On Aug 24, 3:02 pm, Marty Shapiro
wrote:

Another factor may be the percentage of controllers at the facility
who are also pilots. Years ago I took a tour of Bay Approach when it was
located at Oakland airport and they told me that Bay had the highest
percentage of controller/pilots in the system and that Oakland Center was
second. I don't what the numbers for this are today.

I was part of a group that toured Norcal TRACON (formerly Bay
Approach) last weekend. One of our hosts made the point that they'd
rather be talking to us than not. If they see a conflict developing,
it's much easier for them to call traffic to both planes and *know*
there are two sets of eyes working on the see and avoid, rather than
*hope* that the 1200 is paying attention.

I fly out of SQL and have never been denied a Bay Tour or the 101
transition through Class Bravo. Having learned to fly at an non-
towered airport, it was intimidating as hell the first few times I did
it, but is second nature by now.