THE FLYING PENGUIN

Still Around!

2010-04-07T00:54:00.002-04:00

I am still alive, contrary to popular opinion. :)

I had some speed bumps late last year, but with a new training team the wind's back in my sails. I'm finally just about done on the Pensacola bank. Can't wait to get that out of the way, knock out the last couple of sectors, and just work traffic. Things are looking good for certification.

On the blogging, I've written so much over the past three years that I needed to take a break and focus on some other projects. There are only so many hours in the day and I have so many different interests - my wife, family, music, design work, professional writing - that it became hard to find the time. At work I've also gotten involved in developing the training program for the next batch of trainees. We literally had no training program when I started, so hopefully things will be better for future arrivals.

Anyways, as always here's a visual aid. This morning, the Blue Angels decided to come over to Pensacola Regional and shoot some practice approaches. I guess they need to do their currency approaches like any other pilot.

Here's a view from the new TRACON's back porch as BA #1 executes a missed approach off our ILS 17.

Moving Day: A Tale of Two TRACONS

2009-10-23T19:50:00.007-04:00

First - yes, I'm still alive! I'm not going to bore anyone with the details of what I've been up to. Suffice it to say I've had a lot of music, writing, and personal things going on that have really taken up a lot of my time.

Secondly, today is the last day in our old TRACON. The new building goes online tonight. Over the past few days the Airways and Facilities folks have been steadily "cutting over" equipment, frequencies, and landlines. Let's just say there have been a few hair-raising moments where controllers have suddenly found themselves with lots of airplanes and - surprise! -no working radios. But, everybody made it through just fine so far.

So, come Monday I'll be doing the same ol' thing in brand new surroudings. Just for a frame of reference, here's a look at the contrast between the old facility and the new one.

A Tale of Two TRACONS: A Comparison

OLD: The 45 year old building
It has a certain weary battleship thing going on. The boarded-up tower on top was decommissioned in 1998 and had its windows blown out by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The old radar room will stay operational for 30 days. After that, it will all be torn down and replaced with a new cargo terminal for the airport.

OLD: Panorama
My dusty, musty workplace for the past two years. You really don't want to see this place with the lights on. Oh my God.

OLD: ARTS IIE Scope
Incidentally, this is the first position I was certified on, and the last one I worked in the new building. Physical push-button radio panels above, physical landline buttons to the left, and the ARTS keyboard with a PEM stick for moving your cursor around. Never heard of a PEM? Remember those

NEW: The 2009 model TRACON
Brand new government issue TRACON.

Note: The tower is separate

NEW: Panorama
It has a much larger floor plan, with large desks in the middle for supervisors and Flight Data. There are currently 12 scopes installed, with a room for around six more. The building was designed with consolidation in mind. There's talk of either Mobile or Panama City one being integrated in here.

NEW: STARS Scope for the same sector shown above
Touchscreen RDVS panel on the left with all the frequencies and landlines, trackball in the middle of the console, and the new expanded STARS version of the keyboard at right. It's a much cleaner workspace.
NEW: Logo Coffee Mug
We had some celebratory spillproof coffee mugs made, with a logo I designed on the front. I couldn't help it... it's Pensacola... the Blue Angels had to make it in...

A Little Nostalgia

As nice as the new equipment and new building are, there are certain things I'll miss about the old place.

The Convenience: My wife and I only have one car and our schedules don't match. For the past two years, every time I've worked a night shift - usually twice a week - I've gone into the airport terminal and sat in the airport's only restaurant until it's time for work. Let's just say they know my "usual" when I go there.

At times, I've sat there for up to four or five hours before my shift starts - for instance, when my wife goes in at 10am and my shift doesn't start til 2:45pm. So, an eight hour day becomes a twelve or thirteen hour day for me. And of course, that takes away from my time to run errands, sleep, relax, whatever.

On the plus side, they have free Wi-Fi, decent food - best Cuban sandwich north of Miami - and there's just no better place to people-watch than an airport. I have lunch, surf/write on my laptop, and generally pass the time. I've just become accustomed to it.

The new TRACON is located in the middle of freaking nowhere. It's a couple of miles further away from my house and there's nothing useful around it. No places to sit. No places to eat. So, on those late shift days, I'll probably have to go in and just sit somewhere in the building until it's time to actually clock in. Oh joy.

The other option is to get some addtional transporation. I did ride my bike home from the old TRACON many times. I may still ride home from this TRACON in the cooler months, since I can just jump in the shower at home. During the summer, it can get up to and stay at over 100 degrees. It's hellish. But riding to work... man, what a mess.

Cab rides are too expensive - ~$35-$40 one way from my house. The busses here are useless. I don't want to bum anymore rides from my coworkers. Buying a second car, even a used one, is not in the financial cards right now. Maybe after the first of the year, when we get our raise, we'll explore the option. But right now, it looks like I'll just be doing the sitting game. Except, this time, without food and without internet. Yay... time to pack two meals - one lunch and one dinner.

The "Personal Space": The old building had three floors and was very spacious. The first floor was management and Airways & Facilities. The second floor was the radar room, equipment spaces, break room, and a few small offices. A mostly disused conference room made up the third. There were also a number of spaces around the building where you could find a nook to read, play some guitar, and generally get some quiet time. A bunch of us actually commandeered the third floor as our own area to talk, read, watch movies, and generally hang out without a TV or YouTube blaring in the background.

The new building is actually much smaller in terms of square footage and has only one floor. So, now management, controllers, and AF are working in much closer proximity, and sharing the same spaces. I have a feeling things will be a bit claustrophobic for a while.

That third floor will be missed.

The View: The last thing I'll miss the most is the outdoor staircase at the rear of the building. It was just perfect for planespotting. I always carry a camera with me - a real point-and-shoot, not just a camera phone - because I just never knew what was going to come in.

Here are some videos and pics I've taken over the past couple of years from that staircase, sort of a "Staircase Greatest Hits":

Blimp Landing

Navy T-45 Goshawk

Pano looking south from the stairs
You can see the tower and the new TRACON beside it on the other side of the field.

Delta Departing
Perfect lighting and a touch of haze add a sheen to this B752.

V-22 Osprey Taxiing
I was upstairs, heard this bizarre sound, went out to look, and saw this:

Bad Weather Day
Sarah Palin arrives in Pensacola via a Jet Blue charter. On another note, DHL ceased airborne cargo operations in the United States a few months after this pic was taken.

Yes
There may be some developmental commentary here.

Odd Couple
A sleek little CRJ being passed by what's arguably one of the ugliest - but most effective - aircraft ever made, the Navy C-2 Greyhound.

Jammin'
It was very, very peaceful out there most of the time.

Good Riddance

2009-09-30T18:26:00.003-04:00

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. I'd burn you, but I think all that accumulated hate inside of you might pollute the atmosphere like Chernobyl.

On a Quiet Morning...

2009-09-11T08:19:00.007-04:00

Eight years ago, I awoke to a pounding on my bedroom door. "Turn on the TV!" my mother-in law - who my wife and I were staying with at the time - yelled in Spanish. She's a very mellow person usually. Something was obviously up.

I stumbled out of bed and grabbed the remote. What could be so important that-

Oh God.

Twin towers aflame. Smoke billowing for miles in a plume so huge it could be seen from space. How could both towers be on fire? Then they reran the clips of UAL175 streaking along, banking, correcting. My gut wrenched as I saw the huge Boeing swallowed by the tower and a huge ball of ugly flame belch out of the building. Eyewitnesses said another one had hit the first tower.

Two airplanes? This was no accident. We were under attack. I immediately thought of Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor. The anger punched me hard.

I woke my wife up. We both sat, dumbfounded and helpless, as people struggled to survive a thousand miles away while metal wilted before the heat of flaming jet fuel. Firemen rushed to the rescue. People hovered in windows, waving frantically, trapped between a fiery death or a fall to Earth. Some held hands and leapt, together in their last moments, choosing their fate. Heroism and tragedy intertwined.

Those buildings were so indescribably tall and majestic, and being a child of the 80's I could never picture NYC without them. I remember reading about the B-25 that slammed into the Empire State Building in 1945. That was a 20 ton bomber crashing into a concrete and steel building, not a 150 ton airliner. But, surely, building technology had come a long way since those days.

Then came the first collapse. A short time later, the second. And we could only watch and hope that someone - somehow - had made it out of there alive.

I'd only visited New York once since I was a small child. In May 2001, my wife and I hooked up with my parents and sister in Philadelphia and took a whirlwind tour of the NE United States. Eight states in three days. My wife had never been to NYC before, and we saw a lot of things very quickly.

However, my strongest memories are of the Twins. I recall standing beside them, looking up, and feeling so very insignificant. They seemed to go on forever.

The only camera I had on me then was a DV video camera that also took 1024x768 stills, a pitiful resolution by today's standards. I had a wide-angle attachment for it as well. Here are the pics I shot on that beautiful day in May.

(Here's what the sphere looks like now. It actually survived the collapse and will be placed in the 9/11 memorial when it's built.)

Those are just a little reminder of how things were eight years and one day ago.

A few years later, I went on a class trip to the D.C. area. We hit every type of ATC facility: Washington National Airport Control Tower, Potomac TRACON, Washington Center, and - lastly - the Air Traffic Systems Command Center.

If you haven't seen United 93, you should. It's a powerful film and does a good job of showing what air traffic controllers do and how they react to unusual situations. While actors portray the heroes and terrorists who died aboard the aircraft, many of the folks on the ground - including ATC, military, government - are the actual people who were working that day. That includes the controllers who were on the frequencies and were the first people in the country to realize something was seriously wrong. Also, in tune with its accuracy, no other film has done as good a job presenting the "look" of ATC facilities.

The order to land every non-military aircraft in the United States airspace originated in the Command Center - given by 1st-day-on-the-job director Ben Sliney. Controllers from around the country managed to land every airplane within two hours, a fact that the media certainly noticed in a number of post 9/11 reports.

While visiting the Command Center was certainly a "big picture" look at the National Airspace System's normal daily ebb and flow of ground stops and delays, I also found it interesting to be in a place where a significant piece of ATC history originated.

Resting Up

2009-09-08T00:09:00.005-04:00

The missus and I just returned from Dragon*Con 2009, the creative/sci-fi convention in Atlanta. I was feeling crappy before we headed out, and over the past couple of days it's developed into a full-blown cold. So, I'll be taking a little time off writing for the rest of this week.

We did have a great time. I spent about 40% of the time at various creative writing panels, on everything from writing accurate military characters to the different factors that affect whether or not a book becomes a bestseller.

Here are some of the authors who conducted the panels I attended. There was a whole lot of talent and experience packed in every room, folks who've been in the writing industry since the day before forever.

Charlaine Harris: Author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, aka the basis for HBO's awesome show True Blood.
Mike Mignola: Creator of Hellboy.
Timothy Zahn: Author of a gazillion Star Wars universe books and other sci-fi novels.
Kevin J. Anderson: Author of the Dune prequels (along with Brian Herbert).
Richelle Mead: Author of the Succubus series. I've never read them, but my wife and sister are huge fans.
Peter David: Author of over 70 novels and 1000 comics in a ton of different markets.

I also got to watch and meet some of my favorite indie bands - The Ghosts Project, Abney Park, and Faith and the Muse. Excellent performances by all.

And, I had a walk-by encounter with The Guild's Felicia Day in the Art Gallery. Even though I'm not an MMO player myself, I love her web series (and of course Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog). She is so very, very cute in person.

For the sci-fi fans out there - and not that bullcrap SyFy thing....eck - we went to a Babylon 5 panel and a Battlestar Galactica panel. The B5 one was fantastic, with five of the major stars of the show in attendance. If you've never seen the show, once you get past the corny mid-90's 3D graphics and focus on the story and characters, you'll find one of the best dramas ever written in any genre. It actually took me until about episode 20-something to realize how good it was. Unlike Star Trek's crappy standalone "alien of the week" episodes, B5 is all about an ongoing storyline and fully realized character arcs.

The BSG panel was hella fun as well. The actors who played Laura Roslin, Saul Tigh, Ellen Tigh, Tom Zarek, "Dee" Dualla, Kat, Sam, and Felix Gaeta were there. Great group of people, and they dropped some hints about the upcoming BSG movie The Plan.

The only problems - with both the BSG panel and the B5 group - were the few audience members who insisted on asking some seriously ridiculous questions and making outlandish comments. I was reminded of this clip from William Shatner's famous SNL skit, directed at detail-obsessed Trekkies who seem to think the show was real. It was really, really just like that. It's like, "People, it was a show - a great show, yes - but nonetheless, just a frakking show..." Seriously guys, did your parents not socialize you? Did you spend the past 20 years in grandma's basement?

*Sigh*. Sci-fi convention stereotypes exist for a reason, I guess. Galaxy Quest does tend to be pretty accurate.

But anyways, I'm going to hit the sack. My wife doesn't have to work tomorrow. I do. Meh. Let's see how I feel in the AM. I'd rather not be sneezing all over the ARTS keyboards. They're disgusting enough as it is...

Heck, that's probably where I got this bug. There isn't enough hand sanitizer in the world to clean up after using those keyboards.

Seventy Years

2009-09-01T21:40:00.003-04:00

Seven decades ago today, Germany ignited the fires of World War II by shelling - and then invading - Poland. To say the world was forever changed pays poor respect to the tens of millions of people who perished in the carnage that ensued.

In the midst of the destruction, new, terrible words were born that have since left an indelible mark on the world's lexicon.

Such small words with such gruesome connotations.

In somewhat related news, my WWII story "Day 483" has made it to the top ten stories of all time on EveryDayFiction.com. For those who haven't read it yet, click here. It's a tale of ordinary citizens surviving the darkest hours of WWII's Eastern Front.

Some commenters have called it a horror story. I don't agree - horror stories are fantasy. What happened on the Eastern Front goes far beyond what fiction can conjure.

Nightly LOL

2009-09-01T00:46:00.004-04:00

I'm working Flight Data and simultaneously monitoring the one radar position we have open. The phone rings at the supervisor's desk and the sup picks up. It's the operations office for a regional air carrier. They have a flight arriving here in about fifteen minutes and apparently the flight's gate has been changed. They ask us to pass the information on to the pilot.

Why they called us, I have no idea. I've yet to see someone issue a "taxi to ramp" instruction from a radar position, but we've got the information. The radar controller agrees to pass it on.

Shortly thereafter, the plane gets handed off to us.

RGL3421: "Approach, Regional 3421 with you descending to 11,000 with Bravo."
Controller: "Regional 3421, Approach, roger. Descend and maintain 3,000."
RGL3421: "Down to 3,000, RGL3421."
Controller: "Oh, RGL3421, I'm not sure why this got passed to me, but your gate's apparently been changed. It's now G9."
RGL3421: "Errr, G9? Roger, 3421."

- A minute or so passes -

RGL3421: "Approach, you did say G9?"
Controller: "Uh, RGL3421, like I said, that's what got passed to me. It's G9."
RGL3421 (laughing): "Yeah, we were just discussing that and, uh, your airport's only got eight gates."

- We all crack up. A few seconds pass. -

Controller (deadpan): "Well, just look for the guy with the flashy lights."
RGL3421 (laughing): "Yeah, we'll do that. If that doesn't work, then we've got some real problems!"

Flock of Ospreys

2009-08-29T14:16:00.009-04:00

I think it'd be pretty hard to find a modern military aircraft that's stirred up more controversy than the V-22 Osprey. Sure, the F-22 is expensive and much of its role arguably obsolete, but it's still the best damn air superiority fighter in the world.

The Osprey, on the other hand, seems to be one teething problem after another. Engine exhaust that warps unprepared decks and lights landing zone foliage on fire. HIGE (Hovering in Ground Effect) issues when operating aboard ship with one engine over the side. Numerous crashes during its development phase that killed nearly two dozen people. Mechanical and maintenance problems caused by a lack of parts. Public relations disasters in many areas of its deployment, from falsified maintenance records to massive cost overruns. It hasn't lived up to its promised range and speed requirements.

Nonetheless, I'll admit: I'm a fan of the airplane, or at least its concept. When pushing aside the logistics, costs, and general public relations issues, the aircraft is a marvel of engineering. Unlike many other bloggers who hope it fails and want the U.S. to buy up a ton of modernized CH-53s or CH-47s, I'd actually like to see it succeed. The last I've heard its situation appears to be improving, with its deployment ships learning how best to operate their new toy.

Until today, I'd only seen one before in real life. In 2007, I took a Caribbean Carnival cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. The FLL Air & Sea show was in full swing as we were getting ready to depart. The USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) pulled into Port Everglades and docked right beside us, right in front of my balcony. On her deck sat a V-22.

USS Kearsarge getting pushed into her berth.

V-22 Osprey onboard

V-22 getting maneuvered about by a tug with a Princess cruise ship leaving beyond it.

Well, this morning, I was running some errands near Pensacola Regional Airport. Driving past the main airport entrance, I happened to look left towards the terminal. Heliworks - our local helicopter FBO that sits next to the terminal - sometimes has odd aircraft over the weekend. I've seen CH-53s, CH-47s, CH-46s and other military hardware there before.

A gaggle of strange rotors and twin tails peeked up beyond the fence. What the...?

After a quick U-turn, I drove into the parking lot adjacent to Heliworks. And there I found five V-22s from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron VMM-266. Odd aircraft indeed!

This is a perfect example of why I always keep a camera on me. I took a couple of panoramas and a bunch of standalone shots.

Five Ospreys of VMM-266

A Continental Express Beech 1900 taking off beyond.

Cloudy nose-on.

Ah! There's the sun.

Broad rotors.

Funny how dirty the engine nacelles are. These aren't exactly two decades old.

Rotors up.

Pilots from Navy Training Air Wing Five (TAW-5 NAS Whiting) tying down their H-57, with their (possible) future ride in the background.

That's our new TRACON to the right of the tower. Hopefully we'll be there in October.

It's funny; I wasn't the only one intrigued by these strange airplanes. I was there maybe ten minutes taking these shots, and no less than a dozen cars pulled up to admire the Ospreys. Parents with kids in tow, old ladies, photographer-types with long lensed cameras - a bizarre crossection of people, all fascinated by these aeronautical oddities.

In the News

2009-08-27T21:19:00.007-04:00

It's kind of funny when the aircraft you work - or may wind up working in the future - appear as front page news in the local paper.

The articles below relate to Choctaw Field and Whiting NAS. Here's where these fall within our radar map:

From the Northwest Florida Daily News:

Navarre Potential Destination for F-35

NAVARRE — Eglin Air Force Base officials hosted a meeting Tuesday to discuss an alternative that would use Choctaw Field in South Santa Rosa County for the Joint Strike Fighter training mission.

The meeting introduced three alternatives that are being considered in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the bed-down of the F-35 jets.

Of the three alternatives introduced, Choctaw Field (also known as Alternative 3) would have the greatest impact on the Holley-Navarre area.

The alternative would add a runway to Choctaw’s main airfield for the F-35 or use the current runway and add a landing, helicopter and assault area on the east side of the existing airfield. Either option would conflict with the existing Navy training at the airfield.

Two residents spoke at the meeting. Both favored using Choctaw Field, calling the potential noise “the sound of freedom.”

David Del Castillo lives 13 to 15 miles from Choctaw Field and saw several advantages.

“I believe that placing military aircraft at Choctaw Field, or anywhere in this area, is very good for the community. It’s also good for the Air Force,” he said. “I believe that Highway 87 directly connecting to Choctaw Field offers a lot of advantages. Heavy cargo could be brought in by trucks, never having to impact communities in Navarre. It could potentially provide employment to the community.”

Choctaw Field is located on the far west corner of Eglin Air Force Base’s range between East Bay and State Road 87 south of Interstate 10.

The airfield would be an hour commute for Joint Striker Fighter students who will attend classes in the training school under construction at Eglin.

Increased activity at Choctaw Field also could interfere with Bob Sikes Airport, Whiting Field and Pensacola Gulf Coast Regional Airport, according to a brochure available at the meeting.

Another alternative suggests Choctaw and Duke Field share the mission with Eglin’s runways. Two parallel runways would be built at Eglin and Choctaw would be used as one of two outlying fields.

An additional alternative would move the Joint Strike Fighter training to Duke Field. That option calls for building a landing, helicopter and assault area, and use either the existing runway or add a parallel runway east of the existing one.

“We support whatever the military needs to do,” said Sherry Del Castillo after the meeting.

However she did express one disappointment.

“I’m disappointed Santa Rosa County officials weren’t here to speak on our behalf,” she said.

The meeting was the first time Navarre has been included as a possible destination for the F-35.

Choctaw Field was excluded as an option previously because its runways could not support the mission and were already used by the Navy, base officials said in an interview in March.

Most of the F-35 discussion has centered on Valparaiso, where city officials are extremely worried about the jets’ noise.

Many of the alternatives presented involve building additional runways at a cost that was not included in the original BRAC funding. Estimated costs of the alternatives were not available but would be included in the final draft of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

I'm morbidly curious as to how a unit of nearly fifty supercruising F-35 fighters based ten miles from our two busiest facilities will affect our already ~~completely whacked~~ unique operation.

New T-6B Texans Arrive at Whiting NAS

From the Pensacola News Journal:

A pair of T-6B Texan II aircraft taxi down the runway at Whiting Field Naval Air Station Thursday morning Aug. 27, 2009. T-6B Texans are among the first of new training aircraft to be delivered to NAS Whiting Field. The Texans scheduled to replace the current T-34 trainer as Navy's primary flight trainer.

Louis Cooper - August 27, 2009: Threatening skies did not keep the next generation of training air craft from arriving at Whiting Field Naval Air Station this morning.

Whiting's Training Air Wing 5 took delivery of its first two T-6B Texan II training aircraft, which will replace the T-34 Turbo Mentor. The older craft have been in use by the Navy since 1978.
"It's pretty exciting to be bringing in a new training system that is going to train these airborne warriors for the next couple of decades," said Marine Col. John Walsh, commodore of Training Air Wing 5.
He pointed out that the T-34 he trained in at Whiting in 1987 is still in use today.
"You can see around here we're not big fans of the cash for clunkers program," Walsh said, with laughter from the crowd assembled in a hangar.
"We like to keep things flying around here. The taxpayers buy things for us, we take good care of it and we put it to good use."
The new plane will fly a maximum of 316 knots, where as the old one topped out at 280 knots. Whiting will receive periodic shipments of the new plane until it reaches a total of 156 on 2015. Student pilots will begin using the new planes in April.

These two were doing laps around North Whiting this morning. Fast airplanes. I'm wondering how well they're going to mesh in the pattern with the South Whiting helicopters.

"Day 483"

2009-08-15T18:51:00.002-04:00

EveryDayFiction.com has just published a new 1000 word short story of mine titled "Day 483". EDF posts a new short story every day, 365 days a year. They have a pretty strict selection process, so I'm pleased that they included my story in their roster.

The story is a dark historical piece about an infamous period in 20th century history: the Siege of Leningrad during WWII. For 900 days, the Nazis blockaded the Soviet city and left its citizens starving to death over three brutal arctic winters. It is estimated 1.5 million Russians perished, most simply fading away from the hunger and the cold.

"Day 483" is a glimpse into the horror of those desperate times:

http://www.everydayfiction.com/day-483-by-mark-rossmore/

Any feedback is welcome. Feel free to post comments beneath the story.

Punching Holes in a Leaky Hull

2009-08-15T02:40:00.003-04:00

I'm going to break from the norm on this blog and make one comment on the new contract:

We've all heard the arbitrators' results by now. Truly bittersweet. I know many were hoping we'd see the last three years of the White Book erased and everybody made whole again. That's obviously not what happened.

Yes, I'm happy that myself and the other new guys are getting a phased raise over the next three years. That'll be very nice. I'm looking forward to many of the other changes in the TAUs as well.

However, I am not happy that the people who have the most to offer - both to the public for safety and to us neophytes who need them to pass on their decades of experience- are getting the short end of the stick. They stuck their necks out for us three years ago in fighting the B-scale, and now they get shafted.

Given the economy and the need to compromise, I wasn't expecting everyone to walk away completely satisfied. Would I have liked a full, immediate raise? Sure. Would I have liked back-pay for the thousands of dollars of per diem myself and my classmates rightfully deserved - and did not receive - during our Tower class in early '07? Of course. Who wouldn't? But such is the nature of compromise. You lose one thing to gain another.

But the old guys and gals? They really didn't gain a thing. There was no compromise. And it sucks - for them, for us trainees, and for the flying public. They no longer have a real reason to stay past retirement.

We have two people eligible to retire. We have two more eligible within the next few months. We just lost one person to a staff position. Another one just got promoted to supervisor. Since I've been here, we've had an additional seven people either retire or transfer to other facilities as supervisors. Insofar as I know, there are no new developmentals scheduled for this year, though there is a rumor of one or two transfers.

If those four potential retirees decide to go, that leaves us with nineteen CPCs and six Developmentals to run a nine scope, 24/7 operation. The six day weeks and 10 hour days many other facilities have been living with are almost certainly in our future.

Am I looking forward to the pay and other changes? Sure. But I think in some ways we're losing more than what we're gaining. Some things - like experience - just can't be replaced.

The Blues

2009-08-13T00:15:00.004-04:00

We continue to have visitors in our neck of the woods: my parents and some family friends. I took them to see the Blue Angels practice over at NAS Pensacola. Aside from my dad - who is a phenomenal aviation photographer - none of them had ever seen the Blues perform before. The same goes for my wife. They all came away very impressed.

My wife kept talking about the sound they made, how it just knocks you in the gut. It was the first time she's ever heard afterburners. Her favorite part, of course, was the "sneak pass" where the two solos come screaming by at nearly Mach 1 - one from directly behind the crowd and the other along the airfield.

Here are some pics I took with my little point-and-shoot camera. I can't wait to see the ones my dad took with his far-superior image-stabilized camera equipment.

The diamond flight in formation, smoke on and condensation popping off the wings.

Shooting for the moon

Solos doing a high-alpha pass

Solo climbing out after the high-alpha, condensation breaking off the leading edge extensions

Solo coming back down

When the Blues practice, we completely shut down the airspace around NAS Pensacola. This restriction has a radius of 6 miles and goes out to 10,000 feet, and usually lasts from 8:30am to 9:30am on the days the Blues are practicing.

It's funny to watch Sherman's Training Wing 6 scatter like ants before the dreaded 8:30am rolls around. No one can arrive or depart while the Blues have the field, so Sherman usually pumps out T-6 Texan IIs, T-39 Sabreliners, T-1 Jayhawks, and T-45 Goshawks like it's nobody's business. We'll go from two stripbays full of proposals to nothin' in no time flat.

Once the Blues start taxiing out, the gates lock up tight. A few weeks back, we had this one Jayhawk coming in at around 8:25am. The controller working Sherman tried to get him in and called up the tower. The guy was descending like a rock, flooring the gas pedal, and was only a few miles north of the field. "Sorry" the tower sup said. "The Blues are on the move." The Jayhawk had to divert to Mobile, AL.

It's just the way it goes with the Blues.

Summer Days

2009-07-28T10:52:00.006-04:00

It's been a surprisingly busy summer, with family visiting and a lot of projects in the works.

Firstly, I'd like to direct your attention here ---->

A few people have expressed an interest in making donations to the blog. I know many authors just put up a big PayPal donation button. I'm not really comfortable with that. I'm a big believer in giving folks something for their money, whether it's an album of MP3s or some original fiction.

Via those links to the right you can help support this blog and my varied creative endeavors.

Escape the Clouds is my own instrumental musical project, a blend of many different sounds from hard rock to industrial to Latin rhythms to steampunk to electronica. I play and record all of the instrumentation - guitar, bass, drums, keys, synths, etc.. It's something I've done for years. The band name comes from music's power to shove away all of your troubles.
- Buy the album Bring the Rain (MP3 format)
- Listen to the album on MySpace
I've also started working on a second album. Demo tracks are available here:
http://atchours.com/Media/index.cfm
Steampunk Tales is now available on all platforms, not just iPhone. The PDF version is only $1.99. It is DRM free and includes 10 original short stories - over 120 pages of reading! My story is titled "A Grain of Sand".

Click here to buy!

Also, I just found out one of my other stories has been picked up for a new issue. This particular story is the longest and my favorite of the ones I've completed so far (about 15,000 words). I'll post more when I find out the publication specifics.

ATC Updates

So far, I've been recommended for a couple of the Pensacola scopes. However, we've basically had to stop training over the past few weeks due to staffing. Our new TRACON building is nearing completion and they had to pull seven people off the floor to send to STARS cadre training for two weeks. Lots of OT as a result for the remaining CPCs. In addition, we developmentals were used for coverage, so there was slim pickings for training.

On the upside, the new building's looking good. It's a smaller, one-story facility as opposed to the three story "battleship" we have now, but I'm looking forward to the new STARS scopes. One thing I don't like about it is that there are far fewer places to hide. In our current building, if you want to go read a book or fool around on your laptop in a quiet place, we've got a lot of spaces where you can still hear the pager but there aren't a lot of people around. The new building's a lot more compact and we're all just going to be on top of each other.

I took these pics in the winter. I haven't been over there since, but apparently all the new equipment's in and they're getting close to completion. The switchover is scheduled for October and it actually seems to be right on schedule.

New TRACON, next to the new PNS tower (built late 90's)

The radar room. Ah, that new TRACON smell.

The back porch, looking out on runway 17/35.

Grilling Time

Summer wouldn't be complete without the smell of outdoor grilling, and we aimed to make good.

My in-laws came to town for a week and a half for their anniversary. We Hispanics usually equate family time with food, and this was no exception. My wife and I broke out the grill and went to town. We're normally pretty light eaters by ourselves, but for that week we just decided to enjoy ourselves food-wise.

Fired up, ready to go: Chicken, brats, and peppers

Movie Night snacks. Front to back, right to left: half-size burgers, pepper and goat cheese salad, fig and cheese puffs, risotto and cheese balls, zucchini fritters, spinach and cheese puff pastry, and some refreshing strawberry lemonade my wife whipped up.

Sunday special: Potato and beets salad, homemade moros (rice and beans mix), chicken wings, sausage, steaks, and pepper and homegrown eggplant salad.

In-Laws' Anniversary: Steak, homemade gravy, and homemade risotto and cheese balls

Breakfast: Homemade guava pastries

Let's just say, after the in-laws went home, the missus and I went back to eating salads and wraps. I'm actually eating a nice healthy turkey wrap right now. :) Need to get back on an even keel before I capsize!

Feeling Gassy

2009-07-09T23:48:00.004-04:00

So I was working the Whiting sector the other day. Things were dead. I had nary a plane on the freq.

Suddenly, I got a call: "Approach, Airship 156LG."

Readers of this blog know I've got a thing for airships. I read about them. I write about them. I have a general fascination with the subject matter. I'm a fan of all things alternate history/steampunk, and airships are just a huge part of that. So, needless to say, when I heard that my reaction was a mental "Ooooh...."

I keyed up and asked him his intentions. Turns out he wanted to land at Pensacola Regional. I issued him a squawk code and a few seconds later he popped up on my scope. I told him to proceed as requested to the airport, which was 20 miles south. He was cruising at 1000 feet.

It was at that I point realized that airship pilots must be some really patient chaps. His ground speed was showing a whopping 20 knots over the ground. 20 nautical miles to fly. 20 knots of ground speed. That's right - he took nearly an hour to traverse that distance.

We have a function on our scope that lets you click on an aircraft, click on a point along the aircraft's route (in this case our airport), and it'll tell you how long the aircraft will take to get there and what his ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) is. Yeah... when I tried that with Mr. Airship, it spat back "XXX". He was going too slow for it to calculate, LOL.

The funniest moment came courtesy of a Navy trainer. She was departing Whiting NAS about six miles east of the airship's position and turning west towards him. As she was climbing up to 2500 feet, I noticed another, unrelated target, approaching the airship at 1000 feet. So, I call the airship and tell him, "Airship 6LG, traffic, 9 o'clock, three miles, southwest bound, altitude indicates 1000 feet, type unknown."

Well, the Navy trainer thought the traffic call was for her. "Approach, Red Knight 123, I have the.... uh... traffic in sight. I, uh, I... I think it's a blimp!" The tone of wondrous confusion in her voice was hilarious. I cracked up.

I responded. "RN123, Approach, that traffic call was not for you, but, yes, there is indeed an airship out there. He's no factor for you."

Anyways, after a (long) while I handed the airship off to the next sector, who actually worked the arrivals into Pensacola Regional. I got relieved by another controller and grabbed my camera (Always keep a camera handy!). I wanted to snap some pics of him landing. After all, it's not very often we see airships in these parts.

I hit the outdoor rear staircase. The airship was still 4 miles away. I swear, he looked like he was standing still in the sky. I took one pic, then went inside and packed up my laptop... made a phone call... checked my e-mail... hit the bathroom... and did a bunch of other errands. I had plenty of time. :)

Upon finishing my business, I took another peek out the window. At last, he was on his final approach. I ran outside, set my camera on video, and started filming. The entire ground crew was ready and waiting, along with a mooring mast.

Here's the resulting video of his approach and landing, about 2.5 minutes long after editing. The music is "Wings of Steam Remix" from the soundtrack to American McGee's Alice.

(Don't forget to hit the "HD" option)

Rain Days and Videos

2009-06-30T10:52:00.007-04:00

Well, it's still hot. At least we've had some thunder-bumpers roll through to give our water bill a respite and our lawns some life. Of course, the air's nice and humid now and the airplanes are climbing like three-legged dogs, but things look a lot greener... when you can see them, that is.

There's a control tower out there, somewhere:

Kind of quiet today. I was going through my blog roll and came across a funny little video someone had posted.

Remember when Delta came out with the "hot flight attendant" aircraft safety video a year or two ago? It hit the web and TV news like wildfire and caused quite a stir. But watching it now, there's absolutely nothing remarkable about the video other than the fact the spokeswoman's, well, a hottie. Outside of a "no smoking" finger waggle, she just delivers her lines with a smile.

Here's the "Deltalina" vid for those that don't remember it.

Well, you gotta love the Kiwis of Air New Zealand. When they make an inflight safety video, they also do it wearing a smile... and little else.

Two words: body paint. (And yes, it's safe for work - all the bits are strategically covered)

Could anyone imagine a U.S. airline doing something like that? Oh, the scandal....

Away with the Heat

2009-06-22T21:11:00.005-04:00

Okay, this heat needs to go away. A few days of 90+ degree weather is fine, but we're going on a week now, with no letup in sight.

My wife's lovingly cared-for vegetable garden is shriveling up (except for the eggplants). The water bill's sky high from all the sprinklers we've been running. I've had to curtail my bike riding because the heat is so oppressive.

Friday, I was working a Skylane landing at a local field. He was at 8000. I told the guy to descend to 3000. He replied, "Is there anyway you can make that a pilot's discretion descent? We're trying to stay up as long as possible to keep cool." I granted his request. Having flown Cessnas all over South Florida in the thick of summer, I can relate to that lovely greenhouse effect those big windows provide.

On Saturday, I planned to head down to the beach and find a nice place outdoors to do some creative writing. The 110 degree heat index changed my mind in a big way. As much as I love the ocean and the outdoors, I felt like I was going to melt.

Instead, I headed on down to the Naval Aviation Museum, laptop in tow. I figured, it's free, it's air conditioned, and it's full of airplanes. There are worse places to write about real aviation and about ficticious aerial adventures in times long past.

With a view like below, I can't complain. Plus, the Cubi Bar Cafe makes a darned good chili, that was absolutely worth eating even though it was hella hot outside.

(Taken with my crappy laptop webcam, as I stupidly left my regular camera at home)

Fun with Landlines

2009-06-17T11:52:00.004-04:00

We use two main kinds of landlines to communicate with other facilities: shout lines and ring lines.

A shout line works like it sounds. You key up another facility - let's say, our tower - and your voice immediately gets "shouted" out over a loudspeaker in the other facility. They're typically used for positions that require extensive coordination and rapid response times, since you can immediately start talking. The other facility then picks up the line.

Say I take the handoff on Cessna 123 from Jacksonville Center. They switch the aircraft to me and he comes over requesting a descent. He's still 5 miles inside Jax's airspace so I can't descend him without their approval. I call up Jax's Crestview Low sector and say, "Crestview Low, Pensacola West, ApReq (approval request)." They hear that come over the speakers on their end. Then the Crestview Low controller - or his D-side - answers me. "Crestview low." I then say, "Request control for lower, Cessna 123." They make sure it works for them, then say, "Cessna 123, your control, [operating initials]." I say my initials, unkey the landline, and then tell the Cessna, "Cessna 123, descend and maintain [altitude]."

Ring lines actually ring like a telephone line on the other end and you can't speak until the other side picks up the line. They're used for lower intensity positions like Flight Data, where time and action aren't always critical.

Here's the thing: I'm not 100% sure on the shout lines, but the ring lines are essentially regular phone lines. They have actual telephone numbers associated with them by the phone company.

Let's look at the phone company for a second. When a customer cancels a line, that number gets sent back into the phone company's pool of available numbers. When the FAA asks the phone company for phone lines for its facilities, the phone company dips into that pool of numbers and gives the FAA however many numbers it asked for.

However, the FAA has no idea who was using those numbers beforehand...

Getting Religion

One afternoon, I'm working Flight Data. The line from a local control tower rings. I pick it up, answering, "Pensacola Flight Data."

"Hi, yes! Is this Brownsville Baptist?"

"Uh, no. This is-"

"I'm looking for Pastor Larry. Is Pastor Larry there?"

"No sir, this is Pensacola-"

"But I'm looking for Pastor Larry. I need to speak with him. I was wondering if-"

"Sir, you have the wrong number."

"But I really need to speak with him. Can you tell me-"

"Sir, again, you have the wrong number."

"Oh? Are you sure Pastor Larry's not there?"

"I'm sure he's not here, sir. You have the wrong number."

"Oh, well sorry about that. God bless!"

"You too, sir."

*Click*

:)

Well, apparently that ring line's particular number used to belong to Brownsville Baptist Church of Pensacola, FL. Maybe they moved. I don't know. Whatever the case, they cancelled a phone line, the number got recycled, and it wound up in the FAA's hands when the FAA setup their landlines. But somewhere, somehow, there are plenty of people out there who think it still belongs to BBC.

Those kind of exchanges happen at least a couple of times a month, although it was the first time it happened to me. I'm always so tempted to just "run with it" but I feel bad about doing it. Others have different ways of handling them.

For instance, there was the time a coworker here got a call very similar to the one I just described. "I'm sorry," he said, "Pastor Larry's not here at the moment. I'm new here, but let me see if I can find his number for you."

And... he proceeded to give the caller another controller's cell phone number.

A minute later, we hear a cell phone go off in the break room.

Confused hilarity ensued. :)

A Beaver to the Head

2009-06-16T13:30:00.003-04:00

People around the world love to planespot. You grab your favorite camera, drive over to the nearest airport, and sit back and watch the traffic come and go. It can be quite relaxing.

However, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might not just be watching the action. You could be in the action.

iPhone App: Steampunk Tales

2009-06-10T10:46:00.012-04:00

It's a good start to the day. I'm very pleased to announce the launch of a brand new fiction magazine exclusively for the Apple iPhone: Steampunk Tales.

I'm fortunate to be part of this original, exciting venture. My story "A Grain of Sand" is one of the ten short fiction pieces featured in its inaugural issue, available now for $1.99 on the Apple iTunes App Store. It's humbling to be included alongside award-winning authors with decades of writing experience and hundreds of works in print.

What is steampunk, you ask? It can best be described as "a past that never was". Think of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Think of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, or The Island of Doctor Moreau. These are all predecessors of what has become known as steampunk. Most stories take place in the 1800s and very early 20th century, but fill them with science fiction technology and fantastical inventions. Some use historical settings, others create entire new worlds. It's a very broad genre with unlimited possbilities.

I love the genre, because it's essentially a giant "What if?" Very exciting stuff.

The full press release from the creator of Steampunk Tales:

>Steampulp Publishing LLC has released the world’s first electronic pulp fiction magazine created exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Emulating the style of the pulp adventure magazines of the 1920s and ’30s, Steampunk Tales #1 contains first-run and original fiction written by an A+ list of award-winning authors.

Issue #1 contains 10 short stories (between 4,300 and 11,000 words) for the unbelievably low price of $1.99. Authors contributing to Issue #1 include Jay Lake, Catherynne M. Valente, SatyrPhil Brucato and G.D. Falksen. The cover art was painted by popular artist Melita “Missmonster” Curphy. Steampunk Tales is distributed exclusively via the iPhone App Store and features the unique Steampunk Tales Reader, which renders the stories with a retro-futuristic Victorian flair never before seen in any eBook reader application.

“We stand at the beginning of a revolution in the distribution of print,” says John Sondericker III, founder of Steampulp Publishing. “The combination of low distribution costs and the potential for high volume sales allows us to provide an astounding value for the consumer. The timing is perfect to re-introduce the world to the ‘Penny Dreadfuls’, and the iPhone is a platform that can truly do them justice.”
Steampulp Publishing LLC is the first and only company to release a fiction magazine exclusively on the iPhone platform. New issues of Steampunk Tales will be released monthly. Steampunk Tales will be one of the first applications to implement several of the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 features, as 3.0 will allow readers to purchase back-issues as well as new content from within the Steampunk Tales Reader.

DCS: Black Shark Review

2009-06-06T22:26:00.013-04:00

I'm a flight sim junkie. I can't help it. And to feed my needs, I just picked up a new PC flight simulator: DCS: Black Shark. It's the first real dedicated helicopter sim I've ever owned, and it's been an interesting ride.

Most other sims offer a hangar full of aircraft. Microsoft Flight Sim X has twenty. The latest iteration of the IL-2 Sturmovik series now has a whopping 246 flyable aircraft. However, in each of those, the aircraft are "dumbed down" so that the minimum of learning is involved before the pilot takes to the sky. The flight models are reasonably accurate, so the aircraft perform well enough, but in terms of cockpit operation most aircraft above the piston twin level are severely limited. For instance, if you're flying the A321 or B777 in FSX, don't expect a truly functional Flight Management System without buying an expensive 3rd party add-on. But, it also won't complain about TOGO and flap settings when you push the throttles to stops for takeoff. It makes it easier for new pilots to fly.

DCS:Black Shark, on the other hand, simulates only a single aircraft, the Russian Kamov KA-50 Black Shark attack helicopter. One aircraft, you say? How can that be any fun? Easily. There is more detail put into this one aircraft than an entire squadron of Microsoft Flight Simulator or IL-2 Sturmovik aircraft.

Here's a user-created video showing what the sim looks like in action.

So ugly it's... ugly.

Don't mind us. We're just hunting deer.

Flying and fighting this thing is more akin to a first person shooter than a jet simulator such as Falcon or Lock On. Rather than screaming in the Mach numbers and the flight levels in your F-15 and launching AMRAAMs at targets far beyond visual range, here you're low and in the dirt. Those are trees whipping past your windshield, not clouds. Below the radar is the name of the game. And you need to be careful. No Rambo antics. You need fly intelligently. If you wander too close to that M-1 Abrams while you're trying to lock it up, it will blow your ass out of the sky with its 120mm smoothbore.

The KA-50's role is similar to that of the AH-64 Apache or Mi-28 Havoc: low level attack and interdiction. However, it is unique in three regards.

First, it has a coaxial rotor system which gives it excellent maneuverability and survivability. The entire engine and transmission is kept very compact. Without a tail rotor, there's no chance of a Black Hawk Down "Super 64" moment.
Secondly, it has only a single crewmember. Every other attack helo in the world operates with two: a pilot and a gunner, usually seated in tandem. This divides up the workload very efficiently, allowing the gunner to focus on the tasks of targeting and weapons deployment while the pilot flies and navigates.|

The Black Shark forces one person to take on all of these roles. It's a challenge, because you're operating a high performance aircraft at extreme low levels, deploying numerous weapon systems - laser-guided missiles, rockets, and 30mm cannon - and communicating with your wingmen. When you're in the weeds, keeping track of your enemy, dodging SAM launches, and
Lastly, it is not an all-weather aircraft. While you can use it at night and in bad weather, it's not designed for it. It doesn't have thermal imaging sensors or radar warning receivers. It doesn't have an actual radar like the Apache Longbow has mounted on its rotor. It's strictly a line of sight aircraft and the most important sensors are the pilot's eyeballs.

Cockpit and Systems Complexity

This is by far the most complex simulator I've flown outside of the real full-motion Level-D Boeing 757 sim at Alteon. Like most advanced aircraft, you're literally surrounded by control panels. In front. Above you. To the left and right. Even behind your shoulders.

However, unlike most other sims, all of those panels actually function. You're immersed in a fully clickable cockpit. 99% of the switches, buttons, toggles, rotary pots, and dials operate as they do in the real aircraft.

The developers modeled nearly every system to its full functionality. Hydraulics. Engines. Avionics. For a full list, check out this page on the developer's site.

For beginners, there's a "Game" mode which simplifies everything. It's designed for folks who want to fly the missions, but don't want to deal with learning all the controls. It simplifies everything down to something like Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X where you've got radar, big glowing compasses, target icons, and all kinds of computerized help to assist you on your way.

But when you're in "Realism" mode, this is not IL-2 Sturmovik where you press "I" to start the engine and a few seconds later you're trundling down the runway in your P-51. The sim requires players to do some actual study and practice with the systems, almost like you would if you were learning to fly the real aircraft. And when these systems break, the results are pretty interesting.

Example: I got shot up by flak during one of my missions. I crested a hill, didn't see the convoy directly below me on the far side, and got a belly full of 23mm from a ZSU-23 Shilka. I quickly turned tail, but not before the damage punched holes in my hydraulic lines and caused a fire in my right engine.

I triggered the right engine fire extinguisher, cut the fuel for the right engine, and shifted the throttle (not the collective) for the left engine from "auto" to "emergency" so I could sacrifice engine life for raw engine power. At the same time, I was getting a "Main Hydro" warning. This bird's hydraulics control landing gear extension, cannon movement, and the flight stabilization system. Not wanting to make a belly landing, I lowered my gear before all the fluid bled out. A minute or so after the attack, I lost my pitch and bank dampeners, turning a normally steady helicopter into the "Phugoid Cycle Queen". I actually made the 20km trip back to base and landed safely, although I think those 23mm shells damaged my pride as well.

Flight Model Realism

The flight model physics are second to none. Vortex ring states are very accurately modeled. VRS occurs when you're descending rapidly with little forward airspeed, so essentially you're dropping vertically into your own rotorwash. Aircraft move relative to the air around them. If you're settling into your rotorwash your helicopter is now flying in descending air. If you try to add power to arrest your descent, it only worsens the state. Your only real recourse is to nose over and start moving laterally away from the rotorwash to build up transitional lift. If you're too low to the ground to recover... BOHICA.

VRS is just one facet. The Black Shark's a tough bird, but you need to be careful just like in the real aircraft. Overly hard maneuvering can cause your co-axial rotors to touch and, well, that's a bad thing. Pouring on too much collective for too long can make your blades meet as well. Hard landings will result in blown tires. Strong winds will have you weathervaning, which make landings even more interesting. Overspeeding will tear your helo apart. Rotors and engines will ice over when weather conditions are right.

And trimming. Trimming is a constant in this helicopter. In a fixed wing aircraft, you can dial in the trim and use that setting even when you make minor changes to attitude or speed. Not here. Trim, trim, and trim some more at the slightest change. After a while, it all becomes natural.

Hovering is also a real feat the first time you do it. The helo does have an auto-hover function, but you really do need to learn to hover on your own. Heck, that's Lesson #1 when flying a real helicopter. Finding that perfect balance of power, attitude, and trim is tricky. Your first few missions will inevitably end in disaster since hovering is part of, well, landing. But soon, you'll get the feel for it. Smooth transitions from 280kph speed runs to a complete standstill behind cover will be easily executed.

All that sounds tough, right? A lot to learn and process? That's what makes the sim so great. These are all issues that real-life helicopter pilots deal with and they're accurately modeled here.

And that's just flying the helo. I haven't even talked about weapons, communications, or the world you fly in.

The World

In the simulator, Russia and the former Soviet republic Georgia have gone to war over oil. The United States and other NATO forces have stepped in to assist Georgia, sending in carrier groups and marines. What began as an insurgent action is now a full-blown war between major military powers. You're dropped into the middle of this situation.

DCS:BS features four different campaigns, all based around different stages of the war. The developers have done a good job of bringing the region to life using a combination of satellite imagery and 3D modeling. Some areas make for good helicopter country with plenty of foliage and terrain cover. Canyon running is quite fun. Then there are the wide open plains where your only protection is to fly as low as possible. You don't pick your warzones; they pick you, and you need to make the best of it.

The orders of battle for both sides include all kinds of units. Main battle tanks. SAM batteries. Air strikes. Command posts. Attack helicopters. APCs. Artillery barrages. Aircraft carriers. Individual soldiers armed with Stinger or Igla MANPADS. You need to operate carefully and use cover to your advantage to remain hidden.

The Black Shark in its natural habitat

Urban locations

The port city of Novorossiysk, Russia. Correlate the locations of the piers to this shot from Google Maps.

Wide open fields = no cover

The Admiral Kuznetsov

Weapons Systems

The weapons and their support systems are just as accurately rendered as the flight model.

Targeting is built around the Shkval electro-optical targeting system. The video from a camera on the helo's nose is displayed inside the cockpit on a screen below the HUD. A laser designator provides the range and there are various modes for Air-to-Ground and Air-to-Air that calculate lead times for moving targets. (It's damn satisfying to engage another helicopter and blow them out of the sky). The system is only visual, not thermal, so you can't track, say, the heat bloom off a tank's engine.

Missiles: The KA-50 carries up to 12 Vikhr laser guided Anti-tank Guided Missiles (ATGM). They've got about 7.5km worth of range and good striking power, easily able to kill an M-1 Abrams or T-72/T-80.

Targeting and firing takes a little practice, but it soon becomes second nature. Take a look at how many steps I need to go through to take out an enemy tank.

Once I've killed the first one, I can just repeat steps 3, 8, and 9 to engage the next one. Acquire. Lock. Fire. Acquire. Lock. Fire. Rinse. Repeat.

Boom!

Rockets: A variety of rocket pods can be carried, with different quantities and sizes of rockets. They can be fired in selectable bursts, with the smallest number being 2 rockets.

Rockets away

Small helo. Big world.

Cannon: Unlike all other attack helos, which have a chin turret controlled by the gunner, the KA-50 has a 30mm cannon on a semi-rigid mounting on its right side. While obviously it doesn't have the traverse of a traditional chin turret, it makes up for it in other ways. Remember step #6 above, "Auto-turn on target"? Enable that, and when you lock up a target the helicopter will automatically rotate to engage it nearly as fast as a chin turret moves.

Open fire

Rounds on target. Spent shells falling on innocent bystanders.

The mounting is also more stable than a chin turret, increasing accuracy. You can select between high explosive and armor-piercing rounds with the flick of a switch. For instance, you can engage a couple of Stryker AFVs with your AP rounds. Then you can switch to HE to kill soft targets like soldiers and trucks.

All in a day's work

Multiplayer and Communication

In this world, you don't fly alone. You're usually accompanied by at least one wingman on each mission. Now, the game's communication menu has all of the usual combat flight sim commands. "Engage my target", "Return to base", and such are all represented.

However, what's unique to this sim is the Datalink feature. It's a computerized system that allows each aircraft within a flight to exchange targeting data with its wingmen silently. It's terrific for maintaining situational awareness and delegating tasks for your wingmen.

Here's how it works:

Each flight member is assigned a number from 1-4 at the start of the mission. You just dial in the number on a control panel knob.
As you fly to your mission area, you can view each of your wingmen's position on the moving map display. It'll literally show a #2 for your first wingman, #3 for your next wingman, etc.
You acquire a target and use the Shkval and laser to lock target.
Using the control panel on the top left of the windscreen (green and yellow buttons) you can save the target's type and location into your helicopter's memory.
Using that same panel, you can then transmit that target's location to your wingmen (note the 1-4 and Send All buttons)
You can then delegate responsibility for those targets to your wingmen.

Datalink Panel - top left, with the three rows of green and yellow buttons

Let's say our mission is to destroy a platoon of tanks, protected by a pair of antiaircraft artillery guns. I can lock up the AAA guns and save each of their positions to memory. Then I can transmit their locations to my wingmen - AAA battery #1 to Wingman #1, and AAA battery #2 to Wingman #2. Once they've received it, I can then order each of them to "Engage Datalink Target" and they'll head off on their own to do my bidding. I can then lock up the tanks and send them to them as well. Once they've taken care of the AAA, I can order them to help me take out the tanks.

On the hunt

Online Multiplayer works nicely, although there is no voice chat. However, most reputable servers have an associated Teamspeak or Ventrillo channel. The server browser is easy to use and there are a variety of custom missions out there thanks to a growing community of Black Shark players. The datalink feature works online as well. It adds a lot to the sense of teamwork.

Most of the online missions are co-op, with all the players on one side working towards a single goal. However, there are a few servers with red vs. blue missions. It's immensely satisfying to go head-to-head with someone and blow them out of the sky before they even know you're there. :)

Final Words

If you like your simulators challenging and deep, this sim is for you. It will take practice and effort to get familiarized, but once you've nailed the systems it's a lot of fun. Unlike MS FSX, where "anyone" can fly a Boeing 777 right out of the gate, there's a definite learning curve. It can be downright hard at times.

It's all about the little rewards. When you make that first landing without blowing your tires or crashing, it's an accomplishment. When you achieve your first hover without Auto-Hover, it's an accomplishment. When you watch your first missile launch strike home, it's an accomplishment. And the first time you aviate, navigate, target, fight, and communicate your way through a mission, it's a hell of an accomplishment.

A Note for T-34 Drivers

2009-06-04T05:35:00.004-04:00

I know several of the Whiting NAS pilots read this blog. If you could, please pass this on to your squadron mates. Call it a "heads up".

Yesterday, we had a VFR T-34 orbiting over Whiting NAS at 9500 feet. He was there for what must have an hour and a half, cutting holes in the sky, not talking to us at all. We know he was a T-34 because he had never squawked 1200 when the Whiting departure sector terminated his radar services and was therefore on his departure squawk code. I was actually able to locate a strip on him.

Note: Just a word on the T-34 flight plans. Many Whiting T-34s will file VFR departure flight plans with a route similar to this: NSE..TROJN..VFR..1R8. NSE is Whiting NAS, the TROJN fix is a local fix and 1R8 is an uncontrolled airport about forty miles west of here in Mobile's airspace. However, the "VFR" in the route terminates the flight plan's routing and doesn't let us handoff to Mobile. Essentially, what that flight plan means is that the T-34 wants to 1) depart Whiting, 2) terminate radar services locally once they're clear of Class C, 3) play around locally VFR, and then 4) eventually head over to Bay Minette on their own.

Here's the problem. All of our high altitude northeast jet departures have to go out over Whiting, climbing to 10,000 feet. Due to an Eglin AFB restricted area to our east, we have a very narrow corridor of about a 360-030 heading off Pensacola. At the same time, all of our high altitude jet arrivals from the northeast are descending to 11,000, coming in through the same corridor.

Once Jacksonville takes the handoff on our 10,000 foot departures, they are permitted to climb them up to 15,000 feet. So, that usually works out nicely, as we step the 11,000 arrivals down and they climb the departures up and out.

It looks like this:

However, this is what that T-34 was doing.

Perfectly legal? Yes. He was clear of Class C. He had his transponder's Mode C squawking over the Class C. He had followed his flight plan to letter. Depart Whiting. Climb clear of Class C. Go play VFR.

Complete headache for us? Absolutely! Of all places and altitudes to go goof around, he had to choose those. It couldn't be worse. It seemed like everywhere we had an arriving or departing airliner, he was right in its face. Seriously, every time. It's like he had some kind of "Sixth Spidey Ninja Sense" or something.

On top of diverting our attention to make sure our IFR traffic was clean, we actually had to do a good amount of coordination with Jacksonville Center to get higher with the airliners to top the guy. "Crestview low, Pensacola East, ApReq one five thousand, Delta 1282." And with our corridor we don't have a lot of room to maneuver. Quite frankly, it was dangerous. We were lucky not to get a TCAS Resolution Advisory.

Normally the T-34s that play over Whiting do so at 5500 to 7500 feet. It's unusual to see them go higher. Those altitudes aren't a problem at all and give us plenty of room to maneuver. We can step our arrivals down to 8000 or 9000, which clears both the departures climbing over them to 10,000 and the VFR traffic maneuvering below them.

But 9500? And not talking to us? Bad altitude. Like I said, what that guy was doing was legal. But here, legal and safe don't necessarily jive.

In contrast, earlier in the day, I worked another T-34 departing Whiting. He specifically requested a VFR block above Whiting up to 10,000 feet and told me exactly what he was doing (basic instrument maneuvers). He knew he was going to be in the way and he wanted to get traffic advisories.

In short: If you're a T-34 pilot and want to be directly over Whiting at higher than 8500 for extended periods of time (especially 9500!) please call approach for Flight Following. That way we can give you traffic calls, know what you're doing, and advise the airliners if you have them in sight. Otherwise, if you want to remain anonymous and at higher altitudes, please work more towards Brewton airport. It's a much quieter area and out of harm's way.

Warm Fuzzy Feeling

2009-06-03T11:45:00.003-04:00

I was training on our East sector, running the runway 26 final into Pensacola Regional. The West side was taking care of our departures. We had some decent traffic going (file under "Moderate" on the OJTI form).

Suddenly, the West side gets an emergency call. A Beechcraft Baron about 15 miles NW of the field is in serious trouble. He's lost oil pressure in both engines. For you non-pilots out there, oil does the same thing in airplanes as it does in cars: it lubricates and assists with cooling the engine. Unlike a car, you can't just pull over on the side of the road and call AAA for a tow. The pilot's looking at imminent engine seizure here.

On top of that, the airplane's electrical system is going to pot. Maybe his generators are dying. Maybe his battery's shot. I don't know. He apparently was able to communicate his issues at first, but his transmitters soon died. All he had left was his transponder. He could only acknowledge ATC instructions with a transponder IDENT flash.

The controller working the West coordinated with the tower and passed on the information. Due to the radio issues, they decided to leave the aircraft on the approach frequency. The approach controller told the pilot, "Cleared to land." IDENT flash. In he goes to the field.

In the meantime, I had multiple inbounds to the field from my side. A Lear, Skylane, and an air carrier Beech 1900. As each checked on, I told them to expect a delay due to an emergency in progress and immediately reduced the Lear and Beech 1900 to 190 knots. No use in getting them to the field more quickly if the runway is fouled. I vectored the Lear and Skylane around for some spacing. My instructor advised me to keep the Beech 1900 inbound to the field.

The Baron comes in and - thankfully - lands without incident. I call up the tower, ensure the runway is clear, and start landing my inbounds. The Beech 1900 lands, then the Lear, then the Skylane. I especially thanked the Skylane for his help, as I really had to vector the heck out of him.

All of this took probably ten minutes from start to finish, if that.

Everyone worked so well together. The West controller's steady voice, guiding the shaken pilot towards the field using what tools he had at his disposal. The tower guys giving us their airport. The patience and understanding of the other inbound pilots. It's just a good feeling watching everyone work so hard to ensure that pilot made it safely onto the ground. Truly humbling.

Training Times

2009-05-28T07:37:00.002-04:00

We're getting shorter here with lots of retirements and people moving on to staff positions. Developmentals are getting used more and more for staffing coverage. That cuts back on our training times of course. Whenever I do get to train, it seems to be smack dab in the middle of our slow times. It's very frustrating.

I don't know about you guys, but I broaden my capabilities when it's busy, not when it's slow.

Yesterday, for example, I was training on the Pensacola bank. I had two training sessions where I literally talked to three airplanes in the space of each hour. I even remember what they were on the first one: a JetLink regional jet landing here, a Seneca overflight, and a T-34 transitioning from NAS Whiting to NAS Pensacola for practice approaches. The rest of the time, my airspace was devoid of any traffic. The second session was more of the same.

Later on, I was assigned to work Flight Data. My instructor was assigned to work the Pensacola East bank. He ended up having an extremely busy, complicated session with all kinds of strange requests and general funky stuff. And there I was, running strips while my instructor was handling the best traffic we've seen all day by himself. That's the kind of traffic I need to experience, and I was annoyed that I wasn't working it.

On a good note, he says he's recommended me for checkout on the bank. However, I'd like to see a few more crazy sessions before the checkride to help boost my confidence level. I'm comfortable on the West sector. It's the East sector that still chews me up some.

It's Refreshing

2009-05-23T09:20:00.004-04:00

Just an observation: it's rather interesting to note that many people appointed for various safety-critical positions in the new administration have actual prior experience in their fields. They have been selected for their experience and applicability to the role, not their party affiliation. What a concept!

Ex-Astronaut to become head of NASA
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30896443/
Former Firefighter/Current Emergency Team Leader to become head of FEMA
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/04/obama-picks-fema-head-vows-avoid-failures/
Randy Babbitt confirmed as head of FAA
I've read about Mr. Babbitt's perspective on controllers during his involvement with the ALPA, but let's see what happens.
http://www.natca.org/mediacenter/press-release-detail.aspx?id=610

I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait for the next two or three weeks to be up so we can finally see just what the heck is coming out of the FAA/NATCA talks. I don't talk about that stuff much here on the blog, but change has been a long time coming. However, I won't believe any rumors until I've seen something in writing.

Maybe at some point in the near future, I won't have to ride my $25 "Garage sale special" home from work two or three times a week.

Writing, Music, and Loud Jets

2009-05-15T00:09:00.007-04:00

I'm back from vacation. Good times, lots of relaxation, and lots of writing got done - just not on the blog unfortunately. I've got a few blog post outlines nailed down but I've had a lot on my plate.

I just finished two stories, both of them steampunk fiction pieces. One 6000 word piece has already been picked up by a publisher (details forthcoming). The other's a 15,000 word piece that I'm tweaking just a little bit before I send it out to publishers.

I've also got a Top Secret project in the works. It's ATC related, but that's all I can divulge at this point. It may or may not see the light of day, but I hope it comes through. It'll be quite cool if it does. More on that when the time comes.

Tunes for Sale

Amongst other things, I enjoy creating music. I've just released my first album, a collection of songs I've been working on for a while under the name Escape the Clouds.

It's been a true labor of love for me. I wrote all the songs and played all of the instruments. This is actually the first time I've put my music out there for sale, in all the years I've been writing songs.

You can listen to a few tracks here: www.myspace.com/iescapetheclouds. A quick description:

Escape the Clouds' debut album Bring the Rain includes 11 instrumental tracks that blend equal parts hard rock, industrial, and world music. Sample the tracks at www.myspace.com/iescapetheclouds! An additional bonus track is included for those needing a pop/punk fix!

If you like what you hear, here's a link to purchase it. I posted it for $7. The tracks are in 192k MP3 format, so they'll work on pretty much every type of iPod or other MP3 player.

For those of you who decide to buy it, consider it a donation to the blog. I'll definitely appreciate it.

Cover art (can you guess the aircraft type and what happened to it?):

Since the late 90's, I've dabbled in music, starting originally with bass guitar and then the electric guitar. Later on, I began learning synthesizer, drum, and sampler programming. In a past life, I played in a couple of bands that had gigs throughout Miami and Miami Beach. More recently, I've been exploring a lot of "world music" sounds. My many influences include Nine Inch Nails, Stabbing Westward, Rachid Taha, Asian Dub Foundation, and Cirque du Soleil soundtracks.

I hope you guys and girls like the songs. I'd love to hear any feedback you have on it, whether or not you bought it. Please feel free to friend me up on MySpace as well.

Live Target

What? You thought I'd leave the post without anything ATC related?

I'd just like to add that I really do like working on an airport. That's not just because I like airplanes, but because it's kind of cool to be a radar controller and still be able to see the aircraft you're working. It's a good reminder that they're real airplanes and real people, not just targets on a scope.

Like this morning, I worked a bunch of itinerant Navy T-45 Goshawks who landed here at Pensacola Regional. Later in the afternoon I was standing out on the TRACON's outside staircase when one of them headed for home. Loud little bastards, but man, would I kill for a ride in one of those!

Technical Difficulties

2009-04-29T13:03:00.003-04:00

Update: Everything is back up and running as normal.

-----------

I know a lot of my readers are also members of ATCHours.com. I was made aware that the site was down this morning by one of the other users.

I've been on the line with the web hosting service I use. They're aware of the issue with the server and assure me they are working diligently to correct it. I'm assuming it's a little more complicated than a simple reboot would fix.

There's also no need to worry about your information. The data is backed up in increments daily, and fully backed up every week.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused any of you. If you have any questions, let me know.

What's in a Number?

2009-04-25T20:14:00.007-04:00

Over on StuckMic.com, there's a discussion going on about what number of airplanes would be considered "busy". Someone was trying out a simulator that topped out at about 12 planes and was wondering how well that number measures up to the real world.

There's no answer to that. Every facility is different. A Center controller joined the discussion and said he'd worked 59 planes at one point (!!!). Here at P31, we typically wouldn't have more than 15 airplanes on a scope at once, though I've seen higher numbers than that on occasion.

Here's what I added to the thread:

--------------------------

It's not necessarily the number of planes, but what each of them is doing that makes things complicated.

If you have 12 airliners all wanting to land full-stop at the same airport, it's fairly straightforward. It's sequencing work, of course, but nothing strange. They all just want to land, and you just need to line them up somehow.

Now if you have...

Three military trainers doing multiple practice approaches and constantly changing their minds. Two of the students are foreign nationals, whose English is barely understandable and who disconcertingly answer every instruction - from approach clearances to traffic calls - with only a "roger".
One fast-moving F-15 with an automation issue who won't handoff to anybody, ten miles from the boundary and screaming along at 450 knots.
Three airliners trying to get down from your northeast gate, weeding through a swarm of VFR targets maneuvering in their way. It's like Resolution Advisory Bingo. Then you need to sequence them with your military practice approach trainers.
Two other airliners trying to climb out through the same northeast gate (playing chicken with 737s is fun!) and through the same VFR targets.
A military trainer doing aerobatic airwork right in the middle of your southern arrival gate.
A Lifeguard priority Lear Jet trying to beat the airliner pack in while dodging the aerobatic guy.
An ornery Mooney pilot who's bitching about getting vectored around so he doesn't get run over by the jets.

... then it's a little more interesting.

Those are just the guys you're talking to. Add on to that point-outs from other sectors - like military jet trainers climbing high through your airspace out that same northeast gate or a pair of slow-as-molasses IFR helicopters cutting across your final, trying to get to another sector - and it gets more fun.

That pretty much describes an average session on our East sector.

The Golden Rule

2009-04-17T00:43:00.005-04:00

"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."
- Christianity, Gospel of Luke, 6:31
"One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self."
- Hinduism, Mahabharata
"Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you."
- Islam, Muhammad, The Farewell Sermon
"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss."
- Taoism, T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien

The Golden Rule has many incarnations, but one common message: treat others as you want to be treated.

It's Not All About You

All members of an Air Traffic Control facility operate as a single team. Sure, you may have six different radar sectors open with a controller at each position and each with their own individual traffic, but they all affect each other. As you work, it's important to not only monitor your own traffic, but keep an eye on what's going on in the rest of the room. One way or another, it will affect what you do.

I'll use our Z/AR sector as an example. I've written about that sector before in an old post. It's the one that looks like this:

... but lately has been looking like this:

Very tight quarters, and it can get out of hand quickly.

When others sectors are feeding the Z/AR, they need to be very mindful of what the Z/AR has going on. The Z/AR controller simply doesn't have a lot of room to work (essentially a 10nm x 10nm space and two usable IFR altitudes: 1700 and 3000). A misplaced feed can send things downhill very quickly.

Let's say our Z/AR South Whiting sector has a pattern full of helicopters doing 80 knots over the ground. I wouldn't be doing him any favors by force-feeding him a T-34 going 190 knots right into the middle of his pattern. Instead, I could reduce the T-34's speed all the way back, or vector him around a little, or - if the pattern's really full and the Z/AR controller is going down the crapper - tell the T-34, "Unable practice approaches to South Whiting, the pattern is completely full. Say request." (If his callsign is "Ghostrider", that'll be the icing on that cake.)

The fact is, an hour later I could be working the Z/AR sector and my coworker could be on the sector I was operating. If I'm covered up in slow-moving helos and he's got a few fastmovers wanting to join the party, I hope that he'll take a look at what I have going on and make a decision that will, if not help me, at least not hurt me.

Tonight, actually, I was working the Z/AR with a full load of traffic. My fellow controllers on my neighboring sectors did a bang-up job of feeding me additional aircraft. They paid attention to my traffic flow and vectored the aircraft into advantageous positions, simultaneously reducing the speed on the fast movers. We also coordinated on certain feeds. Big thanks to TZ and LA for the help. It really showed how one sector can affect the operation of the rest of the room.

The Art of the Slough

Slough. It's a dirty, dirty word.

The dictionary defines is as:

slough. Transitive verb: to get rid of or discard as irksome, objectionable, or disadvantageous —usually used with off

Or, to use the vernacular, you're dumping s*** onto your fellow controller.

Another example: I'm working the West (W/AR) side and I don't have much going on. My buddy is working the East (E/AR) side and is getting his butt handed to him. I have nary a plane, and his scope's lit up like a Christmas tree - on fire. I'm twiddling my thumbs. He hasn't stopped talking in 30 minutes.

An airplane calls me up. "Pensacola approach, KATT153, with request." The KATTs - a T-6 Texan II squadron from NAS Pensacola - can be inbound from anywhere, so I say, "KATT153, Pensacola approach, remain clear of Class Charlie, say position and altitude."

He tells me where and how high he is. I find the VFR target on my scope. He's at 7500, tracking eastbound, already 5 miles inside the East's airspace and getting farther from mine every second. I am not required to talk to this aircraft, since he's not in my airspace.

I now have two options:

Slough him. He's not inside my airspace, right? Let my buddy deal with him. "KATT152, contact Pensacola approach on 119.0." See ya. Not my problem. Back to twiddling my thumbs.

Or...
Help my fellow controller out and take some of the workload off of his hands.

Me: "KATT153, remain clear of Class Charlie until identified, say request."
KATT153: "Uh, KATT153, remaining clear of Class Charlie, uh, I'd like a localizer two-six approach at Pensacola Regional, an ILS one-seven approach at Pensacola Regional, a TACAN seven-left at Navy Sherman, and a PAR seven-left full stop at Navy Sherman. I'd also like some holding at Saufley before the TACAN. And I have information Tango."

As he's telling me this, I'm writing all of his requests down on a strip. I verify the ATIS he gave me is current. I also type the following into my ARTS keyboard:

KATT153
TEX2
ΔL26
E

That input will:
* Generate a VFR squawk code for KATT153
* Add TEX2 for the aircraft type
* Put L26 (for Localizer 26) in the scratch pad
* And - last but not least - put the aircraft's squawk and information on our "E" scope, a.k.a. the East sector. My partner's sector. When the radar tags him up, he'll be displayed automatically on the East's scope.

Me: "KATT153, squawk 0104. I have your request."
KATT154: "KATT153, squawking 0104."

I write the squawk code on the strip and lean over to my partner, strip in hand. I wait until he's got a second, then pass him the strip. As I talk, KATT153 is already tagging up on his scope, displaying his "E" tag, since that's where I put him.

Me: "KATT153 is going to be calling you, seven southeast of PENSI, wants Localizer 26, not identified."

He acknowledges it. I gave him only the information he needs to know immediately: where the guy is, what he wants right now, and his radar identification status. The strip I wrote and placed in his hand has everything he needs to know about the pilot's intentions after the localizer approach, so when East gets a moment he can formulate a plan.

Me: "KATT153, contact Pensacola approach on 119.0, they have your request."

When KATT153 checks in on East's frequency, all my buddy needs to do now is:

East: "KATT153, Pensacola approach, radar contact seven southeast of PENSI, fly heading one-four-zero, vectors localizer two-six."

No taking down long-winded requests. No stripmarking. No keyboard entries. No target-hunting. No issuing squawk codes. I took care of all that. The busywork is done. Now he can concentrate on the real work: providing that aircraft with what he's requested.

A Night at the Circus

2009-04-03T01:41:00.005-04:00

I just came back from seeing Cirque du Soleil's Saltimbanco performance over in Mobile, AL.

If you've never seen a Cirque show, I highly recommend them. Great music, wonderful performers, and truly incredible feats of physical skill. It's definitely filed under "something different." I understand that they're not everyone's cup of tea. Some people prefer the traditional three ring circus - with elephants and lions and all that - and that's fine. Different strokes for different folks.

This was my fifth time seeing a Cirque show. My wife and I started with La Nouba, the resident show at Downtown Disney in Orlando, FL, and then we saw three shows in Miami: Dralion, Quidam, and Alegria. The latter were "tent" shows, where they actually set up an enormous circus tent in a park for the show.

All of them were excellent, but my two favorites were La Nouba and Dralion. It's hard to compete with the amazing theatre custom-built for La Nouba, which allows some really complex set pieces. On the other hand, I think Dralion's soundtrack is the best of them all. It's both powerful and beautiful.

La Nouba's "Power Track" sequence:

The intro to Dralion:

Saltimbanco was different. Firstly, opening in 1992, it's Cirque's oldest running show. Secondly, it was recently redesigned to be shown in standard arenas, as opposed to the tents. Our performance was in the University of Southern Alabama's sports arena. Because of both the age and the venue (a basketball arena? for Cirque?), I originally my doubts.

I'm happy to report that my expectations were very much exceeded. The show turned out to be very, very good. The clown/mime was hilarious with his heavy use of audience participation. The Russian swing was freakin' trippy. My favorite, though, was the boleadoras - essentially percussionists that use a mix of drumming, boleadoras, and flamenco dancing. Poly-rhythm heaven. And the music had taiko drums involved. Hell yeah.

Our next project is to get over to Las Vegas at some point to see:

"O" (pronounced "oh", as in "eau", the French word for water) - a Cirque show designed around water.
Zumanity: Leave the kids at home. Cirque for the adults.
Blue Man Group: I'm a huge fan of percussion, and these guys are awesome.

Contrast and Compare

2009-03-26T10:35:00.003-04:00

Just for fun...

Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) - 5pm airliner departure push

Pensacola Regional (PNS) - 5pm airliner departure push

Any questions? ;-)

Incidentally, that DFW shot was taken on my return trip home from Oklahoma City in Summer 2007. That was the last time I've flown on an airliner.

Of course, I am just talking only about airliners. The Pensacola shot doesn't show the two naval air stations within 15 miles loaded with hundreds of navy jets, props, and helos who make that 5pm departure and arrival push far more interesting!

Traffic Call of the Day

2009-03-25T01:22:00.005-04:00

I was working a flight of T-34s outbound from Whiting at 5500 feet when I got a surprise handoff from Jacksonville Center: an F/A-18 Hornet screaming along VFR at 4500 feet.

The Hornet's route would take him directly under the T-34s. They were my only traffic and the T-34 flight lead sounded thrilled to be in his cockpit. I figured I may as well give him some added excitement and point out the Hornet, since there's usually not much in that neck of the woods other than, well, other T-34s. Besides, they were only 1000 feet apart vertically so a traffic call was in order.

Me: "Blackbird 123 and flight, traffic, twelve o'clock, four miles, southwest-bound, 4500, F-18 Hornet."
BB123: (excitedly) "Oh! Roger! Searching for traffic."
Hornet: (chimes in) "Radar."
Me: "Blackbird 123, do you have him in sight?"
BB123: "Negative."
Hornet: (somewhat exasperated) "Approach, I've got radar contact on him."
Me: (thinks about it) "Errr... Oh! Hornet, roger."

It was pretty amusing to hear an airplane say "radar contact" regarding another aircraft. I guess I just don't work too many aircraft that have their own onboard Hughes/Raytheon fire control radar suite.

Now, things would have gotten real interesting if a moment later the Hornet driver yelled out, "Fox three!" :)

Good Morning!

2009-03-19T21:21:00.009-04:00

It’s only 8:30am and I’ve already had two "firsts".

Numero Uno

I’m working the Whiting departures this morning. Standard operation, the usual bunch of VFR Navy T-34 departures heading out into the beautiful, clear morning sky. Multi-ship flights, solos, dual trainers. Nothing out of the ordinary. The push has died down some and I have about four aircraft on my frequency.

My facility manager is standing next to me and we’re discussing how my training is going on the Pensacola bank. Things are quiet.

Due to the light traffic at that time, there are only three scopes active, one for each of our Class C airports. Each of those single scopes is responsible for all the airspace relating to its respective bank. I'm working the NSE scope.

Suddenly, the ARTS on my scope goes down. At that second I have my head turned so I don’t see it when it flicks off. My manager notices it and speaks up.

I look back. All the alpha-numerics on the scope are gone. Datablocks. Departure tab lists. Activations. They’re bye-bye, their ghosts fading into blackness. All I’ve got are my primary targets and my map. A quick glance around the room reveals that the other five scopes in the room that feed off our Whiting radar are blank as well.

Well, shit.

I immediately crank up my primaries to the max. Bright slashes glow on my scope now, each representing an aircraft. Our Whiting VFR departures are written down on traffic count sheets. I examine my targets, review the “flick” in my mind, and correlate them mentally to the call signs on my sheet. I’m not quite in “radar contact lost” territory yet. The good thing is they’re all VFR anyway and therefore ultimately responsible for their own separation.

For the non-controllers out there, here's a little before and after so you can picture what I'm seeing (or not seeing):

At least I didn't lose my entire radar. This is similar to what air traffic control used to look like, back in the day. No datablocks, no transponders, nothing. If you've got targets of some kind, you could work - if you can tell who each target is. At this point I'm considering checking Ebay for some secondhand shrimp boats.

In the meantime, one of the techs bursts in from the system room. A computer hardware swap went awry and reset the Whiting radar's hardware. It should be back up quickly. Cool. Tech knows about the issue and they’re working on it.

While he’s telling us this, our Flight Data person has called up Whiting tower and tells them to stop departures. We've already got a few birds in the air. We don't need more at the moment. Doing that gives us time to figure out the next step.

Okay, so I know who’s who, what’s wrong, and that it’s being worked on. Now what?

We have two ASR-11 radar sites in our airspace: one about 15 miles north of Whiting field, and another located directly at Pensacola Regional. The issue took out the ARTS for the Whiting radar, but the Pensacola radar is just fine. Both are redundant systems and either one can operate the entirety of our airspace.

At the moment we lost the Whiting radar feed, we were left with this:

If it had been a single Whiting scope that went down, no big deal. Scopes die like any other piece of hardware. Just slide over to another Whiting scope, key up the frequencies, and keep working.

But with the actual Whiting radar being down, it's not that simple. While we have six working scopes in the room that run off the Pensacola radar, I can’t just slide over to any scope and just pull up the frequencies. Out of our twelve total scopes, only five scopes have the required radios ("NSE" in the radio list), and four of those are unusable since they run off the Whiting radar! The remaining one is the Pensacola East sector, which is currently manned and is unaffected by the outage since it runs off the Pensacola radar.

So, the controller at the Pensacola East sector – which runs off the Pensacola radar – has now pulled up my targets and is seeing the aircraft datablocks just fine. He’s also standing by to key up the frequencies if needed. The East sector is the "mother sector" for all of the sectors in the house, so it has all frequencies for the PNS, NPA, and NSE banks available.

In short, we can see the airplanes clearly, and we can talk to them. Good. If I can’t get fully back online, all the East sector needs to do is type a keyboard command and my traffic will be combined with his.

This gives us time to enact the next phase. As part of our system redundancy, we have the ability to reset all scopes in the room to use either of the radar sites. It just takes another keyboard command to implement it. Once entered, the scopes swab over to whichever sensor is needed automatically. After that’s done, all you need to do is reset the radar maps on each scope to center them on the new radar.

Resetting the Whiting sectors to the Pensacola radar would bring us back online as such:

Luckily, as we’re about to switch sensors on the dark scopes, the Whiting radar comes back. Huzzah! After that, everything works great. No problems. Naturally, the pilots never knew anything about it.

Overall, not really a big deal. All of this took place over maybe two minutes. That’s one of the great things about redundant systems. We were back to normal in no time. Even if tech hadn’t been able to fix the original issue, once the scopes were switched to the Pensacola radar we’d have been just fine.

Even if it was a worst case scenario and the Whiting radar scopes were completely knocked out, we have options. The East controller could physically move over to the unused West sector. Since the West is the companion sector for the East, it has radios with the East frequencies. Then, the Whiting controller - a.k.a. me - could take over the East scope and just key up only the Whiting frequencies there. So, we’d have the West scope acting as the East, and the East scope acting as the Whiting, and both would be running off the Pensacola radar.

It would look like the following. It’d be strange, but it would work.

I’d never seen anything like this before. Not in training. Not ever. Unlike my flying days, where you’re constantly reviewing emergency and fire checklists, there is no checklist for this. You just have to be flexible and figure it out. After it happened, I was asking my coworkers a ton of questions about best practices for those kinds of situations.

There were several things I could have done better. For instance, I should have jumped faster on the “stop departures” call to Whiting tower to keep them from adding more to the fun. Thankfully, the experienced CPC on Flight Data took care of that.

As they say, a pilot’s license is a “license to learn.” The same thing applies to ATC certifications. There’s no better teacher than new experiences.

Numero Dos

Now for the (very) anti-climactic second "first": primary target-only radar identification using turns. Woo hoo! Same session as the radar outage too. Packed full of fun with primary targets....

A Forestry Service aircraft calls me up departing an uncontrolled field. As I'm typing in his callsign to issue a squawk, he reports that his transponder is out and he wants to land at Pensacola Regional to get it looked at. Of course, his current stated position and heading put him southbound, right in the middle of a flock of other VFR targets. He could be any one of them.

Some legalities to consider. He's a primary target only, and he wants to enter the Class C airspace containing Pensacola Regional.

The FAR's say the following:

Sec. 91.215 - ATC transponder and altitude reporting equipment and use.
...
(b) All airspace. Unless otherwise authorized or directed by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft in the airspace described in paragraphs (b)(1) through (b)(5) of this section, unless that aircraft is equipped with an operable coded radar beacon transponder [...] and that aircraft is equipped with automatic pressure altitude reporting equipment having a Mode C capability[...]

(1) All aircraft. In Class A, Class B, and Class C airspace areas;
]....]

Without a transponder or Mode C, he doesn't meet the standard equipment requirements for Class C.

However, the end of FAR Sec. 91.215 has an exception:

(d) ATC authorized deviations. Requests for ATC authorized deviations must be made to the ATC facility having jurisdiction over the concerned airspace within the time periods specified as follows:
[...]
(2) For operation of an aircraft with an inoperative transponder to the airport of ultimate destination, including any intermediate stops, or to proceed to a place where suitable repairs can be made or both, the request may be made at any time.

According to the rules, since he's landing at Pensacola in order to get his transponder fixed, he's allowed into Class C without prior notification.

So, how does one figure out which target he is? ATC can radar identify primary target-only aircraft via three methods, as specified by FAA Order 7110.65.

Departing aircraft: Identify an aircraft within 1 mile of the runway departure end.
Position correlation: The aircraft tells you where he is, and you simply look for a target there. "Approach, Cessna 123, we're five miles south of Milton airport."
Identifying turns: Direct and observe an aircraft to make a turn of at least 30 degrees.

#1 wouldn't work, since he's already airborne. #2 would be feasible, if not for the eight other targets in the vicinity of his reported position. So, that leaves me with just #3.

I’d studied it a while ago, knew the phraseology, knew what to look for, but I’d just never actually done it. The 7110.65 requires a minimum of a 30 degree turn. I choose to give him a 90 degree right turn since A) it's easier to spot and B) due to his reported southbound heading and position, it would point him at Pensacola Regional, his destination.

"FFXX, this will be a turn for radar identification. Turn 90 degrees right."

All of the other targets are milling about, but I spot one making a definite sharp turn to the west, breaking out from the others. No question it's him. Our radar and ARTS can tag and track primary targets, so I type “FSXX”, slew on the primary target, and press "Enter" . It tags up with his callsign. “Radar contact."

I write up a strip, scribble "Transonder Inop" on it, and pass it on, then inform the next controller via landline that FSXX is a primary only target. Handoff. Switch. All done on my end. Not much to it. Surprisingly painless.

So that was two valuable learning experiences on the job, and both within an hour of punching in. An interesting start for what turned out to be an interesting day.

A Day at the Movies

2009-03-16T07:54:00.003-04:00

I just watched a couple of excellent documentaries.

The first was One Six Right. It's a beautifully filmed documentary that specifically relates the history of California's Van Nuys Airport, but generally relates the importance of an airport to its surrounding area. It's told largely through interviews with pilots, historians, controllers, and busness owners who rely on the airport. The cinematography is fantastic, including perfectly composed shots of warbirds, biplanes, aerobatic aircraft, bizjets, and more. I had the most serious case of rentaplaneandgoflying-itis ever after seeing this.

It's a counter to all the NIMBY people and real estate developers who view general aviation airports as either a noise nuisance or a waste of valuable land that can be used for, I don't know, a strip mall. The irony is that if either of those groups succeeds in killing a GA airport, they'll likely be the first to complain about increasing delays at the larger airports in their area. Well, remember those corporate jets, police / medical / TV helicopters, flight schools, and other essential aviation services? They need to go somewhere.

Opening Sequence:

(Man, I love the sound of that P-51's V-12 Merlin)

On First Solos:

Second was Speed and Angels, a documentary that came out last year about two Navy pilots wanting to become F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots. Each pilot has their own specific issues. One is a woman, which of course invites all of the "man's world" stigmas. The other is a guy whose callsign is "Faceshot", named as such because he was shot in the face as a teenager and recovered, but now has trouble convincing doctors he is medically qualified to fly. It follows both pilots through their dogfight training, carrier qualification training, and eventual deployment to Iraq.

I found the movie quite inspirational without being jingoistic - it's not anti-war or pro-war. It just tells an honest, straightforward story about two people fighting against the odds and succeeding.

Checking In

2009-03-12T20:00:00.002-04:00

So, I keep plugging away at the Pensacola bank. Ups and downs. Last week was good, this one, not so much. Tomorrow and next week will be better. I know it.

Aside from that, this week had its usual assortment of regular traffic plus the odd "funky thing" that spices up the norm.

Yesterday I had a couple of PEL's (Precautionary Emergency Landings) in a single session. Both involved Whiting T-34s. The first was a flight of two who departed, and whose wingman developed a stuck gear issue. They split up the flight, I issued the wingman his own squawk, and both came back into land.

The second was a T-34 with an unresponsive power lever (I believe that's their prop pitch control). Fuel and souls on board, a heads up call to the tower, and a point out the East sector later, he got in ok. Both were pretty much non-events. The worst part about emergency situations is trying to talk around the other pilots. This second guy's trying to tell me what's going on, and in the meantime other T-34s are stepping all over him.
I had a couple Navy helos go NORDO on me in a bad spot, the left base to Runway 32. The issue is that South Whiting's pattern borders Eglin's restricted areas and gunnery ranges. If we lose comms with an aircraft and he flies too far east, he actually stands a fairly significant chance of being blown from the sky by an AC-130 or whatever they have going on out there. Obviously, we call Eglin and get a point out. It's just not a good feeling watching our guy fly eastbound into alien airspace.

Note to the Whiting pilots: If you guys are doing a practice approach, execute your climbout, and then don't hear from us for 10, 15 or 20 miles, please check your radios or try reaching us on another frequency. You should be talking with us right after you make your turnout.

It's perfectly acceptable to call us up on a different freq and say "Hey, we couldn't reach you on [original freq]." Whether it was an equipment failure on our end or a bad button push on the cockpit radio stack, it doesn't matter. We just want to know you're communicating with us.
The Great Piper Migration of 2009 happened today. I was working Flight Data when the printer started spitting out a ton of very similar overflight flight plans. They were all Piper Warriors, all had very similar sounding callsigns (N642FT, N606FT, etc.), and all were flying from Melbourne to New Orleans Lakefront. In the end, we had something like 25 or 30 of them, all proposed at 4500 feet.

Then the weather started getting bad. The ceilings dropped. Then the altitude amendments started coming in. 6500. 3500. 2500. Some of the strips had four or five altitude amendments. Then, because of the altitude issues, Eglin wasn't sure which frequency to put them on.

Additional complications followed. All of these aircraft were running more than half an hour behind what was expected on the strip, so they began to time out of the system. As we tried to hand the first wave off to Mobile, they wouldn't flash. The flight plans had apparently timed out so we had to make manual handoffs. To try and prevent that from happening to the rest of them, I called Eglin approach up and asked them to update the progress of each flight plan to prevent them from timing out. It seemed to work better after that.

I ended up Googling a couple of the callsigns. Turns out they belonged to a flight school called Florida Institute of Technology, located in Melbourne. I hope they had a good time in the Big Easy. They certainly made our early afternoon interesting.

Here's their fleet. Practically every plane on that ramp flew through our airspace yesterday.

I wonder what the return trip will be like....

Flight Simulator Franchise Crashes to Earth

2009-03-04T02:16:00.003-05:00

This bummed me out. It's a couple of months old now, but I hadn't heard about this until tonight.

Redmond, Washington-based ACES Studio, the Microsoft-owned internal group behind the venerable Microsoft Flight Simulator series, has been heavily affected by Microsoft's ongoing job cuts.

Development sources have told Gamasutra that a large portion of the dev house's staff has been let go - with multiple reports indicating that the entire Flight Simulator team has been axed.

The Microsoft-owned Flight Simulator is possibly the game industry's longest-running continuous franchise.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981

I've been playing Flight Simulator in its various forms since I can remember. It followed me throughout so many phases of my life.

As a child, I played the original version on my dad's Apple II computer in all its monochrome glory.
During my teenage years and the era of Flight Simulator 4, I had a ball swooping around Chicago's Meigs Field and exploring the seemingly endless polygonal world.
FS 2004: A Century of Flight opened up a whole new world of flying for me, with its mix of detailed vintage and modern aircraft. I still have the little metal DC-3 they released with it on the first day. Alaskan bush flying, helicopter piloting, airline routes - I tried it all.

The morning of my first real flying lesson five years ago, I remember creating a custom session - a C172 departing Tamiami airport in Miami - and flying the heck out of it. When I got in the real 172SP's cockpit a few hours later, I already knew where everything was and what most of it did.
FS X Deluxe Edition was in my hands the day it came out. Along with my college classes and my consumption of everything ATC, its online ATC multiplayer component gave me my first taste of controlling live traffic piloted by live people. It definitely helped with my phraseology and helped me build situational awareness.

To help myself out with my Virtual ATC-ing, I actually designed my own Strip Bay software to work in conjunction with FSX. One of the FS X developers mentioned it in his blog way back when.

Flight Simulator wasn't just a game. It was an institution, that rare piece of software that was both entertaining and a learning tool that opened up the fun and demanding nature of flight to everyone - from the novice going through the flight school tutorials to the virtual heavy driver flying the Level-D 767.

It will be missed by this particular Flying Penguin.

"A Controller's Checkride" - IFR Magazine, March 2009

2009-03-02T13:59:00.006-05:00

"The weather was rolling in hard over Pensacola, Fla. A sky full of U.S. Navy training aircraft was struggling to get down before the worst of it smothered their airfield. Departing cross-country flights were making a break for it, fleeing the oncoming front. Pilot-requested deviations were the order of the day as military trainers tunneled under and over the building cumulonimbus.

For me, the FAA trainee radar controller seated before an aging scope, the darkening skies and mounting unpredictability brewed up the perfect conditions for my first checkride."

Opening excerpt from "A Controller's Checkride"
IFR Magazine
March 2009 issue

My first-ever published non-fiction article in a national publication. 1800 words (plus graphics) detailing what it was like to get my first radar certification as an air traffic controller. This was a huge step for me as an aspiring writer, and I thank the terrific folks at IFR Magazine for contacting me and offering me the opportunity to write for them. It was a great experience.

The magazine's web site is: IFR-Magazine.com. They don't have an online version of the full article, but I know a lot of you guys and girls are pilots who either subscribe or might be around flight schools that have copies around. For the controllers out there, the mag opened up my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the cockpit, both from a technical and psychological standing. Good stuff.

A Good Day

2009-02-28T11:37:00.010-05:00

Yesterday was a good day. I'm feeling much more confident about things.

I had three training sessions in a row yesterday. The first, I worked both the East and West sectors combined. Basically, the entire northern 2/3 of our airspace was under my control, and I actually had a lot of fun with it. The ceiling was dropping steadily all day, so I got some IFR and marginal VFR experience in the mix. I handled everything pretty well, I think. I kept very good control over my traffic and my coordination. I didn't fall behind, even when I was seeing things that I had never seen before. I'm pleased.

The second session was just the West side, and the third had me working the P/AR sector - the final sector. It's a small area of airspace that extends 15 miles along the Pensacola Regional final and owns up to 3000 feet. Normally, the P/AR is combined up into the East and West sectors, but for a change of pace our supervisor had it split off on its own. It forces the rest of the room to think differently when feeding any aircraft to the Pensacola airport. It was actually a pretty cool exercise.

I also spoke with my supervisor a bit concerning the skill check he gave me last week (which ultimately led to my "Frustrated" post). A lot of what we discussed revolved around what I mentioned in that post: my speed and scan need improvement. Once I let those slide, I start getting behind and getting into trouble. I placed a lot of emphasis on those yesterday and it paid off well. I stayed ahead of the game.

One of the things he also mentioned was that the level of traffic I was working during that skill check could have been handled by a CPC, but that CPC would have been on the very edge of needing an assist position. It made me feel better knowing that even a CPC would have had a difficult time with that workload and complexity. It wasn't just busy for me, but plain old busy for anyone who would have been working it.

After the training sessions, I worked the Whiting NAS sectors a couple of times on my own. It was more of the usual squirrelly IFR stuff: lots of IFR pickups, aircraft deviating all over the place, a stack of holding aircraft the full height of my airspace, and VFR On Top departures needing to climb to 10,000 feet to cancel IFR. In addition, one of my neighboring sectors gave me several bad feeds that had me reworking my plan several times. That particular controller - a CPC - seems to make a habit of passing on problems to other sectors with the attitude, "let 'em figure it out." They're a cool person outside of the radar room, but not exactly someone who I want to emulate very much at a radar scope. Regardless, I just made it work and everyone got where they needed to be.

Good things continued after I got off work. My wife found out her work schedule change request went through. She and I only have one car between us, and the public transportation system in this city is very limited. I have access to buses at the airport, but she works out in the boonies. So, the car situation is constantly being juggled.

Her new schedule gives us a lot more time together since she'll be getting home much earlier now. Mon and Tues, I still have to hang out at the airport terminal cafe for a couple of hours before I go into work, but not nearly as long as I used. They've got free Wi-Fi and it gives me some time to catch up on writing, phone calls, and e-mails. On Thursday I can ride my bike home. I don't mind the latter at all - it's 4.5 miles and good exercise. It helps combat the effects of a very sedentary job.

Besides, we don't have a gym at our place like Miami Tower does. :)

The only downside to yesterday was my laptop dying on me. It seems either the power adapter or the power plug on the laptop itself went kaput. I have most of my writing and music projects on an external drive, so those aren't affected. I really don't want to have to buy a new laptop at this time, but if it's dead I will definitely do that. While I've got a kick-ass machine at home, I use my laptop everywhere - at work (no, I'm not responsible for the data breach...), the airport, on the back patio, at restaurants, and pretty much anywhere else that has a power plug. Everything depends on how much it will cost to replace it versus repair it. If it comes to replacement, I'll likely get a Toshiba for about $700.

Kinda Frustrated

2009-02-20T11:15:00.005-05:00

I guess you could call this a venting post.

To put it bluntly, I'm getting a little tired of getting my butt kicked.

I've been training on our main Pensacola bank for about six months now. It's usually divided up between two scopes: East and West. The West side is a wide open expanse without much in it. It only really sees some action when we're on runway 8. The East side, however, is the most screwed up, chopped up, and overly used sector in the house.

I'm doing fine on the West sector. And when I get some pro-time on the Whiting sectors, I feel good. I know the airspace, the traffic, all that, and I just work it. I keep up with it well, because I work off of instinct. I don't have to think too much about what my traffic needs - I just do it.

The East sector, however, is deceptive. This is one of those where if you think you have enough time to do something...you really don't. You can literally have zero airplanes one moment, and the next you're covered up with 15 airplanes doing 15 different things and going down in flames. All the stuff you thought you had time to do... you don't anymore. You're constantly on the land lines with Jacksonville Center and Eglin Approach, and on the internal lines with every other sector in the room. It feels like your attention is pulled a hundred ways at once,.

I think my problem boils down to one word: speed.

When I sit down and it's slow, and then it gets busy, I'm having trouble ramping up my pace to match the traffic. It's like I over think things too much, and it slows me down.

Basically, I know what to do with the aircraft. I know my rules, my airspace, and my procedures. I just don't do it fast enough. I know that AirTran needs to be turned and descended for a visual to 35. I know that Navy trainer needs to be sent direct to the Saufley VOR for holding. I know that departing Gulf Flight needs to be climbed and handed off to the Jax Center. I know I need to make that point out to the West sector. But I think about it too much. I dwell a little too long on each decision.

Of course that wastes time. Then I start playing catch up, and my scan goes to hell. I get distracted trying to put out one potential fire, and miss another situation. A frequency switch. A traffic call. A point out. An aircraft that's unexpectedly changed direction. (All of these happened in the last session.)

And it's frustrating. There are times where I get up and want to go play some drums - hard. I'm just so annoyed. I know I can do it better, and I, well, just don't sometimes. I don't why. I'm trying to figure it out. I just hate that feeling when you get up and feel like you screwed up bad.

Everything about ATC is trust. The pilots trust you to get them where they're going and keep them out of harm's way. Your coworkers in the room around you rely on you to do your job well and not set them up with situations they need to fix. We're all supposed to be working as a team and when I don't do my part well enough, I feel like I let people down. That's the worst part of it for me: I don't like disappointing people who are relying on me.

So, I play some drums. Play some guitar. Chill out. And I get back in and hack away at the training again. Each time is better, not perfect, but edging towards that finish line. I know I'll get there. I've got my incentives in my family and friends and coworkers who are rooting for me, and my own desire to succeed at this most intense of careers.

I just look forward to the day I've mastered these sectors. And for the day I can sit down and not feel like a pitbull's been chewing at the seat of my pants.

A Forgotten Era

2009-02-08T19:09:00.019-05:00

Today's "image in need of a caption"...

More at the end of the post. :)

The Problem of Detail

As I mentioned a few months ago, I'm in the middle of writing a novel. It's set largely aboard a fictional rigid airship during the early 20th century. Given the relatively obscure subject matter, it's been an interesting journey trying to get the operational and period details as correct as possible.

I've never written anything on this large a scale before. The biggest problem I've been having in writing historical fiction is not the "grand events", but the details that bind them together.

Let's say I'm writing a fictional story about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Finding the overall information is easy. Heck, you can just grab it from Wikipedia. "On the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, Titanic hit an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, early on 15 April 1912. The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people..." Great. Now you've got the general info.

However, what about the details? What did the passengers eat? Did the decks have names? What were period clothes made of? What kind of wood were the floors made of? What kind of music was popular at the time? How was royalty addressed? What books were being read? How were the engines operated? How many crew members would be on the bridge at any one time? What kind of slang was popular?

It's those kind of details that make a story come alive, I think. The kind of information that doesn't just tell about a place or time, but puts the reader right into the middle of it. They may seem unimportant on the surface, but I think their presence adds life to the story by creating a believable setting. That's what I'm trying to achieve.

My History's Got Gas

So, I've been trying to dig up as much stuff on rigid airships as I can.

A quick primer: a rigid airship (RA) differs from today's blimps by having their shape kept by an actual metal skeleton. On an RA, you have an exterior metal "shell" that's covered in fabric, and then inside you have individual gas cells which hold the lifting helium or hydrogen. A blimp's gas envelope keeps its shape using only gas pressure and a system of "ballonets" that inflate or deflate with regular air to keep the ship's form at different pressure altitudes. If you were to completely deflate a blimp, its envelope would collapse, where as an RA keeps its shape even if the gas is completely pumped out.

Another advantage of the RA is that any room within the hull that is not used for gas cells can be used for living quarters, storage, fuel, weapons, and more. With a blimp, you're more or less much limited to the control car gondola that hangs underneath the gas envelope, which limits your range and facilities.

There are also vessels classified as semi-rigid ships, which mix elements of both designs. In fact, the first the aircraft to overfly the North Pole was the semi-rigid airship Norge in 1926, designed by Umberto Nobile and operated by a crew of Italians and Norwegians. Heck of a story, that one. That ship's envelope had a metal keel and metal reinforcements for the nose and tail, but the remainder of the envelope's form was maintained through pressure. Nobile's subsequent ship, the Italia - also a semi-rigid - would meet its fate over the polar ice caps in 1928. What ensued was an Arctic survival story nearly as incredible as Ernest Shackleton's ordeal and escape from Antarctica over twenty years prior.

But, like I said, I've been focusing on rigid airship design. Below are some images of an RA under construction, where you can clearly see the internal skeletal structure as well as one of the internal spaces.

It's an era of aviation that not many people know about, or even really care about. Frankly, I find it fascinating. Everybody knows about the Zeppelin Hindenburg. "Oh, the humanity!" and all that. That was merely the end of the airship era, and so much came before that fateful day over Lakehurst, NJ.

My focus has been on military rigid airships. In the 1920's and 1930's, the United States Navy operated four enormous aerial vessels: the USS Shenandoah, the USS Los Angeles, the USS Macon, and the USS Akron. Of those four, only the Los Angeles survived; the rest were lost in crashes. The story of each ship and their eventual end actually reads like the Titanic's: avoidable and tragic.

One of the things I like about these vessels is that they really did operate like seagoing ships. No yoke or throttles. Instead, you had helmsmen and engine telegraphs.

The latter two - Macon and Akron - operated like flying aircraft carriers. They carried up to four or five Curtiss Sparrowhawk fighters in their hangars, and would launch them and recover them in-flight via a "flying trapeze" system. The fighters were used to increase their reconnaissance range. In operational use it was extraordinarily successful.

Doing My Homework

My research has spanned a ton of books and a few DVDs. However, when it comes to seeing real artifacts, there's only one place I can go: The Naval Aviation Museum.

I've written about it before, and here I go again: it's hands-down my favorite aviation museum.

This past Friday I went down there to get a close look at their exhibit. They have an excellent section on lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft on the second floor, which covers both the aforementioned rigid airships, as well as the Navy's more modern blimps.

There are several display cases of artifacts from each of the RA's. The collections include such odd things as a piece of metal girder, radio antenna weight, and pieces of fabric stolen from the USS Shenandoah's crash site...

... to the skyhook from one of USS Macon's Sparrowhawk fighters, dredged up from the ocean depths...

... to the ship's helm and bell from the USS Los Angeles.

Later Airships and the Library

They also have some excellent displays on WWII and Cold War-era blimps, including the K-class which were used for anti-submarine convoy work. No blimp-escorted convoy ever had a ship sunk by an enemy submarine. These ships operated until the 1960's, when they were replaced by fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

They have an entire control car for a K-class hanging from the ceiling.

In addition, they have several parts from an N-class airship. While it was indeed a non-rigid airship, it had several metal structural components within its envelope, such as its nose cone, to provide support for load-bearing areas. They had the nose cone, ruddervator, and outrigger engine, amongst other things.

After I was done with the physical exhibits, I headed down to the Emil Buehler Library on the first floor. It's basically a single room with three walls covered in ceiling-height shelves of books.

I had poked around in there a few months ago, but it was long before I had any specific research interests. At the time, the only things that struck me were a 16th century samurai sword presented surrendered by a Japanese officer on Okinawa (freaking beautiful sword) and a sextant belonging to Amelia Earhart's navigator.

This time, however, I had a mission. I searched the shelves, and finally came across the airship section. It was small, but backed with goodness. A lot of their books appear to be donated by museum patrons. I found some real jewels in there, including several 1st editions dating back to the 1940's.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason for my research is that I'm trying to achieve both a proper "feel" for my novel, as well as technical accuracy.

Within these rare books, I found things like:

How the Sparrowhawk fighters airplanes were able to perform their reconnaissance and eventually locate to their mothership. In other words, how do you get your airplane back to an "airport" that's constantly moving laterally and vertically.
First hand accounts from the captain of the famous Graf Zeppelin (the first airship to circumnavigate the globe).
Proper ground handling techniques for airships.

I'm sure you guys must be going, "And that's interesting how?"

Think about The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. How much of that book revolves around the concept of sonar? Does he go into great detail about every button, every knob, and every display in the USS Dallas' sonar room as it tracks Ramius' submarine? Of course not. He didn't set out to write a manual for a Los Angeles class SSN's sonar system. But the detail he does provide is as accurate as possible. He did a lot of research and learned a lot of things which may or may not have been applicable. Then he streamlined it and used only the parts that were relevant to the story.

That's what I'm intending to do: pick and choose from the research I've done and apply it where it's necessary to add to my story. That one hour sitting there in that small library filled so many gaps in the technical knowledge I've been seeking. I've also been able to track down several newer copies of the books I found via Amazon.com.

One last thing: I spoke with the librarian, and he mentioned that they also offer free research services. You simply e-mail them a question and they'll do your homework for you. He mentioned some of the queries people had sent in. Very obscure stuff, and these fine folks at the museum gave them the answers they were seeking.

An Added Bonus

You never know what you're going to find when you go to this museum.

As I walked outside to check out the outdoor displays, I saw a crowd gathering by the aircraft restoration annex. As I approached, I saw a huge crane, and one of the most beautiful P-38 specimens I've ever seen. What an amazing machine.

Turns out it was Lefty Gardner's old CAF bird White Lightning, bought and rebuilt by Red Bull after its 2001 crash in a field. They flew it in to Pensacola NAS and brought in a big-ass crane. They spent nearly an hour getting it over a fence and down a road so it could be loaded onto a barge and shipped to Germany. From Germany, it would be flown to Red Bull's HQ in Austria.

I shot some video of the plane-lift and cut it together. I'd never uploaded a widescreen HD clip to YouTube before, so I decided to use it as a test case.

So anyways - that was my Friday morning. Saw some neat artifacts, learned some useful shit, and saw a beautiful Air Force warbird at a Navy museum. A good start to a good day. :)

P.S. If you're interested in reading more about the airships, I highly recommend picking up The Great Dirigibles by John Toland. It's a reprint of a mid-20th century book that is packed full of first-person accounts from the survivors and crew of these vessels. It's extremely well written and really puts you in the middle of the action. It really allowed me to see what it would be like inside an 800 foot airship, a mile in the sky, as it's torn in half by a violent storm, coming apart and venting gas like a sieve.

Super Bowl Rush

2009-02-02T10:10:00.005-05:00

Sunday night and it's slow. It's been slow all day, actually. I did a shift swap with my coworker this week - his Sunday for my Friday. I've never worked a Sunday before and it's been pretty quiet so far.

I get the page from downstairs - they want me in the TRACON. So, I amble downstairs, thinking I'm going to work another round of Flight Data, maybe do some training on the East sector, or count some traffic. Something quiet.

Not so much.

They tell me to open up the Whiting NAS sector. I walk over to the scope, and I see this:

There are about a dozen or more T-34s holding all over the place. They're all coming back home from their weekend cross countries. More are calling up. They all want in at the same time. But... Whiting Tower isn't open yet. So they're holding. And more keep calling up, wanting to get in.

I split off the sector and take control of it. I've never seen anything like this before, and I'm trying to kick my brain into gear and go from "Easy round of Flight Data" mode to "Sequence like a mofo" mode. So I just start looking at altitudes, and positions relative to final, and start doing the "He's #1, he's #2, he's #3, and he... well, shit, let's just see how this gels...." thing.

I've got two things going for me:

They're all VFR. None of this 3 miles or a thousand feet stuff. Of course, once they're cleared for the approach I will need the 3 miles in between.
They're all the same type of aircraft. It's not like I'm sequencing a 757 with a Cessna 172.

I also get some contradicting messages regarding the approach requests, where I end up thinking they're expecting PAR approaches to get in. After some digging around, it turns out that's not the case - the tower wants them all on the TACAN 32 approach (the red line on the graphic above). The long and short of it is that I end up telling "all aircraft" that they can expect first the PAR approach, then the ASR approach, and then - finally - they can expect the TACAN 32 approach. By the third transmission, I bet the pilots were thinking "Oh boy... what's next? The ILS? The GPS?"

This is a heck of a Super Bowl Sunday night. I've got a sky full of Navy pilots wanting to get down to watch the Super Bowl, the game's already started, and I've got my hands tied waiting for the "all clear" from Whiting Tower. Nothing I can do now but wait.

In the meantime, more T-34s show up, requesting to land. Into the VFR holding pattern they go. Not much I can do with them now.

Kickoff

At last, Whiting Tower calls and asks for them to come in.

I start rolling them in one after another. As all the guys closest to the final are cleared, I start bringing in the others from up north and the ones that are holding directly over the field. I don't want there to be any gaps. I also get a blanket point out from the East sector, so I can borrow some of his airspace in case I need to run someone wide.

One of the tricks for tightening things up is to point aircraft directly at one another. I don't mean head on, of course, but like this:

If you have two aircraft at comparable speeds and over three miles apart, just aim aircraft #2 at aircraft #1's position, #3 at #2's position, and #4 at #3's position. By the time #2 makes the turn and gets to #1's former position, #1 will be long gone. It keeps your final from getting strung out too far.

The ones to the north are stacked pretty high. I develop a flow, where the further south I vector them, the lower I descend them. Basically, I'm stepping them down towards the final.

I give the ones that are stacked directly on top of each other divergent headings and descend them to the approach altitude of 1700, or 2200 if I need them to cross over another aircraft. I also open up holes in my sequence so that the Pensacola sector can feed me a couple more that are waiting to the south outside my airspace.

One of my coworkers plugs in next to me, giving me an extra pair of eyes. He works Sundays and has seen the Sunday night rush before a few times. According to him, the last one he worked was all IFR pickups, with the tower requiring PAR approaches. PAR approaches require each aircraft to be set on its own special frequency, or buttons as we call them, of which we only have 6. With this many aircraft, you're constantly trying to keep tabs of which buttons are in use. Not a good time. Thankfully, it's beautiful VFR out there.

All the pilots are on the ball tonight too. Sometimes, you get one or two pilots who just don't respond quickly enough. When you're building a final, a repeated approach clearance, a delay of five or ten seconds, or two or three wasted "how do you hear?" transmissions can throw things out of whack quickly. But tonight, everybody's listening up and doing as they're asked. I only had to break one out who took a 040 heading instead of a 140 (I probably missed the readback). I just worked him out west for a few miles and sequenced him right back in.

Eventually, the last of the stragglers make it down. In just forty-five minutes, it's all over.

Post-Game Analysis

Afterwards, as I'm recombining the sector back over onto our East sector, I'm doing a bit of self-critique. I could have confirmed the approach type earlier with the tower. I could have gotten a couple of the aircraft down more quickly. Overall, I'm happy with how it worked out. The final stayed pretty tight the entire time and I got them in as fast as I could.

So that's how I spent the first quarter of the Super Bowl. Definitely one of the most intense sessions I've worked so far on my own. Normally, you don't see a lot of heavy sequencing at Whiting. Once I got over the initial "oh crap", I was actually enjoying myself. It was a good challenge. Or, as one of my coworkers put it jokingly, a baptism by fire.

Inside Perspective

2009-01-22T12:02:00.002-05:00

Captain Dave from Flight Level 390 flies the Airbus A320 - what he calls "FiFi" or "The Electric Jet" - for a living with a major air carrier.

He just posted a very interesting piece on what it must have been like in the cockpit of USAir 1549 in those moments before it went into the Hudson.

http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/2009/01/dual-engine-flame-out-continued.html

Three Months

2009-01-20T15:08:00.010-05:00

A few days before Christmas, a couple of pilots came to visit us at the TRACON. This was the crew of the DHL-owned Airborne Express DC-9 that has been parked next to the TRACON since I've been here.

This DC-9 was a staple here, our only real cargo operation aside from the half dozen light cargo haulers that come in and out everyday. Every night at the same time, trucks would line up to transfer their packages onto the airplane. A short while later, those old turbofans would spool up, splitting the night sky with an ear piercing whine. The big yellow bird would roll out and be on its way. They were usually the last airliner out the door.

Come morning, they would be the first ones in. More trucks would be waiting to pick up their cargo at daybreak. Afterwards, ground crews would break out the airplane shampoo and scrub the soot off the tail left by the old, dirty engines.

In early November 2008, I read that DHL was cutting 9500 jobs. They'd had some trouble over the years, with competition from UPS/FedEx as well as from internal strife with their new German owners. Since the 2003 merger with DHL, many of the kinks had apparently been ironed out and they were building new business. However, the economic realities of Fall 2008 had turned against them. "Survival of the fittest", as they say.

I wondered how and when this would effect the guys that flew out of here.

A month later, amongst the holiday cookies and delicious sandwiches they brought, was a card the crew had made out to the controllers of the TRACON. In carefully written script, the captain thanked us for all of our work, and added sadly that as of January 31, 2009 the AbEx DC-9s of Pensacola would be no more. DHL was closing up shop in the United States and pulling out of its agreement with AbEx. With no buyers for the old airframes, they were flying the distinct yellow airplanes out to the desert and scrapping them. No longer would I be greeted on the way into work by that yellow tail poking out over the fence. The captain had been flying "the -9" out of here for 23 years.

As December became January, the DC-9s continued flying. I'd almost forgotten the news about DHL. However, the effects of the economic downturn were plain in this small city. Small businesses of all types were closing down. Strip malls all over the place were vacant. People were holding on tightly to the money they had. The only Cuban restaurant in town shuttered its doors a few weeks ago. Linens 'n' Things failed to my wife's dismay. Circuit City announced its liquidation. Walmart and Amazon.com got busier. It seemed as if at every major intersection there was a guy holding up a bankruptcy or liquidation sale sign with "50%" and "70%" emblazoned on them in neon orange and yellow. The efforts and jobs of many were simply disappearing.

Last Friday, I came into work, and the old Douglas DC-9 was gone. In its place sat a tiny, little King Air.

How much things have changed in only three months.

November 2008

January 2009

Hopefully the remaining eleven months of 2009 will show a shift for the better.

Fishing for Airbus

2009-01-18T11:21:00.002-05:00

This is a pretty neat time-lapse video someone took of the USAir 1549 A320 being fished from the Hudson. It kind of reminds me of those "crane games" for kids you see in supermarkets and bowling alleys, except instead of a stuffed purple giraffe you're getting a slightly used 140 foot Airbus.

I know we're reaching media saturation with this, so I'll just say that everyone involved did a fantastic job getting those people off there. It's not a "miracle", but simply people keeping their heads cool, properly executing their training, and working together.

Ringing in the New Year

2009-01-07T08:37:00.009-05:00

Vacations have one big problem: they go by way too quickly.

We just got back from Miami. As much as my wife and I love heading down to see our family and friends, the drive sucks - plain and simple. 12 hours of monotony and tolls, and right at the end you enter the madness of Miami traffic. It's just incredible that you can drive for 12 hours, and still be within the same state. Other than California, Montana, and Texas, I doubt there's many other states with that much straight-line distance.

Readers of this blog know that when I was asked to make my state selection for the FAA, I chose only Florida, hoping that I'd get one of the many, many facilities within one evening's drive - 4 or 6 hours - of Miami. I found it extremely ironic that they placed me in the one Florida facility that was 12 hours away. While I love living here, when it comes time to drive down to Miami to visit it becomes much less ironic and far more of a pain in the ass. That "irony" manifests itself in a 24 hour round trip, 1300 miles on my only car, six full tanks of gas, and two full days of leave taken up by just the drive.

We chose to head out of here at 3am, so we could arrive in Miami in daylight and spend some time with family after we got there, instead of diving right into bed. While my wife slept the first leg (about 5 hours), I kept myself entertained.

Before we left, I had bought a mounting bracket for my Archos 504 media player. This old player's got a big, beautiful 4.5" screen and 80GB of storage, so - along with all my music - I'd loaded half a season of TV show episodes on it. I installed it on the right side of the steering wheel. On the left, I put the GPS mount for my Lowrance 500 Airmap (which died last year), but dropped my smartphone in it instead. On the cell phone, I loaded up Google Maps and used it as my main navigation source for the trip. I also bought a power converter with two USB slots for my car cigarette lighter, so instead of having multiple power adapters strung all over, I just had two thin USB cables that were easily contained and kept out of the way.

Here's what it looked like at 3:30am, on our way out from Pensacola on I-10. This is the worst part, by the way. The I-10 eastbound stretch is mile after mile of mind-numbing nothingness.

I know people will say that's unsafe. Firstly, it's not like I'm watching the thing the whole time. I really only glance at it periodically, normally when I hear a scene change so I know where the characters are talking (like an office, a headquarters, a restaurant, etc.). Secondly, having it in within my peripheral vision allows me to keep my eyes on the road without having to look down and be distracted. Thirdly, that little device helped keep me completely awake and passed the first 5 hours in no time flat.

Oh look... three hours into the drive and the sun is now just rising... LOL.

In general, I'm a good multitasker in the car. When you live in Miami and are forced to spend hours a day in your car staring at the rear of the car in front of you, you quickly find a way to entertain yourself.

Most of your drive is spent like the following photo. I took this about 6pm on December 30th on Biscayne Boulevard. Note that at least some of the lights are green, yet no one's going anywhere.

Heck, in the days before I had a cell phone, I used to carry a drum machine/synthesizer with me that was about the size of a paperback book (Yamaha QY70). I memorized the layout of the buttons and keys so I could navigate it all by feel. I once wrote the score for a friend's student film over a couple of days' worth of traffic, just creating beats and melodies.

I just do it carefully, and always keep my head up and eyes on the road.

Lightweight Heavies

It's been over a year since I'd seen an aircraft with more than two jet engines and bigger than a "large". Every single airliner that flies into Pensacola is a CRJ or ERJ regional jet, an MD88, a B717, a B738, or a B752. All narrow-bodies, all the time. Heck, yesterday was the first time I'd had to say "Caution wake turbulence" in a long, long time.

As we entered the Miami city limits via the Florida Turnpike, I looked up, and there was a Boeing 747. Then an Airbus A300. Then an Airbus A340. All this heavy metal just floating on into MIA. It was cool seeing these big guys in action. I'd grown up around them and spent plenty of time in them, but it

I'd hoped to have some time to visit Miami TRACON. Unfortunately, the timing didn't pan out. The last time I'd been there was four months before I got hired by the FAA. Seeing it now as a semi-certified controller would have been quite a different perspective. I could have asked more informed questions, at least better ones than "What are those dashed lines leading to the airport?" :)

Gamer's Delight

I'm a fairly avid gamer. I've always loved video games, both playing them and creating them. I'm not a fan of World of Warcraft or any of those other MMORPGs, but I enjoy good adventure and action games, and of course flight simulators. I'm constantly amazed by how much games and consoles have progressed since I first started out on the Atari and the Apple II (both of which we still have at my parents' house, and both of which still work flawlessly).

One of the things we picked up over the Holidays was an Xbox 360. That thing is amazing. We already have a Nintendo Wii that's been overall great, but I'm frankly tired of having to compromise graphic quality and usability. The online component of the Nintendo Wii alone makes me want to throw it out the window, with its poor integration and those ridiculous "friend codes".

Microsoft may be many horrible things, but they've really nailed the Xbox interface and online portion. It simply works beautifully and intuitively. The online gaming portion, Xbox Live makes it so easy to connect with other friends and players. I have friends that often use its voice chat in lieu of a phone. I've also linked the console up with my desktop computer at home via TVersity, a network media streaming program. Basically, I have all my music and downloaded videos on my computer, but the Xbox can read it and play them all back flawlessly over the network. I've also got the Xbox set up with my Netflix account for streaming videos.

As far as specific games, my wife and I have been playing Prince of Persia and Mass Effect. Both are fantastic in completely different ways - PoP for its puzzle-solving and illustrative art style, and ME for its enormous world and sprawling story. I've also been playing a few shooters, such as Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War. World at War is hella fun. Nothing more relaxing than to come home from a long day at work and shoot some bloke in the head with a virtual Winchester trench gun. :)

I also managed to lose my Guitar Hero: World Tour / Rock Band 2 virginity over the vacation. Between the two games, I found Rock Band far more realistic and fun. I play guitar and bass in real life, so I didn't mess around with the guitar controllers. I did try the vocals for a bit (me doing Beastie Boys... LOL), but mostly played drums. The drums in Rock Band actually sync up with the music, while the Guitar Hero drums are more tuned with the visuals.

My first time at the mic. Yay. "Watcha Want?"

Back in the Groove

After a great few days, now we're back home, I'm back at work, and the Navy's ramping up again. My first couple days back have been pretty good, with only a couple rough spots here or there. Between the holiday traffic slowdown and my vacation, I hadn't talked to an airplane in nearly 2 weeks. I was definitely shaking some rust off.

I'm looking forward to 2009. I'm bringing some new energy to the plate. I'm eager - but not unrealistically eager - to get certified on the Pensacola bank of scopes. I just hope things start clicking more. I've identified several of my problems, such as working speed, and am doing my best to get those sorted.

Anyhow, that's it for now. I've some fresh all-ATC posts in the works. One of them's actually based on something that happened to me today. They'll be up soon.

I hope everyone has a terrific New Year!

A Christmas Story

2008-12-23T21:06:00.002-05:00

I just got my my first short story publication, ever. :)

I've always enjoyed writing, but the NaNoWriMo novel writing contest really kicked me into gear. As I was working on the novel, I started looking around at other venues for shorter fiction. I found out about a new online magazine that was taking submissions, and decided to give it a shot.

The story itself is a Christmas-themed steampunk piece, and it's the first short fiction I've written in nearly 15 years. It's a style that I don't normally use - written from the perspective of a small child - so it was a challenge to tone down the vocabulary and still get across what needed saying. It was a lot of fun to create and provided a good learning environment for the edit/rewrite process.

Click the link below to give it a read:

"Darkness into Stars"

I hope you enjoy it.

Habits to Break

2008-12-17T03:13:00.007-05:00

I'm not sure exactly where I picked up these bad phraseology habits, but I'm trying really hard to break them.

Proper Grammar, Improper Places
"N132MM, traffic at your two o'clock..."
"USC395, contact Mobile Approach on 118.5."
"RN645, radar vectors for the TACAN 14 approach, North Whiting."
"EGF888, the airport will be at your 12 o'clock, one two miles. Report it in sight."

Articles, possessive adjectives, and prepositions work beautifully when you're talking to people casually in person or on the phone. I can't imagine calling up my wife and telling her, "Sweetie, me, dinner, chicken." Or calling up a friend saying, "Dude, me, hang out." Yeah, that would garner me some odd replies.

But on a radio frequency, they just clutter up precious space and sound unprofessional.
The Murder of Roger (Ackroyd)
Deep down in my soul, I must believe that every pilot out there is named Roger. Why? Because I seem to call them that regardless of what they're doing, what they are, or what they want.

There are only a few times when it's appropriate, usually when you really have nothing else to add. For example, lets say Citrus 453 checks in eight miles outside of my airspace with, "Pensacola Approach, Citrus 453 at 11,000 with Tango." He is outside of my airspace, so I can't descend or turn him. He also has the latest ATIS code, so he knows what runway and approach to expect. I literally can't do a thing with him. In that case, I can reply with, "Citrus 453, Pensacola Approach, roger."

However, I have a habit of injecting a "roger" into "working" transmissions where it simply doesn't belong. And it makes me sound like the n00b that I am.

"Citrus 453, Pensacola Approach, roger, descend and maintain 6000, radar vectors VOR runway 8 approach."
"BB645, Pensacola Approach, roger, squawk 0123 and ident."
"VV7E123, roger, I have your request."

So, I'm trying to flush poor Roger from the majority of my working transmissions. He has no place there, so he needs to be offed.

BTW, if you haven't read the Agatha Christie novel whose title I punned, it's a good one. Definitely one of her most controversial works. Do NOT read the Wikipedia article on it, for it spoils the ending.
Radar Contact... Again
An aircraft has been cleared for a practice approach. He is handed off to the tower and switched to their frequency. Once the approach is completed, the tower hands him back to me and he is switched back to my frequency. He went through two radar handoffs and remained within radar coverage the entire time.

So why, when he comes up on my frequency for his next approach, do I insist on saying, "VV7E123, Pensacola Departure, radar contact, fly heading 040, radar vectors ILS 17 approach."

Radar contact was never lost. He was never unidentified. He didn't disappear mysteriously. So why the heck do I insist on re-identifying aircraft that are positively identified?

Self-critiquing is a good thing. People who get complacent eventually get sloppy and I personally think people should always strive to be better at what they do. Sometimes, that starts with the little things.

A lot of these phraseology hiccups occur when it's slow - and therefore, when I'm more complacent and relaxed. However, slow periods are the times I should be perfecting my phraseology. When the pedal hits the metal, I'll be doing everything I did during the slow times - just at higher speed and in higher quantity. Every second I waste with unnecessary words will steal time needed for other ATC functions. Using non-standard phraseology will also undoubtedly increase the occurrence of that wonderful, frustrating phrase: "Say again?"

Holiday Happenings

2008-12-17T01:32:00.010-05:00

We're well into the holiday season here and I'm sure everyone's going nuts as the end of the year comes rushing towards us. There's a lot happening on my end, some of which I can't talk about at this time (no worries - all good things). However, I just want to let you guys know about a couple things that I've been working on lately.

First up, a $10 sign-up special for ATCHours.com, our OJT time tracking site. Just type "HOLIDAY" into the sign up form's coupon code field. As usual, the sign-up fee guarantees you a lifetime membership to the site. That includes unlimited facilities, positions, instructors, and hours.

One of our upcoming features is going to be the ability to print 3120-25 forms straight from the site. It'll automatically prefill the top of the form, including your total hours, name, date, and the various checkboxes based on what you've selected.

This is a screenshot of our current prototype:

Secondly, I've opened up a little online shop called ATC Gear, selling ATC-related products. I've put up some homemade designs for shirts, mouse pads, bumper stickers, beverage containment devices, and more.

Product suggestions are definitely welcome! What would you guys and gals like to see on there?

One of the cooler products - in my humble opinion - is a computer mousepad in the form of an ARTS keyboard. If you're so inclined, you can practice ditching your newfangled QWERTY keyboard in lieu of the ol' ABCDEFG. This is a reproduction of the same keyboards we use here on our scopes.

If you're looking to make a Christmas present out of anything on there, CafePress is having a special where if you order by Dec. 17th, they'll automatically upgrade you to two day shipping so you receive it by the 24th.

Anyways, that's all for now. I've got a few more blog posts in the runup area, checking their RPMs, vacuum pumps, and oil temps. They'll be coming out shortly.

On Training

2008-12-02T09:58:00.008-05:00

I've stayed in touch with many of my classmates from Oklahoma City classes. It's great to hear that so many of them are doing well.

Many of them are already fully checked out. JR is done at DAL. JZ has been certified for nearly a year at ACK and is transfering to JFK. JT transfered to SRQ two months ago and is nearly certified. JA's been done for a long time at MTY. CW is done at Potomac TRACON.

I'm thrilled for them all. I remember when we were all starting out in the tower or RTF classes, trying to get a handle on things. How far we've come from there. I even recall some of them getting "you'll never make it" dress-downs from certain instructors in OKC. Yet there they are, fully certified CPCs a year later, some already transferring to better, bigger facilities.

I look forward to that feeling. I know I've still got a while left here. Of all the CTI, VRA, and OTS trainees here- most of which started when I did -not one has fully certified. In fact, until last week, none of the trainees had certified on more than one bank of three scopes. Another one is getting close. Maybe it's the facility. Maybe it's something else. I don't know.

Overall, I feel I am progressing. I'm definitely light years ahead of where I was three months ago. However, sometimes I don't think it's fast enough. Training really is a brutal roller coaster ride. I'll have a great session that's wall-to-wall good vectors and radio presence, and then do something utterly stupid the next one. I'll get down on myself really hard about it too, because I usually know better. Somehow, the most idiotic things I've done always seem to come on a skill check with my supervisor.

Learning Curve

I was talking with one of my coworkers the other day. He's the newest hire, and has only been here about three months. It's very interesting watching him go through the same initial learning curve the other trainees and I went through a year ago. He said something which I think exemplifies the training mindset perfectly:

"I like training. I just hate not knowing."

That is exactly how I feel about it. Everyone says training has its ups and downs. The peaks come when you're in your comfort zone, exercising procedures and rules that you know already. The downs occur when you cross into uncharted territory. It can feel like you've entered a desert wasteland without water or a map. The sun's blinding you, you're feeling mighty uncomfortable, and there's a sandstorm brewing from which you have no shelter.

Plenty of things can send you over the edge when you're training. Maybe it's the volume of traffic (like what happened to me yesterday when the number of planes on my frequency quintupled in the space of a minute). Maybe it's an unresponsive pilot who's causing all kinds of safety issues and distracting you (happened to me the day before yesterday). Or maybe you'll get an aircraft or facility in your ear asking for something you've never heard before (happening to me less frequently with experience, but every once in a while I get stumped).

Now, obviously, you can't train for every single scenario. That's why we learn our rules and procedures, so you know what's legal or illegal. The 7110.65, LOA's, and SOP's are all starting points, but they don't teach you technique. That only comes with experience.

If someone asked you how to drive from Miami to Los Angeles, you may not know the exact roads to take but you do know you have to drive on the right side of the road and obey speed ~~suggestions~~ limits. That's a start. That's the 7110.65. With experience and working knowledge, you'll be able to tell them more than "head west". After some time, you can tell them which highways they should use. Soon enough, you can give them shortcuts and tell them which exits to get off on for a good local meal.

But that takes experience. When you're training, you have none to fall back on. Unfortunately - and quite frankly - the pilot or other controller don't care whether you've been talking to airplanes 3 months or 30 years. They want something from you - whether it's an approval, a denial, or an action - and no matter what it is, you need to sort it out. That's the job.

The trick is to sort out those existing issues without causing more of your own.

Example: How to Make Your Life More Difficult

IFR day. I'm working the West sector of the localizer split - i.e. East and West sectors are divided right along the ILS 17 localizer for Pensacola Regional. A Cessna 172 requests a practice ILS approach (note the practice part) and afterwards wants to head to his home field 15 miles northeast. I'm vectoring him in and he is slow as heck in the headwind, showing 60-70 knots over the ground. He's at 1700 feet.

Uh oh. A Learjet's inbound from the northwest. Even though the Lear's 30 miles away, he's going to beat the Cessna easily. So... I give the Cessna a very short vector - maybe 4 extra flying miles - around on the west side of the final, getting him out of the way. I dunk the Lear in and clear him, and bring the Cessna back around. Sounds like a fine plan.

Well, not so fast. The East side suddenly gets a flurry of arrivals, most of them airliners. Then I get a few myself. All of them are jets. We keep boxing the poor Cessna on the west side of the final, trying to make a hole for him. Unfortunately, with a 60 knot ground speed, he's just incompatible with the Embraer 170s and the MD-88s coming in. Also, he's a practice approach, which takes lower priority than the scheduled airliner traffic.

Things deteriorate. The weather keeps getting worse. The Cessna's home base - an uncontrolled field within our airspace - only has a GPS instrument approach. The Cessna is not GPS equipped. The weather has now gotten so bad that he can't cancel IFR and is now requesting a full-stop at Pensacola.

My instructor and I get relieved and the guy is still out there. I stay behind to monitor the next controller. To make a long story short, the Cessna pilot ends up being boxed around for nearly an hour total. Once the flurry of arrivals passes, he's cleared and lands safely. I feel pretty awful about it and half expect a phone call from the pilot. I know that pilots can't always get what they want, but I think I could have done something better; I just don't know what it was.

Afterwards, in talking with the controller working the East side, she makes a simple observation:

When I first had the Cessna coming in for his approach and the Lear appeared, why didn't I just climb the Cessna to 3000 feet?

Such a simple and obvious solution. I could have left the Cessna on his original vectors, but at 3000 feet. I could have dropped the Lear underneath him at 1700, cleared the Lear, and then cleared the Cessna once the Lear was past him. The Cessna would obviously never catch him, and wake turbulence would probably not have been a factor since he would have been far above the glidepath of the jet.

Instead, I had taken the hard road, and caused myself - and the relieving controller - a tremendous headache while leaving some poor student pilot and his instructor tooling around in IMC conditions for an hour.

Just goes to show: the easy road is usually the best road. You just need to be able to recognize the exit ramp that takes you there. :)

Runway Close-calls

2008-11-28T13:59:00.004-05:00

I found some pretty neat videos on YouTube that I hadn't seen before.

Rule #1 of ATC: Thou shalt not have two airplanes occupy the same space at the same time.

Here's a Mooney pilot who is apparently very disoriented and isn't communicating with ATC. He's completely oblivious to the danger he's causing.

Now we go down to lovely St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles for some Boeing 747 action.

That rule doesn't apply to cars, though:

Turkey Day

2008-11-27T13:04:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone has a terrific Thanksgiving Day. I'm thankful for many things: my family, my friends, the wonderful house we're in right now. I'm also thankful that I have a steady job, unlike many other families who are going into the holidays on shaky financial ground.

They let all of the trainees stay home today. This'll probably be the last Thanksgiving without a work schedule for a long time, so I'm going to enjoy it.

This will also be the first Thanksgiving my wife and I celebrate in our own home, and we're thrilled. She's making a wonderful homemade meal from scratch. The turkey's been in the brine since last night and will going into the oven shortly. Once that comes out of the oven, we're serving it with some roasted potatoes, blue cheese sauce, stuffing, and crumb-topped tomatoes. If we make it that far, we'll finish the meal off with the excellent birthday cake she made me yesterday. I'm so looking forward to it. And yes, I will be the sous-chef!

For some light-hearted ATC humor, here's a little clip from JFK tower. Just goes to show you never know what situation you'll come across. Gotta love that New Yawk accent they've got going on up there.

New Camera

2008-11-26T16:23:00.007-05:00

My family gave me a (much needed) new camera for my birthday, and I've been putting it to good use as of late. 9 megapixels plus 10x optical, image-stabilized zoom works great for airplane pics.

North American T-39 Sabreliner
The ubiquitous Navy jet trainer. Oldie but goldie. This one looks especially squeaky clean.

GFT and PNS
Gulfsteam International Beech 1900 getting prepped with PNS tower in the background. Our new TRACON building's going to be just to the right of the tower
.

Delta in the Evening
Delta MD-88 taxiing out. This and the AirTran Boeing 717's are the most common airliner we get here. Most of the other passenger carriers are technically air taxis: CRJ200s, ERJ-135/145s, Beech 1900s.

Bonus Plane
It took me a while to figure out just what the heck this thing was. I'm pretty good as far as aircraft recognition goes, and it stumped me.

If anybody here can figure out what it is, you get a cookie. Yes,I blurred out the N# - no cheating! From afar it looks like the bastard love child of a Cessna Skymaster and a P-61 Black Widow.

Into the Black

2008-11-18T22:24:00.007-05:00

My family and I had a long weekend together in Orlando, FL. We came in from all over the place; my parents drove up from Miami, my sister flew in from the Baltimore area, and my wife and I drove down from Pensacola. We made the most out of it, celebrating my parents' anniversary, my mother's birthday, Thanksgiving, and my birthday since they all fall within three weeks of each other.

On Saturday, we took a drive over to Kennedy Space Center. Space Shuttle Endeavour had launched the night before, so there were no shuttles on the pad. My dad managed to snag a night shot of the launch from afar during their drive up and my sister saw it while she was waiting for us at KMCO. I was about the same distance as they were, inbound from the north, but I was under a solid overcast layer. I'm glad at least some of us got to see it.

I hadn't been to KSC since I was a very small child. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I've always been fascinated with space flight. I try to keep up with the newest developments in space technology, space travel, and launches via the internet, but actually being around the "real deal" was very interesting for me. KSC is simply a fascinating place.

My dad put it best: what other country has a fully operational space launch facility that is also a tourist attraction? I can't imagine just walking into Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, the European Space Agency's facility in French Guiana, or any of China's multiple launch centers. Not to say that you can just wander anywhere inside KSC, but in any other country you'd need special permission just to be on the premises. I think it's great to be able to see the actual hardware up close and personal, and gives you a feel for how far we've come and where we (and our tax dollars!) are going.

Without further ado, here's the photo tour:

My dad's photo of Endeavour's night launch.

The Vehicle Assembly Building. To get an idea of the scale, the blue area of the American flag is the size of a regulation basketball court.

The Saturn V moon rocket. Words cannot describe just how immense this machine is.

Volkswagen? BMW? Mercedes? Nope - this is the pinnacle of German engineering, via Werner Von Braun.

Lunar Excursion Module

Third stage of the Saturn V.

Too... big.... Can't... fit... in... picture....

A recreation of the Apollo 8 Saturn V launch, featuring the original equipment used for the real launch.

One of the launching pads, originally used for the Apollo rockets and currently used for the shuttle. They were still in the process of cleaning it after the launch the night before.

The world's largest clean room, where they assemble and test the components of the International Space Station.

A mock up of the ISS' cozy little "space john".

Crawler-transporter with the VAB in the background, shrouded by rain.

The rain cometh!

Detail of one of the crawler-transporters.

The venerable Rocket Garden.

Mercury/Atlas, Mercury Redstone, and Atlas-Agena

The very impressive astronaut memorial. This photo shows the crews of Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo I.

Veterans Day

2008-11-11T14:50:00.000-05:00

Reader Mail

2008-11-11T11:40:00.004-05:00

Here's a little something different for today. I get a lot of e-mails and questions each week relating to the job and the environment. It's good to know people are out there and interested in the content I post, and I do my best to answer each e-mail as promptly as I can.

Below are some of the more common questions I've had over the past few months. If there are anymore questions out there, please feel free to fire away.

What is your schedule like? Do you get any weekends off? Does the facility stay open at night or on weekends?

ATC is generally a 24/7 job and you should be prepared to have a very whacked-out schedule. The schedule completely depends on your facility, your traffic and your instructor. When you're in training, you will likely be matched with your primary instructor's schedule. So... if he has Tues-Wed off and works 12pm-8pm Thurs-Mon, that'll be your schedule too.

My own schedule is generally Mon 2:45pm / Tues 1:45pm / Wed 10:00am / Thurs 8:00am / Fri 7:00am. I'm just lucky in that my instructor has Sat-Sun off, so I'm matched up with him.

Sometimes, for special reasons, schedules can be adjusted for training purposes. Let's say you're close to getting checked out on a sector but haven't seen much nighttime traffic since you and your instructor always work the day shift. Arrangements can be made so that you're both put on a night schedule for a week or two so you can get the appropriate experience. All of that depends on staffing needs, of course.

Some towers do close at night, but I haven't personally heard of any facility that has weekends off (though there may be some). TRACONs tend to be 24/7 facilities and En Route Centers are all 24/7.
Looks like you went to a CTI school. Were there many "off the street" folks with you at OKC? Were they at a disadvantage?

None of the people in my OKC classes were OTS. All of the ones in my tower class were CTI and the ones in my radar class were a mix of ex-military and CTI.

There's no real disadvantages to either side. From what I've heard, however, it all depends on a person. Someone may have a CTI degree, but it could be from a crappy school that had no simulators and only a basic curriculum. On the other hand, you may have an OTS hire who's a professional pilot and worked in airport management. Or... you may a CTI student that went to top-notch school like University of North Dakota going up against a guy who maybe drove an airport snowplow and couldn't tell a VOR from an NDB.

However, don't get too hung up on background. If you're reasonably smart, study hard, work hard, and fully recognize that this job will likely be the hardest (and occasionally scariest) thing you've ever done, you're well on your way. This job will humble you. When you walk in the facility door, nobody gives a hoot whether or not you were CTI, OTS, or military. They just care if you can do the job or not, and that does not come down to the presence or lack of a piece of paper from a school.
The FAA said I should be scheduled for the AT-SAT in XXX. How would you recommend preparing? ASA has a book with CD ROM I was going to order.

I haven't looked at the ASA book too much, but from what other people have said it's not really needed. When I took the ATSAT, there were no study materials in existence and I didn't know anyone who had taken the test. It was all this big mystery and the only thing I had was a pamphlet from the FAA with a screenshot and very brief description of each test. I ended up studying on my own, finding different ways to get my mind in gear.

Of the different things I tried, the following seemed to work best:
- Study word problems, mainly "distance = rate x time" type problems. if you're a pilot, you should be familiar with that calculation.
- Do sudoku puzzles. This builds your scanning capabilities, which is nice for the gauges and air traffic portions of the test.
- Play tetris. The letter factory is basically a ramped-up tetris game using letters and colors.
- Do online IQ tests. That's essentially what the ATSAT is.
- ATCSimulator2. If you're going to invest some money in something, put it towards that. It's a great and reasonably accurate TRACON simulator.
Doing all that, I scored a 94.2. When I took it again over a year later in OKC for their testing purposes - without having studied for it - I got a 93 or so. So, yes, I studied like crazy, and only boosted my score by 1.2 percent. LOL. However, the studying did make me feel more confident and prepared.
Is a pilot's license an advantage? I'm hoping that having an aviation background will help a bit.

Absolutely, on both personal and hiring levels, since it shows A) you've already got working knowledge of the system and B) have the wherewithal and commitment to complete something that is highly technical and challenging. You'll also have less mic fright, less trouble understanding a lot of the technical matters (you can tell the difference between an ILS and a VOR :P ), a general grasp of how things should operate, and more confidence in yourself. The more knowledge you have, the better off you are.
How do you like working there?

Overall I like it, but it has its good days and bad days. I like the people and facility here, but the airspace is quite a handful. We have three Class C airports within 20 miles of one another, each with completely different procedures/aircraft and all built around the Navy's operation. Our entire airspace is actually one huge Alert Area (A-252) blocked in by MOAs above it, a warning area to the south, as well as a ton of restricted areas to the east belonging Eglin AFB. We are also sandwiched between Jacksonville Center, Houston Center, Mobile Approach, and Eglin Approach. This results in a lot of manual coordination and a lot of, errr, "funky" procedures.

As far as the traffic, it's all Navy, all the time. Well...about 90% actually and 99% of that is training-related.
- Whiting NAS is the single busiest NAS in the world. Split between North Whiting (NSE) and South Whiting (NDZ), they have hundreds of T-34Cs and TH-57s which they use for initial pilot training, so you need to be prepared for anything when working with student pilots.
- Sherman Pensacola NAS (NPA) has the more advanced aircraft, a mix of T-6 Texan IIs, T-1 Jayhawks, Sabreliners, and T-45 Goshawks that are used for navigation training and jet training. The Blue Angels are also based there and have their own procedures. They also get a lot of itinerant military traffic; it's not unusual to see F-15s, F-18s, C-130s, A-10s, and P-3 Orions playing around down there.
- Sandwiched in the middle you have Pensacola Regional (PNS) with about 30-40 airliner operations throughout the day and a bunch of GA. The Navy comes here to do practice approaches as well, so they're definitely in the mix. You'll commonly have sequences to final that consist of an MD-88, an Embraer 145, a Cessna Citation, a Baron, a C-172, a T-34, and a couple Navy helicopters, all requesting different runways. You just make it work.
Many of the controllers here, including those with 20+ years of experience at busier ARTCCs and TRACONs, agree that this is some of the most complicated airspace they've seen. The general consensus is that there are better places to start out learning the ropes due to the "strangeness" of the place. I'm not talking about the difficulty level per se, but more about the procedures. Since we're built around the Navy, we use a ton of site-specific procedures here that appear nowhere else in the country. Basically, you kind of do things "the Navy way" as opposed to "the FAA way" that's used throughout the rest of the FAA world.

The irony of all this is that when I joined the FAA, I didn't want the following: (A) a TRACON, (B) an airport with lots of training, (C) an airport with a lot of military, and (D) an airport with heavy helicopter traffic. What do I get? A TRACON whose airspace contains the Navy's largest fixed-wing and helicopter training operation. Karma's obviously got a sense of humor. :)

So, to answer the question again, I do like it. It's a very challenging but cool job in a unique area. I will say that it wasn't my first choice, but it's grown on me. The area itself is nice to live in, with low housing prices and great weather. If you've got a boat, it's even better. The only drawback is that flying out of here is expensive, since we're not exactly a big hub; if you've got family out-of-state it'll cost some $$$ to fly in and out of here. On the other hand, I-10 runs right through here and I-65 runs near here, so it's great for road trips to New Orleans or Atlanta.
How old is that equipment you're running?

Our current building is 45 years old, looks 45 years old, and and we use the old monochrome round "green between" ARTS scopes. I'm not sure exactly how old the ARTS scopes are, but I'm pretty certain they're older than I am. We don't have even trackballs or mice to "slew and enter" on a target; we use a PEM, basically a larger, uglier version of one those "pointing sticks" you see on certain laptops. You do get used to it.

On the positive side, our swanky new building is on schedule to be completed in October 2009 and will have the STARS radar system, touch screens, and other newfangled widgets. We're all looking forward to that.

Pulling Teeth

2008-11-05T16:29:00.006-05:00

Imagine this radio conversation:

N123: "Pensacola Approach, N123."
Me: "N123, Pensacola Approach, remain clear of Class Charlie. Say position and request."
N123: "Pensacola Approach, N123, roger, remaining clear of Class Charlie."
*silence*
Me: "N123, Pensacola, say position and request."
N123: "Pensacola, N123 is two-five miles northwest of the airport."
Me: "N123, Pensacola, two-five miles northwest of which airport?"
(Remember: we have three Class C airports plus a slew of uncontrolled fields. He probably means Pensacola Regional, but it could really be any airport.)
N123: "Pensacola, N123, we're two-five miles northwest of Pensacola Regional."
(Okay, now I know that he's in my sector. I key him in and get a squawk.)
Me: "N123, squawk 0105 and ident. Say intentions."
N123: "Squawk 0105 with a flash, N123."
Me: "N123, say intentions."
N123: "Uh... Pensacola, N123 would like some touch and goes at Pensacola."
Me: "N123, roger, verify ATIS information Zulu."
N123: "Pensacola, N123 is negative ATIS."
(I read the ATIS off our TIS screen above the scope.)
Me: "N123, Pensacola ATIS Zulu current. Wind 040, altimeter 3014, runway 17 in use."
N123: "Altimeter 3014, runway 17, roger, N123."
Me: "N123, radar contact two-five miles northwest of Pensacola Regional. Proceed direct to the airport, enter right base runway 17."

Annoying, isn't it? A ton of transmissions just to get to the meat of the issue. I have to drag every single thing out of the pilot, bit by bit. When I'm talking to fifteen other airplanes, that's a whole lot of time taken up. It can get very distracting, especially when you're working a final or another busy sector. It's just a lot of frequency congestion.

Let's try a different way:

N123: "Pensacola Approach, N123, with request."
Me: "N123, Pensacola Approach, remain clear of Class Charlie. Say position and request."
N123: "N123 is two-five miles northwest of Pensacola Regional at two thousand five hundred with information Zulu. Requesting touch and goes."
(I look and see a target 25 miles northwest of PNS at 2500 feet. I get his squawk code. He also said he has the ATIS code.)
Me: "N123, squawk 0104 and ident."
N123: "N123, squawking 0104 with the flash."
Me: "N123, radar contact two-five miles northwest of Pensacola Regional. Proceed direct to the airport, enter right base runway 17."

There! Much easier. The pilot was prepared and told me in an organized fashion what he wanted. I did not have to yank it out of him piece by piece and he had done his bit by getting the ATIS code already. Also, by giving me his position right away, it immediately took a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. The second he told 25NM at 2500, my eyes went there immediately and spotted him.

Below is a list of things we need from a pilot, in order of priority:

Who are you? Speak your call sign clearly.
Where are you? Say your position and altitude relative to a well-known fix, such as an airport, a major landmark, or an airway intersection. This lets us know if you're inside our sector, another sector, or another facility's airspace. If you're not inside our sector, we can at least give you the frequency for someone who can help you.

Keep in mind that we don't have a VFR sectional in front of us. If you call us over the "railroad tracks" or the "trailer park", we have no clue where that is. Now, if you told us "7 miles southeast of Brewton airport", "Directly over the PENSI intersection", or "Over 3 mile bridge." that works wonders.
What do you want? In short, controllers like to plan. In order to do so, they need information. Be clear yet brief about what you're requesting. It's likely that the controller will be passing your information around the radar room to other controllers, either verbally or via a flight progress strip.

For instance, if you're doing a photography flight, don't just say "We want to fly around." That gives us nothing. Instead, say something like "We're on a photo mission, wanting to fly south to three mile bridge, then cut east to Navarre beach, then go north to join I-10 westbound, with a full stop at Pensacola Regional." Now we have a solid idea of what you need. If so inclined, the controller can even write "BRIDGE->VARRE BCH->I-10->PNS" on the strip. At the very least, he can verbally pass that info on to any controllers who will be working your flight. Obviously, if it's a long request like that, you might need to pick your moment if the controller seems very busy.

Also, if you're unsure about anything you're requesting, say that up front. "We want to fly south to three mile bridge. After that, we might need to go west about five miles, and then turn around to the east to go to Navarre beach, north to I-10, and west to full stop at Pensacola Regional." At least you're telling the controller there's a question mark in there somewhere.

As an example of the "planning" I mentioned, if was working the Pensacola East bank and got the above transmission, I'd know right away that I'd have to:
1. Work you south over the bridge.
2. Either hand you off or point you out to the Navy Sherman sector if you turned west.
3. Work you again myself as you turned back to the east towards Navarre.
4. Hand you off to the South Whiting sector as you went north to I-10.
5. Work you again as you returned to Pensacola.
What are you? Often times a pilot will call up with their type as their call sign, such as Stationair 123 or Decathlon 456. If you don't give it to us on your initial transmission, it's not a big deal. We'll get it from you eventually.

On the Flip Side

I've done the same thing to pilots and fully admit my guilt. I sometimes don't combine my transmissions as well as I should. It's something my trainer's been on me about and I have been trying to improve on it. Basically, it seems to come from "working out the problem" on the frequency. I find it happens to me when I'm unsure about the current traffic situation.

SH456: "Pensacola Departure, SH456, leaving 800 for 1700, executing climb-out instructions."
Me: "SH456, Pensacola Departure, radar contact, radar vectors TACAN 14 approach."
SH456: "Roger, SH456."
(Okay... if I turn him, is he going to be a factor for that Citation I cleared for the visual approach? No? Cool.)
Me: "Uh, SH456, Pensacola, turn left direct Trojan."
SH456: "Turning left direct Trojan, SH456."
(Alright, is that helicopter out of 4000 yet? He is? Here we go.)
Me: "And... SH456, maintain 3000."
SH456: "Maintain 3000, SH456."
(Shit. Did he have the ATIS code for North Whiting?)
Me: "Oh.... and, uh, SH456, verify ATIS information Victor at North Whiting."
SH456: "Affirm, SH456."

If I was the pilot, I'd be ready to smack someone. It really makes it seem as if the controller doesn't know what they're doing, like they can't process more than one instruction at a time. What's really happening is that I'm playing it too safe. I haven't processed all the information fast enough to be 100% sure SH456 is clean.

The far more efficient version starts with me making sure he's clean even before I really talk to him. Then it goes:

Me: "SH456, Pensacola Departure, radar contact, turn left direct Trojan, climb and maintain 3000, radar vectors TACAN 14 approach."
SH456: "Left direct Trojan, maintain 3000, vectors TACAN 14 approach, SH456."
Me: "SH456, verify you have ATIS information Victor for North Whiting."
SH456: "Affirm, SH456."

That sounds much more professional and in control. You know, like I actually know what I'm doing (Ha!). Just say as much as you can in as few transmissions as you can.

Moment of Truth

2008-11-04T13:58:00.005-05:00

Update: November 5th, 2008
It is done. My mood right now is "cautious optimism". We'll see what is delivered. I hope the crazies who are expecting messianic miracles get back to reality.

---------------------------

For me, the choice was simple.

One candidate has been intelligent, proactive, and tried to unite the American people. He is a decent family man who came from nothing and, with dignity and confidence, fought the largest smear campaign the world has ever seen. He has shown good judgment, a willingness to listen, an open mind, and a strong interest in the well-being of all Americans, not just some Americans. He is not perfect, but he is straightforward and respects the people of this country.

The other has been petty, profoundly negative, and driven rifts between the many people of this country. History has shown him to be an ill-tempered elitist philanderer whose party's ideals have driven this country into the ground. He may have been a maverick at one point in his life, but he has dropped to pandering to the lowest elements of his party's base. He has shown no indication that his administration will differ much from the current administration in its ready-shoot-aim foreign policy, ignorant approach to hotbed issues such as abortion and gay marriage, the treatment of unions and federal workers, blind trust in corporate self-regulation, and the overall fracturing of our nation. I do not think he is "McSame"; however, I do feel is he is "McCloseEnough".

To be clear, this election is not about "change" for the sake of change. There is always some level of change whenever a new president takes over. It's about the future of our country and selecting the one candidate who will lead this country with intelligence, forethought, an even temper, and - most of all - respect for its own people. It's about selecting someone who can chart a course towards calmer waters and a brighter future. John McCain is not that person.

50k Run

2008-11-01T14:14:00.005-04:00

50,300 words in 29 days.

Due to some plans with family in November, I decided to do the NaNoWriMo novel writing challenge in October instead. I completed my outline on October 2nd and started writing later that day. I took about 5 days off from it in the middle of the month, then resumed the story. On October 30th, at around 5pm at the local Panera Bakery, I crossed the finish line.

Let me tell you, it feels freaking awesome to look at your word count and see the 50,000 mark crossed. The other customers at Panera all looked at me weirdly as I stood up and gave a "YESSS!" out loud. Then I calmly sat down and texted everyone who knew I was writing.

Here's the proof below. This image was taken on the 31st, so the "Project Modified" date shows that date. However, even if I had crossed the finish on the 31st it would still have been inside 30 days.

Just to give you an idea of how long a 50,000 word book is, here's a list of famous, comparable sized novels:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fahrenheit 451
The Great Gatsby
Brave New World

I've had some friends and coworkers ask if they can read it. It'll be some time before I can let even an excerpt out of the bag, as I've yet to complete the entire first draft. At the 50k word mark, I had maybe 2/3 of my chapters drafted. I also have some more research to do on the time period - 1914 Imperial Russia - that I need in order to make everything as authentic as possible. Everything from weapons to clothes to food to language to culture to politics has to be taken into account.

Anyways, back to my tale set in the land of vodka and balalaikas.

Busy Day...

2008-10-31T21:25:00.008-04:00

It's the new fiscal year. What does that mean? Well, apparently the Navy's received some more gas money. They flew the hell out of us today. And yesterday. And the day before.

Today I sat down to work the North Whiting sector, and both times the Navy was jumping.

For normal Whiting course rules traffic, we use specialized traffic count sheets. They have a blank column in the middle where we write down the call sign (RN047, SP641, MX047), a column on the left with departure airports, and a column on the right for arrival airports. They're designed to keep us from having to fill out a flight progress strip for every single aircraft. The sheet looks like this:

So, let's say a T-34 calls us up: "Pensacola Approach, Red Knight 641 at Conecuh River Bridge, off of OLF Brewton, with information Victor." He said he took off from Brewton airport, so I check off "12J" - Brewton's identifier - in the left column. In the middle, I write "RN641" for the call sign. On the right column, I check off "NSE" for North Whiting, his destination. There, now we have accurate count. We do this only for T-34's who wants the course rules in or out of Whiting. For overflights, practice approaches, etc. we use regular strips.

Each sheet has space for ten aircraft. I filled up about seven or eight of them in each session. Keep in mind, those sheets are only for NSE course rules traffic. That's not counting IFR departures or arrivals, civilian overflights, T-34s inbound wanting practice approaches, or T-34s going cross country. It was much busier than it's been lately.

For the Pilots

I know some Navy pilots read this blog, and I'd just like to say: please be patient with us. We want to work with you and provide you service. However, we have a hierarchy of priority we need to deal with. We never ignore pilots, but sometimes we just need to take care of other things before we get to you.

To Blackbird 123: I've heard you call at Conecuh bridge. I see you out there squawking 1200 just northwest of the bridge and your Mode C showing 3500 feet. I really would like to get you squawked up and on your way home.

However, right now I'm dealing with:

A flight of two Red Knights who just departed whose transponder's inoperative and they're just a primary target.
My IFR T-34 on the TACAN final just had his LA-LA go off (Low Altitude alert) so now I need to call the tower on the shout line.
I have another T-34 on a base leg for the TACAN that I need to clear right now or else he's going to blow through the final.
A T-34 flown by a solo student just got lost and went to Point Initial instead of Point Charlie (i.e. he thinks he's landing runway 23 instead of 5).
Base ops screwed the hell out of Shooter 789's flight plan and now I'm trying to get our own Flight Data position to fix it.
I've got the Pensacola West sector in my ear asking for a point out on a helicopter who's going to clip my airspace.
I have a civilian Cessna 172 west of Whiting - who's on the victor frequency so the Navy birds can't hear him and keep talking over him - asking for flight following to Pensacola Regional.
I've got two overflights who just checked in, one who is about to fly right through the Whiting departure corridor at 3000 feet (i.e. most ungood).
And lastly, the tower just called me with approach requests for VV2E840.

All of these things were happening simultaneously today. When a T-34 calls inbound, I usually try to at least issue them a squawk. That A) let's them know I heard them and B) buys me some time so I can take care of other things since it normally takes about 30 seconds or so for the plane to tag up (15 seconds for the pilot to punch it in and two or three radar sweeps of 5 seconds each before the scope tags him).

Note that several of those things on the list involve me talking on the land lines to tower or to another sector. I might be chatting up a storm on my end, but you in the cockpit just hear dead air and no one responding. Or you hear the controller talking to a bunch of other airplanes whose responses you can't hear. Maybe you start thinking you've got the wrong frequency keyed up. Or maybe you think your radio's not receiving properly. I understand how that can be a little unsettling and/or annoying. I'm a pilot too, and if I was calling approach a few times with no reply I'd be thinking "WTF, over?"

When it gets to the point where I know I won't be getting to the inbounds, I just need to key up and say something ridiculous like "All inbound T-34s, stand by." and keep taking care of my business. Once I've taken care of what I need to do, then I'll go back and start picking the targets out. "T-34 just south of the bridge, say call sign." Squawk them. "T-34 three miles of the Chicken Ranch (a VFR reporting fix), say call sign." Squawk them. "Flight of T-34s north of Jay, say call sign." Squawk them. Then, once I've taken care of all the obvious ones, "Are there any other aircraft standing by?" I say the last, because there might be some who I missed or who are wanting something I don't expect, such as a T-34 who's wanting a practice approach or a Maintenance T-34 at Point Initial.

A Different Kind of Operation

I know the readers out there working at Atlanta and Miami and Chicago think it can't possibly be that hard. I don't pretend to think that the traffic we work here in any way competes with the complexity of feeding a billion airliners an hour to parallel approaches. You guys pump the airplanes in and out like nobody's business. Whiting is relatively simple air traffic control compared to that.

I obviously have no real point of comparison to other facilities, since this is the first place I've worked. That said, we have controllers here who came from LAX and other busy places who claim this is one of the most complicated places they've been. That takes into account our Pensacola Regional and NAS Sherman banks of scopes as well, not just Whiting.

Our operation here does have its own specific brand of difficulty. The four biggest problems on the Whiting NAS sectors are:

Frequency congestion: You typically have anywhere between six and thirteen frequencies keyed up at once if you're working Whiting combined up. A VHF/UHF for each of three sectors, a monitor frequency for the Lakes operating area, and up to six SFA frequencies used for the PAR or ASR approaches.
Volume: Whiting has 150 T-34s and a huge number of H-57s. When they get going, it's like Hitchcock's The Birds.
Learning Environment: Every aircraft we talk to is flown by a pilot in training. Most have an instructor on board to keep them from getting into too much trouble. There are times where the instructor will let them go too far and it makes things a little messy.
Airspace: We've got some badly chopped up airspace built up around our three Class C airports, requiring a huge amount of point-outs and other coordination.

What we're dealing with here is essentially the world's largest flight school, with an enormous volume of traffic. To give you an idea of this volume, fully 10% of the US Navy's global flight hours take place in our backyard. And that's just Whiting; that doesn't count NAS Sherman with its T-6, T-1, T-45, and Sabreliner squadrons.

I've met several Whiting pilots and I think they're some of the coolest, most professional, and patriotic people I've ever met. Of course, as with any flight school, they're learning their craft. We're talking pilots in high performance aircraft that have maybe a few hundred hours of flight time, not thousands like the guys in the left seat of a Boeing or Airbus. It gives it a higher level of unpredictability. Most of the time they fly well, but I've seen things go awry enough times to be very wary. It's not a bad thing; it's just the nature of the beast.

To add to the fun, the other side of the scope is learning too. We're talking about trainee controllers like myself who have only a few hundred hours of total time on position. A Boeing 747 captain has a wealth of experience to pull from versus the flight student who just passed his commercial check ride. Likewise, we have some time to go before we approach the capabilities and resourcefulness of the veterans who train us every day. Myself and several of the guys I work with are certified to work all of Whiting - North and South - on our own, but we're not at the level of the older guys. It takes time to build that level of finesse and confidence. It may take us a little longer to formulate a plan or understand what you mean. But we'll make it work, and over time it will get better.

And that's why, I tell you, it felt good today. Moving 160+ planes was pretty nice. I like it when it gets busy. It makes you more efficient, more proactive, and more confident.

Happy Halloweenies

2008-10-30T23:16:00.005-04:00

I hope everybody's Halloween is fun-filled and candy-coated. :)

While I'll be in my home dishing out candy to the neighborhood, a few lucky people "will be taking part in a historic event: the first commercial Zeppelin flight in the USA in over 70 years. Before anyone says "Hey, what about the Goodyear Blimp?" - the blimps are not Zeppelins. A Zeppelin has a rigid structure inside, while a blimp is for all intents and purposes a helium filled gas bag.

And, not only is Airship Ventures inaugurating touring airship flights, but they'll be doing it with one of my favorite bands: Abney Park. They're a steampunk band based out of the northwest. Their sound is very similar to a Cirque du Soleil soundtrack, blending modern elements (synthesizers and rock guitars) with traditional and world instruments (violin, darbuka) and both male and female vocals. Lyrically, they're somewhere between steampunk and goth, with plenty of references to airships, Nikola Tesla, automatons, and other steampunk staples. Their stage "persona" is that of a crew of airship pirates, so they've got the goggles and style to match.

I would have loved to have gone that flight, considering that:

I'm a big fan of steampunk. My NaNoWriMo novel is steampunk-inspired.
I'm a big fan of airships, The NaNoWriMo novel also heavily involves airships.
Abney Park's members are all very cool and down to Earth. I met them at Dragon*Con a couple months ago and they were simply awesome.

But hey, I'll be doing it one better. My wife and I will be celebrating Halloween in our own home for the first time ever. And it feels great.

Here's a vid of the Zeppelin NT in Germany, before it made its trip over here:

If anybody's interested in some "off the beaten path" music, check out the Abney Park vids below. They were definitely a bit of an acquired taste at first, but I ended up becoming a big fan of their music.

"Airship Pirates" at Dragon*Con 2008

"Sleep Isabella"

ATC Hours

2008-10-29T00:43:00.003-04:00

Apologies for the lack of posts. I've had a bunch of projects going on simultaneously that are eating away at my time (in a good way).

The biggest one is a web site I launched recently. It's called ATCHours.com and is designed to help ATC trainees keep track of their OJT training forms. It's loaded with features that make it simple to calculate your position hours and view the status of your OJT reports.

I hope some of the folks reading this blog will be interested. Here's a little "textual infomercial" for it. :)

Overview
Where I work, we train on a number of positions with a multitude of different instructors, and we're responsible for the accuracy and completion of all reports. Before ATCHours, many of the trainees here used Excel, text files, and even paper note pads to track their time, all of which brought their own problems to the table. I've seen Excel files get deleted by computer updates and note pads have near mid-table collisions with spilled cups of coffee. Missing a record or two from three weeks ago might force you to manually recalculate every total for every report during those three weeks. Then there was the question of finding out which reports had already been turned in and which were still outstanding.

By creating a single feature-filled universal tracking tool, I felt it would make life easier for a lot of people around the country. That's where ATCHours comes in.

Features
1. Access from any computer or web-enabled cell phones.
2. Works with any type of ATC facility (tower, TRACON, ARTCC) and any number of positions and instructors.
3. Log up to four records simultaneously, easily, and quickly using a simple web form.
4. Run reports by position, date, and other criteria.
5. See who you trained with on what day and on what position.
6. Display position totals and daily totals.
7. Log comments made by your instructors.
8. Export your logs in MS Excel and PDF format for easy backup.
9. Check off which reports you've filed with your supervisor and which you still need to get back from your instructors.
10. If you transfer to a new facility, it's easy to separate your old facility's training hours from your new ones.
11. Customize your settings to your facility.
12. Server hosted on a trusted web host with frequent back-ups.
13. Tested and used by existing ATC trainees.
How it Works and Looks
When you first log in, you'll be greeted by your Overview page. This is your entire training record at a glance, showing your time on each position, your most recent 20 records, and your instructors.

Clicking on the View All Hours link on the left takes you to the more detailed viewer page. On this page, you can filter your records by position, instructor, and date.

Time to add new records. Just click the Add Hours menu item and you'll be taken to a page with four identical forms. Whenever you add a new record or change an existing one, all of your hours are instantly recalculated to reflect the update.
Extras and Widgets
There are also several extras on the site that you can use on your blog or forum signatures to display your progress to the world.

Time Tracker: A widget that you can install on your blog or web site that displays all of your positions and hours. You can see mine fully operational on the top right of my blog.

Dynamic Banner: You can use this as your forum signature, on your MySpace page, and just about anywhere else you can display an image. Every time you update your hours, this image automatically updates, showing up to twelve of your positions.
Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost?
Normally it costs a one-time fee of $15. This small fee helps cover our hosting costs, past and future development time, and maintenance.

However, for readers of this blog, I'm offering a coupon that knocks $3 off that price, giving you a lifetime membership for only $12. Even if we change the rates later on, you'll never be affected and never have to pay again.

When you're signing up, you'll see a box labelled Coupon Code. Just enter in the following code to get your discount: PENGUIN.

How many positions/instructors/records/facilities can I add?
Unlimited. The site is designed to work with all facilities, from the smallest VFR tower to the largest ARTCC. There are no limits.

Will new features be added?
Of course. We're always looking for feedback from our users. Several of our newest updates were suggested by site users.
In Closing
If anyone has a question about the site, please feel free to comment here or drop me an e-mail. There is also a support form available on the web site here.

If you like what you see, just click here to sign up! And remember, the Flying Penguin coupon code is PENGUIN.

I Did

2008-10-24T01:50:00.003-04:00

Have you? ;)

Hate Mail

2008-10-21T23:51:00.006-04:00

Yay, I got my first bits of hate mail! Apparently some ex-USAF type from Eglin AFB next door to us decide to chime in on a few of my posts with some, err, colorful commentary of his own. I found it all quite enlightening.

I know, I know - don't egg the troll on. It only encourages them. But you know, having never been bashed like that, I decided to call him out on his claims.

1) The first comment (on LOA Hell)

"I was an Air Traffic Controller at Egin AFB. I was fully rated in Eglin Tower, Duke Field Tower, and all positions in the Eglin Radar Approach Control and Mission Control Facilities. I am also a pilot. "

Wow, really? OMG! Can I get an autograph?

Guess what. We have a guy here with all those same quals. Entered the FAA a year ago as a VRA. One big difference, though: he's not an asshole. Oh, and he knows how to spell Eglin right. Say it with me now: E-G-L-I-N. With an "L", like "Loser".

"This site is hilarious. You obviously have a lot of free time on your hands. Thanx for the laughs. It isn't that difficult goober. "

When myself and most of the other trainees started, we had basically no training department. Some of the other guys were lucky enough to get a quick course taught to them by one of the controllers. Me? Not so lucky - I arrived here about two months after the others. I was handed a book of LOAs, a CD with SOPs, and told to go read it and make sense of it.

So, I did, in my own way. I know Photoshop and 3D programs from my last job. I made sense of the material the best way I knew how: visually. A lot of the graphics I made on my own because there were not many materials to study. Instead of poring over a boring-ass LOA, why not convert it into a more easily accessible format? The same goes for this blog: I write about things here because A) I like to share the experience of training for those who are interested, and B) it helps me keep all this stuff straight.

Essentially, you're giving me shit for studying, taking initiative, and wanting to improve my abilities and knowledge.

Who's the "goober", exactly?

"Good Luck Geek. I hope you're not working me when I fly through."

And how am I a geek? Because I know how to use a computer for more than checking my MySpace and surfing porn sites? God forbid someone should have a skill other than binge drinking and lap-dance-receiving.

"But, you're probably one of those controllers that "has to use the bathroom" when the strip bay fills up...aren't ya?"

Two hours ago, my last session of the night, I had a full strip bay tonight on the right and a workspace full of strips in front of me. Dual full patterns at NAS Whiting North and South. A flock of dissimilar aircraft - fixed wing and helos - running around in the GCA pattern at South, each doing multiple PAR, ASR, ILS, and TACAN approaches. Multiple T-34s doing TACANs and GPS approaches at North. In the middle of that, a variety of popups for both fields requesting entries back home and multiple IFR departures headed either eastbound to CEW, westbound to Mobile, or south to Sherman NAS.

In addition, I was working around the airspace your fellows at Eglin took from us - MOA Alpha West and the three GCA areas (A,B, and C). That left me with about 30% less airspace than usual, knocking out my right downwind from South Whiting.

Funny. I don't remember getting any urge to tinkle.

Where there things I could have done better? Absolutely. But every inbound pilot got his approach requests and every departure got sent on their way cleanly.

I actually had quite a good time. See, I actually look forward to it getting busy. You don't get better by working slow sessions.

2) The Second Comment (on Things Gone Awry)

You are such a friggin goober. I worked Eglin with nothing...including radar! You probably have no idea what the hell non-radar means, do ya?

Man, you are a god. I bet you're the only controller in the whole wide world who's worked non-radar. That section of the 7110.65 was written especially for you.

I'm well aware of what non radar is, but frankly have not had the opportunity to use it very much. I've been a controller trainee for a year in a facility that has two independent ASR-11 radars and a CENRAP feed from Jacksonville Center. That means three separate radars need to fail for us to go non radar.

I've had to create the most basic kind of NR separation - 20 miles or 10 minutes - when Jax lost their LRR. We fed them 20 miles in trail, with manual handoffs.

You're the guy that sits next to me and just hands me his strips when you're friggin screen goes blank.

Uh, you seem to have a lot of people passing you strips. That's the second time in two comments you've used that analogy. I guess creativity is not your strong suit.

It just seems like you've got some massive ego that needs constant feeding. Maybe you feel nobody can do anything better than you? From the little I've seen so far, I'd imagine that your picture is next to the word "autofellatio" in the dictionary.

will you go to Sammy's and get a life? Please? You embarass me.

Oh, is that where you gotta go to get some action? Sorry to hear you can't get any without having to hit an ATM beforehand. What's your pickup line? "Hey baby, I know 'non radar'. Can I clear you to my fix?"

3) And the final little gem (also on LOA Hell)

If you know the aircraft you worked, and can list them on a website...
Please go do something else for a living.
Please.
No really.

I don't know. Call me silly for wanting to get into an aviation field and actually liking airplanes. It's ridiculous, isn't it?

Sigh.

I feel kind of dirty now. Oh well.

Blog Props

2008-10-17T20:08:00.006-04:00

Some other interesting aviation blogs are popping up throughout the Internetz. Others that have been dormant for some time are coming back to life. Each one offers a different perspective on the aviation universe.

NAS Confusion
http://nas-confusion.blogspot.com
Author Statement: "I am an Air Traffic Controller at Boston Center. My area of specialty is Area A, which includes airspace above eastern upstate New York. I also earned my Private Pilot's License in 2001."

Level 7000
http://level7000.blogspot.com/
Author Statement: A line pilot for a cargo operator, building time and looking to break into the Profile: "I wish to let everyone know that I am a Part 135 freight pilot that flies for about 2.5 to 3 hours per day with a duty day near 14 hours. Yes it's long, yes it can get really really boring but...it pays well and I am working for a smaller Part 135 outfit that bases in the southeast United States but I am in the Midwest! I look forward to talking about many things aviation and possibly aviation."

The Towerboss
http://thetowerboss.blogspot.com/
Author Statement: Controller trainee just starting at Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH). "I'm an Air Traffic Controller and a Private Pilot."

Squawk Normal
http://squawknormal.blogspot.com
Author Statement: "I'm not here to talk ATC. I'm here to talk politics. All the ATC blogs are openly supporting Obama and the Democratic Party. That's fine. But there is another side to the two-party coin. There are also more than two parties in America, and an infinitely more political ideologies than parties."

"Bob" Part Deux: The Reckoning

2008-10-17T12:52:00.006-04:00

This is a sequel to my earlier post "Some Pilots..."

Light cargo haulers. Canceled check fliers. Whatever their name, they seem to have a lot of things in common wherever they are in the country.

They're always in an extreme hurry. Opposite direction departures, intersection takeoffs. Even their radio transmissions are brief to the point of being curt.
They will do anything in their power to be number one to the runway, maneuvering their Cessnas and Barons like P-51s.
The sky can be filled with a solid overcast, Noachian deluge-style rain, horrible visibility, volcanic ash, flaming frogs falling from the clouds, locusts swarming, and yet.... they'll still call the field in sight from 30 miles out at 1500 feet, in hopes of snagging a visual approach.

That all being said, it makes them fun to work. They bend their airplanes around the sky like madmen, make extreme short approaches, fly through some crazy weather. I don't know who pays them or how they get paid, but I've seen them fly directly through Heavy and Extreme precipitation in light piston singles just to shave a minute or two off their flight. Obviously we issue the weather to them, but we can't make them deviate if they don't want to. All we can do is provide the pilot with the weather information.

Overall, they're entertaining... until they're not number 1 for the runway. If you've got to sequence them, watch out. And that's where our story begins.

There are two rules in play for this story:

We have to sequence all traffic to Pensacola Regional, regardless of whether it's VFR or IFR. We can't just shotgun the tower with VFRs from all over the place while feeding them IFR's on the primary final.
Pensacola tower's AOR (Area of Responsibility) goes up to 1700', so we own 2200' and above.

So, let us proceed.

The Situation: Overcast day. Reduced visibility. We are landing runway 8 using instrument approaches.

The Players: We have three aircraft inbound to Pensacola at the moment. From the west, we have an IFR Embraer 135 regional airliner descending for the GPS approach . From the northeast, about 20-25 miles out, we have an IFR light cargo hauler. And from about 15-20 miles to the southeast, we have Bob v2.0, another IFR light cargo hauler (who's from the same company as the other one).

The Plan: You can't beat a straight-in. The Embraer is hands-down #1. I'm going to put Bob on a right downwind to follow him and then put the other cargo hauler on the left downwind to follow Bob.

The part of Bob will be played by the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The Embraer has been cleared for his instrument approach and is about ten miles out. I descend Bob to 2200 feet. and he's on a vector to join a 3 mile or so right downwind for 8. He's about five miles southeast of the airport at this point. Having worked a few of these light cargo haulers before, I'm pretty sure that he's going to want to jump in front of the Embraer with a visual. However, that's not going to work for us.

Well, Bob's closer to the airport and - as expected - calls us "Airport in sight." This implies a request for the visual approach. The Embraer is now on a four mile final. No way is Bob going to make it in ahead of him. So, I just say, "Roger. Fly heading 250, maintain 2200, vectors for sequence. You're following a regional jet on a 4 mile final."

Apparently Bob thought that by calling the field in sight, it automatically waived our need to sequence and separate from other aircraft. He immediately copped an attitude. "I have the airport in sight."

So I repeat, "Fly heading 250, maintain 2200, vectors for sequence."

"Ha-ha! Thought you were getting that visual, weren't you?"

Now he pulls out the next weapon in his arsenal. It's a well-used blade that has allowed him to cut through many an ATC requirement in the past.

"Approach, I'm canceling IFR at this time."

Nice try. Remember: we still need to sequence VFR aircraft. Regardless of whether or not he's VFR, his light piston is not going to beat our Embraer. And if he tries, within 30 seconds I'm going to get a call from our tower's landline with the ATC phraseology equivalent of "WTF, over?!"

So, Bob has swung his sword. We now parry with our own mighty blade.

"Roger, IFR cancellation received. Fly heading 250, maintain VFR at 2200."

Clang! His blow is deflected. Cancelling IFR has changed nothing for him. He still needs to be sequenced to follow that Embraer. He is still number 2 for the runway. And unless he gets him in sight - which he hasn't - we still need wake turbulence separation.

"Cancel THIS!"

Note: I'd like to stress at this point one thing I mentioned in my last "Bob" story: at no point are we driving him far out of his way or making him do anything unsafe or unusual. We are not "vectoring for controller amusement". We're merely vectoring him behind another aircraft in a manner that is safe and efficient. The plan was to wait until he was abeam the Embraer on the downwind and then clear him for the visual. He would have had maybe another two or three miles to fly, and then he'd be cleared.

However, now he drops another bomb: "Uh, I can't maintain VFR on this heading. It'll run me right into the clouds! And I don't have my IFR clearance anymore." He sounds very annoyed and has simultaneously confirmed our suspicion: he obviously cancelled IFR just to try and sneak in ahead of the Embraer. Apparently, however, he wasn't actually in tenable VMC conditions.

Well, well. That's a surprise. "Maintain VFR at or above 2200'. Climb and deviate as necessary. "

Got yourself in a pickle now, don't ya?

At this point, we're splitting off the position. While before, I was both East and West, now I'm just the East side. Since we're landing runway 8, I hand Bob off to the west controller. By now my instructor and I are already annoyed ourselves. We were just trying to work the traffic, and this guy was trying to play us for fools.

Since I didn't work Bob after we handed him off, I am not certain if the other controller recleared him IFR or what. I don't know. However, what I do know is that Bob went from being number two to land, to number three. Because of his stunt, he ended up being vectored out to the west a bit, and the other airplane from his company - who, I might add, heard the entire exchange on the radio - wound up being closer. The other airplane did not make peep and simply followed instructions without complaint.

"So, have you learned your lesson?"

Well, apparently he didn't.

Shortly after he landed, Bob had the gall to call the TRACON and complain. Our supervisor was on the phone with him for a long time - at least 20 minutes. To make a long story short, he accused us of trying to fly him into clouds when he was VFR, which was absolute bullshit. The second he told us that the heading would run him into clouds, we told him to maintain VFR and deviate as necessary. It was plainly obvious to everyone on our end that he'd tried to pull a shortcut and wasn't in real VFR conditions.

Difficult Pilots

I don't care how much of an asshole a pilot is - and I've worked a couple real pricks in my short time training - I will never consciously put anyone in danger. I don't care what attitude they're copping. My goal is to keep the operation as safe as possible - whether they like it or not. However, I find it especially ridiculous when a pilot puts himself into danger - such as canceling IFR in IMC conditions - and then tries to blame the controller.

Like yesterday, for instance, one of my coworkers had a Cessna that was doing work 15 miles north of Whiting NAS. After he finished in that spot, he wanted to work all of three miles northeast of Whiting. This would put him right in the T-34 departure path: a bad place to be when you're talking swarms of high performance military aircraft flown by student pilots. The area was also located within the tower's airspace.

The controller called the tower, asked for a point-out, and they told him unable - with good reason. He informed the pilot: "Unable request due to Whiting departures, remain clear of Class C surface area." Apparently the pilot got pissed off, even though it was for his own safety. With Whiting launching like crazy as they were yesterday, every single departure would have been a potential conflict and a traffic call. Simply not workable.

We're not trying to be pains in the butt and restrict people from flying around without justification. However, there are times where we simply can't accomodate a request. Usually the reason for the "unable" is the best one of all: safety.

As a nightcap to the story: On the good side of things, I've worked this post's Bob several times since that day, and he's much more cooperative than he was before.

NaNoWriMo

2008-10-14T00:42:00.003-04:00

When I was in middle school and high school, I used to do a lot of creative writing. At the time, I stuck to shorter pieces, like short stories, novellas, song lyrics, etc. I even placed in a couple of statewide writing competitions with a pair of short stories. I've always had a "thing" for writing and have dabbled with it off and on in the past ten years.

Well, this year I'm taking the plunge: I've decided to enter the National Novel Writing Month event (NaNoWriMo).

And... I'm sure many of you have never heard of it. From their "What is...?" page:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

That's 50,000 words in 30 days, or about 1,666 words a day. That's a lot of output. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Even if you don't actually finish, by the time the clock strikes midnight on Nov. 30th you need to have 50,000 words in the bag. :)

Apparently, the event has been going on for ten years. However, I was just introduced to it by my sister last week. I already had the novel in the planning for a couple weeks prior to that, but this has given me new incentive and enthusiasm to finish it.

What's cool about NaNoWriMo is that it's not a contest, per se. You don't win anything if you're the first or second author to spew out 50,000 words. What you do get is a sense of accomplishment. That's a whole lot of story and words to conjure up from your imagination in the space of a month. If you manage to crank that out in 30 days, you deserve a pat on your back.

Subject Matter: They're very free-form about the subject matter overall. It can be any genre and be about anything. You can write an original piece, a sequel to an existing novel by another author, or even a fan-fiction based off of your favorite TV show. Anything goes. As the FAQ says, "If you think it's a novel, we think it's a novel too."

Pre-planning: The rules do not prevent you from getting yourself organized before Nov. 1st. That's a big advantage that keeps you from diving into it cold turkey. And I'm grateful for that. In the past week, I've already got all 29 chapters fully blocked out and outlined. The story has a definitive beginning, middle, and end, with several arcs. My characters have become real people already, with full biographies and character trait studies. I've also researched the heck out of my setting.

I won't say much about my story at this point, other than it's an alternative history novel set in the early days of World War I in Russia. And, it will have certain steampunk elements; hell, the main setting is an armed airship. So... Russia. War. Steampunk. Airships. Airplanes. Historical Battles. Yeah, very much up my alley. :)

And, no, I'm not looking to have anything published. Sure, it would be nice, but I just want to feel the satisfaction of having put a good story to paper. However, there's a lot of people out there who participated in NaNoWriMo who have gone on to become published authors.

The Tools

If anybody out there is looking to get into writing, there's a lot of helpful books and tools out there. The three I recommend the most are:

Keys to Great Writing: Fantastic writing book with an excellent breakdown of all the elements of good storytelling. It features a lot of good exercises that help you get your creative juices flowing.
Fiction Writer's Workshop: Another terrific how-to book that's clear and well organized. For instance, if you're struggling with point of view issues, you can just flip to the point of view chapter and refresh yourself.
yWriter: An amazing writing program - developed by a successful author - that allows you to fully organize your novel by breaking it down into chapters and scenes. It has a fully realized set of tools for keeping track of your characters, goals, conflicts, items and locations, amongst other things. And... it's free!

Photo Day

2008-10-13T10:54:00.008-04:00

Columbus Day. Get to relax, take a day off, disengage the mind, and get away from the computer as much as I can. In the meantime, here's a few pics I took in the past week.

Air Force Dumb
Sarah Palin rolled into town last week on a chartered Jet Blue Embraer. You all already know how I feel about her. I will say that it looks like she brought the entire population of Alaska with her. She apparently gave a speech at the Pensacola Civic Center which brought out the entire population of Pensacola. From the clips I've seen, the crowd was filled with wonderful folks like these. And these.

Ugly Plane of the Week
I worked this guy in for his approach, got relieved, and went out back to watch him land. It's a C-2 Greyhound, designed for COD: Carrier Onboard Delivery. In other words, it's a flying mail and cargo truck used to transport items back and forth from aircraft carriers while they're at sea. Now when I say "ugly" I don't mean it that badly. It's more along the lines of the A-10 Warthog brand of ugly: it's designed to do something, do it well, and it doesn't have to be pretty to do it. Considering that the Navy's been flying them for nearly 50 years and has no plans for replacing them, they must do a pretty good job.

Here he is taxiing in around a departing CRJ-700.

We Be Jammin'
While a lot of folks here at my work watch ESPN or the Golf Channel on break, that's not for me. I prefer a more musical method of relaxation to keep my head straight. Sometimes on a quiet, cool day, and especially after a rough training session, I'll take a guitar out on the back staircase and play some tunes to clear my mind. I've found that music truly is the best medicine.

N00b Moment of the Week

2008-10-10T00:31:00.006-04:00

I'm going to make a bet that most people reading this have had at least one "fall on my ass in public" moment in their lives.

You know what I'm talking about: you're striding along with purpose, feeling good about yourself, not a care in the world. You're humming your favorite song. You're not even paying attention to where you're going. Life's awesome. And maybe - just maybe - you might be too.

Unfortunately, you're just too cool to notice the wet tile floor ahead. And then... whoa!!! Your feet slip out from under you... oh shit oh shit... try to keep the balance... oh shit oh shit... not happening... WHAM!!!

You're flat on your back, looking up at blue sky, and everyone around you is having a good laugh at your expense. As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a maroon!" Somewhere, a trombone makes a sad "mwa-wa-wa-waaaa" sound.

All you can do is pick yourself up and keep shuffling along while trying to reassemble the shattered fragments of you self-respect. That spring in your step is gone - replaced by a pronounced limp - and now your eyes are wide open and looking ahead. Because, well, you'll be damned if you'll let that ridiculousness happen again.

Yeap, that's pretty much how I felt today.

I had a pair of helicopters that wanted to do a VOR approach into Pensacola Regional. Not a big issue at all. One wanted holding prior to the approach, one wanting vectors straight-in. I issued the hold at 4000 to the first one, and vectors for the other one at 3000. Everything was working out perfectly. They were two out of the grand total of three aircraft I was working, so I was just idly watching them come in. La-de-da...

And then I remembered: Pensacola Sherman Naval Air Station to the south of us had switched runways a few minutes earlier. Because of this new configuration, that sector's controller took a good chunk of my airspace up to 4500'. So, those helicopters I was working? I was actually about to bust that sector's airspace with them. On top of that, when I tried to hand them off, the other controller wouldn't take the handoff and said he was unable to do the VOR approaches.

So, my perfect plan went out the window, I had to scramble, tell both pilots "Unable VOR approach. Say request.", rewrite strips with new requests, get them on vectors for those same requests, and completely rework everything. I had all of three freaking airplanes on my frequency and got smacked around by two of them due to my lack of situational awareness. In my defense, it's a configuration that's rarely used, but still... I should have known better.

My instructor and the other controller got a good laugh at my expense. My instructor realized I'd forgotten about the airspace change and had already pointed out the helos in advance to the other sector. But... he wanted me to learn my lesson.

And boy did I ever.

Time to put on the hat:

Knowing Your Equipment

This is a perfect example of what happens when you're not familiar with your "tools".

The goal of ATC training is not necessarily to teach you the name of every single fix on every single GPS approach in your airspace. Rather, it's to teach you how to use a set number of tools properly and creatively.

It's like carpentry: if you know how to use hammers, nails, drills, and saws, you can apply those tools to different projects. You can build a house. Or a dresser. Or a bench. All are different difficulty levels, but they all rely on the same knowledge of your material and tools. And you have to know them all well; you can't be a carpenter without knowing how to use a saw. Or a hammer.

In ATC, the tools include things like airspace awareness, phraseology, vectors, and procedures. That way, when you're presented with situations of varying complexity, you can figure out a way through them using those tools. Whether it's two planes or twenty, you're always using that knowledge to sort through the problems.

And just like with carpentry, weakness in one area severely impacts the results elsewhere. When it came to those two helicopters today, my vectors, phraseology, and procedures were spot-on. However, none of that mattered since, well, I was using them in somebody else's airspace without prior consent. So, my "airspace awareness" tool is in need of some serious sharpening on that runway configuration.

Final Word

I'd also like to point out (pun intended) the ramifications of the incident. Had my instructor not pointed out those aircraft to the other sector earlier, that would have been an Operational Deviation. I would be violating the other controller's airspace - with two IFR aircraft no less - without their prior consent. Intentional or not, that's some bad juju right there.

In other words: a deal.

That should give you an idea of how one little mistake or oversight can balloon into something much more problematic if not caught early enough.