more responsibilities than just going to work. Wife, Kid, Home, etc... now all come before my blog. I will certainly update my page but it just might not be as scheduled as it has been.

Lastly, I wanted to post a photo of all my classmates. These guys became like a second family while I was in OKC. I plan to keep in touch with each and every one of them.

Chris





From left to right
Bottom: Chris Brannon (instructor), Ryan Tecklenberg, Zachary Boivin, Chris Barnes, Marcos Vallejo
Middle: Jim Gardner (instructor), Elle Clark, Jerlysha "J" Williams, Melissa Ross
Top: Joe Spencer, Adam Reigel, Philip Dorian, J'San Cleveland, Keith Clark

Hello everyone,

Well, this will be my last full week post! There is lots to talk about so lets just get down to it shall we?

Monday and Tuesday was pretty interesting. On Monday we ran a problem with about 40 aircraft. Halfway through the problem we had our DBRITE go out. The DBRITE is an aid to the tower controller that allows him/her to see where an aircraft is in relation to the airport if he can't see it out the window. The DBRITE is essentially a radar screen. It shows a blip on the screen where the aircraft is and also shows the data block associated with it that identifies the aircraft on the screen. The DBRITE is especially useful during period of low visibility.

Tuesday we ran a night time problem. I had fun with this one. It was pretty cool to be able to see the airport lit up at night. There isn't much of a difference between a night and day problem except for the lack of depth perception at night. We were told that this problem makes you use the DBRITE more to judge distance. I believe that we had 42 aircraft during this problem. I was able to get all the aircraft in the sequence I wanted and into the airport without too many problems.

On Wednesday we upped the aircraft count to 45. This time we had no equipment failures and it was daytime. There was definitely the feeling of being overwhelmed by this problem. It seems like aircraft were calling from all over the place! Just when you thought you had everything worked out another aircraft would call in. I had 3 local runs for this problem. I would rate the runs as good, average, and good; with my best run being the first. I really screwed myself on the second run and it took me forever to recover. I THINK it began when I gave a faster turboprop aircraft an unusual pattern entry for a runway that we don't normally use for aircraft other than instrument arrivals. I did this so I could elevate some congestion on the other runway traffic pattern because I could already tell it was going to fill up fast. I forgot about the aircraft and they executed a go around because I forgot to give them a landing clearance. From there I dug myself into a hole and it took forever to work myself out of it.

On Thursday we ran a scenario with 48 aircraft in a 40 minute period. So more than 1 aircraft per minute. This scenario had multiple aircraft in the pattern for touch and goes and lots of commercial airline arrivals. With this many aircraft it is important to be able to keep track of where each aircraft is in the pattern. Pad management is essential at this point. If you don't have a good technique for pad management then you are way behind. When you have 3 Cessna 172's in the pattern at the same time you MUST know which one is which or you're in deep ####.
This was the 2nd hardest scenario that we ran here. Friday was the busiest. I completely expected to crash and burn with that many aircraft. To my surprise I came out on the other size relatively unscathed. I made small mistakes but I didn't slam any aircraft together and separation was ensured throughout the entire problem. Overall I was very pleased with my performance. It got me thinking that maybe I am finally wrapping my head around this entire thing. I left Thursday night feeling very good and looking forward to Friday.

Friday was awesome. We ran "the humbler". 52 aircraft in 40 minutes. When we first began over in the tabletop sims we were running 20-25 aircraft in 40minutes. At that time that was more than enough for us to handle. Friday we more than doubled the amount of aircraft in the same amount of time. Incredible. The instructors told us before we began that they weren't going to say anything to us this time. There wasn't time to explain anything during this problem. If you weren't talking on the radio, listening to a read back or calling departure with a rolling call you were doing something wrong.





Here is a photo of me running the problem -





It's a little blurry because the room is pretty dark. In this photo you'll see a screen in front of me with several green dots. All of those dots are aircraft. There are 7 total dots on the screen. On the large screen you'll see the airport layout. I'm writing on a pad on the desk with several flight strips on it. You can also see the 2 manual timers we use for wake turbulence. The screen with the red letters on it gives us airport wind conditions, ATIS codes, sky conditions, temp, etc...




In problems like this it's all about sequencing and timing. If you have a pretty good understanding of aircraft characteristics and are able to get them in the traffic pattern flow without running someone else over than you've just made your life a whole heck of a lot easier. Being able to apply one (or several) several separation rules such as diverging headings, anticipated separation, radar separation, and visual separation to departures makes this problem a lot less harder than it can be. If you couldn't do that then you could have 5 or 6 aircraft stacked up waiting for departure. Of course, if you get just 1 step behind this problem then you'll find yourself digging out of it until the end.

Friday night we decided to go out and celebrate our last weekend here in OKC together. I had a pretty good time.



Lets talk about this upcoming week. It will be the most important week of our training here. This week we take our final evaluations (PV) on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Monday we will run problem 13. Problem 13 is considered the closest version to the PV. This will give us a general idea of the traffic volume, pattern complexity, and runway crossings that we'll see in the PV itself.

Each student takes 2 PV's. A ground control PV and a local control PV. Each PV is between 30-45 minutes in length.

Ground control is exactly what it sounds like. The control of all the aircraft on the ground. Local control is the control of any aircraft on the active runway's and airborne in the vicinity of the airport. As you can imagine local control is the most difficult.

I got lucky (I think). I take my local control PV at 8:00am Tuesday morning. The first run. That way I can get it over with and not have to worry about it all day long. I take the ground control PV on Wednesday morning. I'm not nearly as nervous about ground as I am local.


I will update my blog this week as soon as I have some news. If you are subscribed to my mailing list (or on Facebook) you will be notified as soon as I update it.

Here is a link to my Flickr page. I added some new photos of this past week -

Click here

4 Days left!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone!

This post is going to be short.

We're down to the home stretch now. As I write this, I have 11 days left. This upcoming week will be my last full week here in OKC.

This past week has been full of ups and downs. Monday and Tuesday I was working my way up the curve steadily gaining knowledge, techniques, and the skill to keep moving on to the larger problems. Then Wednesday and Thursday hit. I felt like I couldn't control a single airplane without doing something wrong. I got my butt handed to me frequently on those days. Friday had to be better right? Right. I regrouped, reviewed some material, played some scenarios out in my head and came back Friday with a fresh look. I did much better. We were told early on that we'd have up days and down days. Hopefully I've had my down days.

This upcoming week (and the beginning of next week) is critical. We have 6 instructional days left to figure it all out before we PV.

Here's how this week is going to play out - The problems are becoming more clogged with aircraft. 40, 42, 45, 48, 50, etc... Until Friday when we run a problem with more than 50 aircraft in 40 minutes. It's called the "humbler". The Humbler is designed (I guess) to push you to the edge...To show you what its like to have aircraft buzzing around the skies like fireflies...To test your training and techniques. Damn it's gonna be fun!

The following Monday we will run a problem with a lot less aircraft. This problem is what is closest to the PV problem. It will give is a chance to see what the PV will be like before we take it. Hopefully, after running the Humbler on Friday the scenario on Monday will be relatively easy.

Sometime this week we will learn who exactly we will be PV'ing with. The class has been split up into 2 core groups of 6 which have stayed together throughout the training. Each person in the group has worked with the other. The instructors will set a schedule of who will be PV'ing with who and we will work that that person exclusively next Monday to prepare for the PV. This is important as it will allow us to get familiar with the others techniques as we prepare for the final exam.

The end is coming quick. Sorry that this post is shorter than most. I will have a lot more to blog about next week!

Until then.

I guess it's that time of the week again... 18 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes, and 6 seconds are left as I write this. On Monday we will have 11 training days left in the simulators. That will take us up to and including Monday, August 24th. Our PV days are the 25th and 26th. I get the heck out of here on the 27th.

This week, as you can imagine, has been tough. Although, because we're not sitting in a classroom anymore it has flown by.

These simulators take a little getting used to. For one, they rely on voice recognition commands to direct the aircraft. Someone made the comment that the government really did take the lowest bidder on the voice stuff... It's horrible. Some of the initial calls are so fast that you have to ask "say again" several times before you can figure out who the hell they are. I would much rather have a ghost pilot talking to me than a computer. Which is kind of ironic since there is a ghost pilot behind us anyway that is there to fix the mistakes the computer makes!

I digress.

So far we have run 3 problems. With each problem comes more complexity. The first problem we ran had a light load of aircraft and was really designed to allow us to become familiar with the simulator. We had aircraft that would call us inbound to the field requesting to land but they were spaced out far enough that we just ran them into the pattern and they landed without too much to have to worry about.

The second problem took all of the aircraft on the first problem and added a few more plus some extra departures. This time we were required to sequence aircraft into the pattern and take aircraft performance into account when getting aircraft on the ground. If you had a faster aircraft behind a slower aircraft then you had to extend the downwind of the larger aircraft and get the slower aircraft to make a short approach. While doing this you had to coordinate departures off of the north runway.

The third problem added some ground movement. There was an airport vehicle requesting to cross both runways and aircraft that wanted to reposition on the ramp. I think we had about the same amount of aircraft but they were still creating a "choke point" in the south runway's pattern so we had to sort that out.

There are a lot of rules they we have to follow during these runs. I understand the rules on paper. I can recite all of the rule's we've been given however putting them together during a run has been difficult. There is so much going on that your brain can't keep up. Right now.

Here is a photo of a couple of guys in the class running a problem:












My lead instructor and I were talking on Friday about all the multi-tasking a controller must do at any given moment. I was reminded of my days as a newscast director. At any given time during the newscast I had several things going on. For starters I sat in front of a board with over 200 buttons that needed to be manipulated in order to ensure the proper video went out over the air. I had a stack of scripts that gave me a lot of info such as camera positions, graphics insertions and tape roll cues. I needed to be aware of what the tape operator was doing and where he was putting the tapes, what my audio person was doing, if my camera operator was moving a camera when I needed it moved and if I had the correct graphic or tape cued up for insertion. I also needed to be aware of what my anchor was doing and listening to my producer for any changes. By the time I left I could do all of that during a newscast without batting an eye.

It didn't happen overnight that I could do all of that. This won't either. But I hope that during the next 11 days I can get somewhat close. It's a lot of information to dissect at any given moment. I've found that going home and re-thinking about the problem helps out a lot.

PV day is coming fast. Its on the top of my mind daily. It's coming quick. I can't wait to get it over with and get home. I'm looking very much forward to starting at the airport.

A friend of mine just landed a job as a baggage handler with Comair. I told him that I was looking forward to sitting up in the tower with my hot coffee watching him freeze his ass off on a cold ramp in January. He told me where I could put that coffee cup when I was finished.

18 days...


BTW, there is Arabic writing (or Klingon) on my Pringles can. I just noticed that. hum...

Here are a few photos of my airport - Courtesy of Chad Joines

Here we are. As I write this I have 3 1/2 weeks left here. I'm thrilled that this is finally winding down to a close. Unfortunately the class may be winding down but the the workload is picking up. This post will be much shorter than the past. We aren't learning anything new, just applying it more and more to the simulations. There isn't much to talk about regarding the tabletop sims. I hope to have a LOT more information to post about next week when we have had plenty of hands on time with the hi-def sims.

Last week was our first week in the simulators. It is definitely a different experience to finally see what he had learned being applied to a true to life scenario. All of the scenarios are designed to steadily increase in complexity. Usually in the form of more aircraft. Sometimes these aircraft will want to depart from the crossing runway or from an intersection. This requires coordination between the ground and local controller. Which is one of the goals the scenarios are designed to teach. The scenarios are also designed to build on what was applied on the day before.

A typical scenerio will start out slow. The first aircraft usually won't report in until at least a minute after the run begins. Most aircraft are simply arrivals that want to land. They are coming from all different directions so we have to learn to sequence them and build holes for others to join the pattern. Sometimes there is an aircraft that will want to do a touch and go, or several touch and go's so you've got to think ahead. What increases the difficulty is that you've got departures that are stacking up ready to go as well. You have to build holes in the pattern by sending aircraft out further on the downwind, or extending the upwind to create a hole for a departure. All while maintaining separation, calling out traffic, and watching that guy doing touch and go's.


Monday will be our last day in these sims. On Tuesday we will take the CTO exam. The Certified Tower Operator exam is comprised of all the information we have learned since the first day. On Wednesday we begin work in the high definition simulators. These sims are programmed with voice recognition and some other advanced features that we will have to learn. It is in these sims that we will prepare for, and take the PV.


Right now, the scenarios are averaging about 25-28 aircraft in a 40 minute period. This may seem like a lot but it's actually not too bad. The hi-def sims will really ramp up the number of aircraft we will run. I'm looking forward to getting into the new sims. As was the tabletop sims, the TSS will up the amount of multi-tasking we will be required to do and introduce us to more complex problems. I hope it will be as fun as this past week was!