User:Dhartung/Air traffic controller
Air traffic controllers are persons who operate the air traffic control system to expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of air traffic and help prevent mid-air collisions. They apply separation rules to keep each aircraft apart in their area of responsibility and move all aircraft efficiently through 'their' airspace and on to the next.
Procedures
[edit]Until recently, in methods which remain little changed since the late 1940s, air traffic controllers record raw data for each flight on a strip of paper. This strip then passes to the next controller as the plane moves, or is filed and replaced as orders change. Computerization of this aspect is relatively new.
Controllers use radio and multiple types of radar to monitor the airspace under their direction. When controllers must leave their seats, the next controller immediately reviews the strips and contacts the pilots to confirm any discrepancies.
Skills and Disposition
[edit]Air traffic controllers are generally individuals with excellent spatial perception, an ability which is enhanced with training. Almost universally, trainee controllers begin work in their early twenties, and retire in their forties. Rigid physical and psychological tests and excellent vision, hearing, speaking skills are a requirement, and controllers must remain healthy and drug-free.
Most training focuses on honing the ability to visualise, in time and space, the position of each aircraft under control. Without an inbuilt mental position for each aircraft and its relationship with others, a skill termed having the picture or having the flick, a controller could not maintain safety margins.
Controllers ensure that aircraft are neither delayed nor compromised in either the busiest or the quietest of situations. A controller's shift may alternate between frenetic activity and utter boredom.
Stress
[edit]Though trained to sustain through long periods of activity, for many hours when necessary, simple body conditions like a full bladder or an empty stomach determine durability in the 'best' controllers; brain fade is almost never the reason for needing a break. The camaraderie and collective responsibility ingrained in a controller team heightens personal and mutual awareness of controllers and their frailties. In principle, each controller knows what he can handle, or someone close by knows, and workloads will not be allowed to reach dangerous levels.
Rarely are air disasters with lives lost attributed to human errors by controllers. (See Air traffic control#Facts and known mishaps.) Often there are procedural or technological issues which contribute, and pilots have the ultimate responsibility for their planes.
Computerization
[edit]The controller viewpoint is that a human brain working extraordinarily well in all circumstances is key to success. Though years of effort and billions of dollars have been spent on computer software designed to assist air traffic control, success has been largely limited to improving the tools at the disposal of the controllers such as computer-enhanced radar. Some controllers liken the problem of replacing them to implementing 3-dimensional chess, or perhaps the Harry Potter game quidditch. The problems to consider include:
- pieces have different speed characteristics
- no one piece can alter speed very much
- pieces can never stop, pause, change direction suddenly
- pieces unexpectedly turn up in a far corner of a board
Professional
[edit]Though starting pay is modest, experienced controllers are among the highest paid employees in the US government, reaching the GS-12 level, and have liberal time off compared with most workers. Compensatory time and holiday pay boost fringe benefits considerably as well.
Unionization
[edit]Air traffic controllers in the US are represented by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), which succeeded the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) after President Ronald Reagan fired striking controllers in 1981. Notably, many of the newly hired controllers are now reaching retirement age, and FAA hiring and training has not kept pace. Only the drop in air traffic following the September 11 attacks has mitigated this problem.
Privatization
[edit]In the US, air traffic controllers at commercial airports handling heavies are all FAA employees. Smaller general-aviation airports are often local government employees or private contractors. For several years privatizing more of these jobs has been an issue, virulently opposed by the unions on grounds of safety.
Free Flight
[edit]There are proposals to reduce the amount of direction that intercity commercial air traffic is given by permitting pilots to engage in free flight, or the choice of best direct route. This might save time and fuel, and reduce air traffic control costs by eliminating controller jobs. This also is opposed by the unions.