[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

There is now a news report saying that the ATC supervisor let one of the on-duty controllers leave work early.....

[ezaircon4jc]

I like how they act like hiring & training a controller is no different than a Starbucks employee. It takes a certain type of person to do the job and many years of training. Just because one wants to do the job, sure doesn't mean they can handle the stresses of not only the job but also the shift work. Mandatory overtime and working holidays ain't pretty. My young son thought Thanksgiving was on a Saturday on more than one occasion.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

I like how they act like hiring & training a controller is no different than a Starbucks employee. It takes a certain type of person to do the job and many years of training. Just because one wants to do the job, sure doesn't mean they can handle the stresses of not only the job but also the shift work. Mandatory overtime and working holidays ain't pretty. My young son thought Thanksgiving was on a Saturday on more than one occasion.

I did a TRACON tour with my pilot's union this past fall and got to sit in with the controller running the West Gates of Denver Approach.

He was..... pretty damn amazing. It's the world's largest Tetris game, with the penalty for failure being life ending/changing if you miss a block.

The controller was accurate AND fast-- he was a hoot to watch-- his brain is obviously overclocked in regards to the job.

I got to play with the Arrival traffic flow in the ATC sim-- I could handle maybe..... 15-20% of what he was doing and although my ability to track the inbounds was reasonably good, it wasn't great. There's definitely some transfer of skills between pilot and ATC controller, but geez, I was impressed with the crowd running the TRACON.

And? It was a slow time of the day (which is why were were able to get in on a tour at that time.)

R.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

I did a TRACON tour with my pilot's union this past fall and got to sit in with the controller running the West Gates of Denver Approach.

He was..... pretty damn amazing. It's the world's largest Tetris game, with the penalty for failure being life ending/changing if you miss a block.

The controller was accurate AND fast-- he was a hoot to watch-- his brain is obviously overclocked in regards to the job.

I got to play with the Arrival traffic flow in the ATC sim-- I could handle maybe..... 15-20% of what he was doing and although my ability to track the inbounds was reasonably good, it wasn't great. There's definitely some transfer of skills between pilot and ATC controller, but geez, I was impressed with the crowd running the TRACON.

And? It was a slow time of the day (which is why were were able to get in on a tour at that time.)

R.

Not to brag too much... I got to work the busiest arrival hour LAX has ever, or will ever have. I and the guy who worked the sector next to me put down 135 arrivals in that hour. Due to the way the airspace and arrival flow was structured, I worked about 90 of those. I had 25L & 25R for my guys as well as 24L, I just had to find someone on 24R to follow. The other guy had 24R. It was the most fun I ever had at work! Even the busy times in the tower (only need 6K feet and airborne (jets) before the arrival crosses the threshold, or before launching the next departure) when I was pumping out the departures during the departure rush.

I sure miss the adrenalin rush!

[Llarry]

It's Sabre Saturday!

The North American F-86 Sabre was a mainstay of the Korean War in combat with MiG-15s. It was also widely exported to U.S. allied air forces in the 1950s. In addition, Canadian manufacturer Canadair produced a large number of Sabres for the RCAF and other nations.

The F-86 Sabre has the distinction of being the first fighter to use an air-to-air missile in combat. Early model Sidewinders were supplied to the Republic of China Air Force on Taiwan and were used to good effect in tangles with Communist MiGs as early as 1958.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps got it on the action as well; F-86s were adapted to aircraft carrier operations as the North American FJ. FJ-2s were not as carrier-capable and mostly used by the Marines, but FJ-3s were an important carrier fighter in the 1950s.

All-weather variants of the F-86 came later: The radar-equipped F-86D was the first and was built in large numbers as well.

[Lady Jane]

Originally Posted by Llarry

It's Sabre Saturday!

The Canadair Sabre Mk5 was my dad's very first operational aircraft after advanced jet training with 422Sqn "Tomahawks" out of RCAF Marville, France. He loved that airplane. He actually met Chuck Yeager at Hahn AB Germany when Yaeger was commanding a squadron of F-86H.

Pictures from the 422 historical pages.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Llarry

All-weather variants of the F-86 came later: The radar-equipped F-86D was the first and was built in large numbers as well.

About 50 years ago, I got to sit in the gutted cockpit of an F-86D that was converted to an F-86L before being removed from service.

Local legend says that the USAF took the entire remaining inventory of F-86's at our local now-closed AF base and buried them in a trench for disposal.....

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

About 50 years ago, I got to sit in the gutted cockpit of an F-86D that was converted to an F-86L before being removed from service.

Local legend says that the USAF took the entire remaining inventory of F-86's at our local now-closed AF base and buried them in a trench for disposal.....

One of the issues with the Dog Sabres, as well as other all-weather fighters like the F-89 Scorpion, was that the primary armament was 2.75-inch folding fin rockets. I think those rockets were horribly inaccurate.

[Llarry]

On Sabre Saturday I failed to mention that Australia also modified the Sabre design, fitting a Rolls-Royce Avon engine with increased power and built a number for the RAAF.

The question of Sabre engines is an interesting one. The original powerplant was a J47 turbojet. Canadair built a number with Orenda engines. USN/USMC FJs had a Wright J65, which was a license-built Armstrong-Sidley engine. And the Aussie Sabres had Avons. Quite an assortment!

[Lady Jane]

This is the Lear 55 that crashed yesterday in Philly. A very sad story of a young patient returning home to Mexico with her mother and attending medical staff after life saving surgery in the US.

Looking at the video, there was an explosion on board after take-off and the plane came screaming down like a missile. If there was an oxygen saturated environment, a simple spark or contact with an oily substance could have caused an explosion.

[3.0L]

My favorite Sabre movie: the great Bob Hoover doing his thing.

[NSXR]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

I like how they act like hiring & training a controller is no different than a Starbucks employee. It takes a certain type of person to do the job and many years of training. Just because one wants to do the job, sure doesn't mean they can handle the stresses of not only the job but also the shift work. Mandatory overtime and working holidays ain't pretty. My young son thought Thanksgiving was on a Saturday on more than one occasion.

When I was a senior in high school, circa late 80's, Air Traffic Controller was listed as the most stressful job in the world on the job list given to us. I'm sure times have changed, but it's still not an occupation for everyone.

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by NSXR

When I was a senior in high school, circa late 80's, Air Traffic Controller was listed as the most stressful job in the world on the job list given to us. I'm sure times have changed, but it's still not an occupation for everyone.

There's nothing like packing 10# of airplanes into a 5# airport! There is quite a bit of mention about not enough airspace. The problem isn't airspace, it's parking space. It's like 100 roads emptying into a facility with 2 entrance gates.

The stress level really depends on the person. I did just fine (well, until my post-retirement heart attack), others did not. We had one guy that got stressed with 4 or 5 airplanes. He could do the job just fine, he was just fun to watch when he got busy. My motto was Boeing didn't make enough; bring 'em on! There's a pretty good movie called Pushing Tin that is a decent representation of how controllers think. "That's not a hole!" "Wanna bet!?"

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

There's nothing like packing 10# of airplanes into a 5# airport! There is quite a bit of mention about not enough airspace. The problem isn't airspace, it's parking space. It's like 100 roads emptying into a facility with 2 entrance gates.

The stress level really depends on the person. I did just fine (well, until my post-retirement heart attack), others did not. We had one guy that got stressed with 4 or 5 airplanes. He could do the job just fine, he was just fun to watch when he got busy. My motto was Boeing didn't make enough; bring 'em on! There's a pretty good movie called Pushing Tin that is a decent representation of how controllers think. "That's not a hole!" "Wanna bet!?"

On my second tour in Korea back n the late 70's, I had a friend who was the ATC at the airfield where I was stationed. He was a devout Christian and wouldn't touch alcohol. But cigarettes were a must. And that was just a helicopter field with a few dozen aircraft.

[vreihen16]

I have two questions about collision alarms, in light of this week's incident:

1) In the cockpit, does the TCAS alarm disable itself automatically at a certain altitude on descent or in close proximity to an airport, to avoid false alarms from planes on the ground?

2) Does the ATC system not generate collision alerts when two aircraft are below a certain altitude and near an airport, to avoid false alarms?

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I have two questions about collision alarms, in light of this week's incident:

1) In the cockpit, does the TCAS alarm disable itself automatically at a certain altitude on descent or in close proximity to an airport, to avoid false alarms from planes on the ground?

2) Does the ATC system not generate collision alerts when two aircraft are below a certain altitude and near an airport, to avoid false alarms?

I was wondering about that as well. But I would also think you'd get hammered with alarms in a tight, busy air corridor like that.

I haven't seen or listened to the entire recording between the ATC and the pilots, but were the airline pilots warned about the helicopter, and if so, did they acknowledge visual contact?

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I have two questions about collision alarms, in light of this week's incident:

1) In the cockpit, does the TCAS alarm disable itself automatically at a certain altitude on descent or in close proximity to an airport, to avoid false alarms from planes on the ground?

2) Does the ATC system not generate collision alerts when two aircraft are below a certain altitude and near an airport, to avoid false alarms?

Number 2. The CACA (both aircraft flash CA in red, so we've always called it the CACA alert) is quite unreliable. By the time it alerts, there is nothing that can be done. That, and there are so many false alerts we pretty much ignored it. It is always active, no altitude parameters.

Pretty much the same with the low altitude alert. When I was at SLC, practically every aircraft on base would set of the low altitude because the plane was below and pointed at the mountains and the computer figured we wouldn't turn the plane to the airport and they would run into cumulo-granite.

[M_Six]

...cumulo-granite...