My Fifth Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller
On 23/11/2011, in ATC world, by jim
Yes, here I am again. You’d think by now I would stop this self-flagellation, but this is not for me. I record these incidents so you may see the mistake and avoid the same or similar in your life. I noted in my last missile that pride was a key ingredient in most of my mistakes. So it was and is.
Altimetry, a simple system; Know the pressure of the atmosphere and you can accurately judge distance above the surface. But we humans have made it a bit more difficult than stated. We have different methods of measurement. Some measure in inches others measure in centimeters. Compounding this is the insistence of some to measure height above sea level and others above the ground level. In the parlance of the time QNH and QFE.
Because of these anomalies the controller at Rhein-Main in 1957 had to have available the QNH and QFE in both Inches of mercury and Millibars of mercury. This means four numbers. The field elevation at Frankfurt International Airport was 272 feet Mean Sea Level. Therefore a QNH reading of 29.92 inches becomes a QFE of 272 feet less, or 29.65 and the concomitant millibar numbers, 1012.3 and —–.
Each hour when the weather observer recorded the observation on a Dimiphone recording, the QNH and QFE would be given in both inches and millibars. Those numbers would then be written on a backlit Plexiglas placard and posted so everyone in the control room could see the placard.
For those who are interested, the QNH and QFE three letter groups are from the days of Morse code transmission of information. They are from the list of “Q” signals. QDM is the magnetic course to a station, QSY is, “Change your radio frequency to xxxx“. There is a long list of these abbreviations. Many were still used as shorthand phraseology in radiotelephony in the 50′s and 60′s, especially in the international aviation system.
With all that as preface, this is the incident as it happened:
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My Fourth Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller
On 05/10/2011, in ATC world, by jim
The author in Frankfurt APP... anno
It’s a beautiful day in the Rhein Valley. A few clouds at three or four thousand feet but otherwise just great. The temperature is warm and spring is in the air. Two hours until the end of the day shift. I’m in charge of the shift for the shift supervisor has left for a haircut. All the pilots are canceling IFR and switching to Tower before they need vectoring to the final. Well I’m a great controller and can handle all this easily. All I need is someone to work the phones and I’ll work all the positions: Frankfurt Arrival, Wiesbaden Arrival and a Combined Departure Control East and West. Visual Flight Rules is easy. So I let all the other personnel off early.
This is Frankfurt Approach Control in 1957. We control a twenty-five mile radius of the Rhein Main Range (Adcock type) from the surface to 20,000 feet, except along intersecting airways where we only have the first four thousand.
There are over 250 IFR operations a day to and from Rhein-Main Air Base (Frankfurt International Airport). An additional thirty or forty a day at Wiesbaden Air Base and a few from Bonamais and Offenbach U.S. Army strips. I’ve been a controller here for three years and I’m now a Staff Sergeant with over five years in the Air Force. An Assistant crew Chief and on my way up.
Married and the father of a 18 month old baby girl. I can handle anything. But a strange thing happens.
The next weather report for Frankfurt is not VFR. A high cloud cover has come in and the visibility has reduced in haze to less than three miles. IFR in an instant. All the traffic is now under my direction. No more, “I’ll go to Tower now, thanks.”
Holy Cow! Now I better show what I can do.
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My Third Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller
On 15/09/2011, in ATC world, by jim
December 1953, Taegu Air Route Traffic Control Center, on the hill by the Children’s School in downtown Taegu, Korea. The war, I mean the ‘Police Action‘, has been over since last June. Both sides are still at the ready and wary of each other. About the same as it is now in 2011 (58 years later?)
Taegu to-day...
In the middle of a midnight to seven A.M. shift I was the only controller “on the boards”. Didn’t need any more. Taegu Air Route Traffic Control Center was a manual control facility, e.g., no radar and the air traffic at night was not more than a couple of aircraft.
There was another controller operating the radios in another room and a supervisor, T/Sgt Aaron Willeford, at the desk also operating as the Air Defense liaison controller. Three of us in all plus a radio technician available on call.
Special 304 a C-54 had landed some time ago at Seoul (K-14). He would be calling for clearance at any moment to proceed from Seoul to Taegu (K-2). A proposal was on the board for a C-119 from Kunsan (K-8) to Taegu. Special 304 was a courier flight that flew every night from Tokyo to various bases in Japan and Korea. Same flight, same call-sign, same route and about the same time every night. Kept us all awake no matter the weather or lack of other operations.
Well, both the C-54 and the C-119 called for clearance about the same time. My dilemma was that both aircraft were going to the same destination and I was estimating them to be there at about the same time so I needed to have them stacked at the appropriate altitude when I handed them off to the Tower at K-2(Taegu). I made a guess that the C-54 would depart on time because of the scheduled nature of his operation and the C-119 would be a bit late because, well, it was a C-119.
The C-54...
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Air Traffic Control – Your Safety in the Air? Or something more…
On 13/09/2011, in ATC world, by steve
Back in the early 70s I was the vice-president of the Hungarian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (HATCA) and we were busy searching for a good slogan for the association. In the end, we decided to use an adapted version of the slogan put out by the Canadians: “Air Traffic Control means you will have a safe flight”. The HATCA version became: “Air Traffic Control – Your safety in the air”.
Many many years later, when I was working in the airline Project Coordination Platform supporting the SESAR definition phase I introduced the idea of the “business trajectory”. This term referred to the trajectory defined by an airline, the one they wanted to fly and which best expressed their business intentions in relation to the flight concerned.
While the airlines really liked the idea, there was an immediate outcry from the controllers involved in the definition phase. How could I mention the term “business” in the same sentence with trajectory and air traffic control! ATC was there to ensure safety and business had nothing to do with it.
Recalling my time as HATCA president, I did not blame them. After all, when we were looking for the logo, we too highlighted safety as the aim of ATC and the word “business” did not cross our minds. We did this in spite of the fact that ICAO has been saying right from the start that the aim of air traffic services was to maintain a safe and efficient flow of air traffic.
Of course a lot has changed since then and while the importance of safety has not diminished, the relative importance of efficiency has grown tremendously. It is not an exaggeration to say that safety and efficiency are equally important if this industry is to survive. Concentrating mainly on safety is not enough by far… Our thinking must change so that the terms “safety” and “business” may coexist peacefully in our minds.
While the awareness to maintain safety is generally high in the ATM world, the business aspect still tends to be considered a necessary evil, even an affront to people anointed, after all, to uphold safety.
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My Second Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller
On 05/08/2011, in ATC world, by jim
January 1953, Matagorda Tower at Matagorda Air Force Base off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico just south of Victoria. The tower cab was made of metal and glass and perched on a metal girder system about 50 feet above the field elevation. There were a few problems but they were mostly environmental. Immediately noted in the winter was, no heating. No air conditioning either, unless the spaces around the door frame which allowed free air flow could be considered to conditioned air.
Now one might consider heating an unnecessary luxury in the Gulf of Mexico, but, on some 45 degree days in January when the clouds allowed no sun to be seen and the wind blew from somewhere in Canada unimpeded by any orthographic feature for 1600 miles until it penetrated those very spaces around the door frames mentioned above, it was damn cold. In opposition to that lack of warm air, the days when the south winds blew off the Gulf and the sun’s rays were unimpeded by anything but the roof of the tower, the air in the Tower cab was both hot and humid.
To counteract the cold we did have two electric heaters with fans. They were the military standard issue, olive drab, one foot square boxes. By setting them on the console desk and allowing one of them to blow directly into an open field jacket, which one wore for basic warmth, and with the other pointed at the feet, sans boots, the cold days could be endured.
The base was occupied about every other month for two weeks by a Wing of F-84′s from Bergstrom AFB, Texas or Turner AFB, Georgia and other Air Force Bases. During these deployments aircraft were in their sortie mode using the gunnery and bombing ranges of the Matagorda complex. The Tower was a busy place on launch and recovery of anywhere between 4 and 20 aircraft. There were the inevitable emergencies caused by hydraulic failures, control surface malfunctions and once, in my experience, a returning F-84 with part of a tow target imbedded in the wing. There were the “Hot shot, Top Guns” in those days also though they didn’t have the named programs as they do now.. The rest of the month things were mighty slow in the Control Tower.
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My First Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller
On 27/07/2011, in ATC world, by jim
- F-84s at Bergstrom
Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin, Texas, November 1952, a Strategic Air Command base with a complement of straight wing F-84, fighter bombers with nuclear capability. The high degree of professionalism and militarism of SAC was evident throughout. Even though the war was on, Korean Police Action I mean, the mood was one of controlled fury at the potential of the Communist Bear more than the oriental fight in progress.
I was a newly minted, E-3, Airman Second Class, Air Traffic Controller at my first PCS, Permanent Change of Station, assignment. Basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and six months at Biloxi Air Force Base, Mississippi in Air Traffic Control training had shown me the fun and challenge of being in ATC.
I had checked in to Bergstrom in mid-September and found that not many people knew what an Air Traffic Controller was or where they were located on the base. After passing through the Main Gate and being directed to the Personnel office I was stranded for about two hours until someone finally realized that I wasn’t assigned to the personnel of the base but was in a tenant organization, AACS, Air & Airways Communication Service. A most esoteric of units comprising the Tower operators, GCA controllers and Electronic technicians supporting them.
By November I was firmly established in the training program of the Control Tower and was able to “handle the mike” and even be assigned to work the “mid-shift” (mid-night to seven o’clock) with a fully qualified controller. Another duty was assignment to the D/F shack, a mobile Direction Finder unit located out in the boon-docks of the air base off the north end of the runways. One of the joys there was the M-16 carbine assigned to the shack for snake patrol. One could, without reporting it, fire away at the snakes in the scrub as long as the weapon was cleaned before the shift was over. This was in Texas.
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