Some bad controllers

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:
I just called the FBO.

Just out of curiosity, can you make a PSTN (Public Switched Telephone
Network) call from your radar station? Are the calls recorded?

For ARTCC's, we can't access a PSTN from the Sector (at least in my
facility). However, there is a PSTN in the ARTCC with dozens of commercial
phone lines and phones at each supervisor position in each Area. We have
access to literally hundreds of phone numbers, from law enforcement at our
airports to emergency services to FBO's to airline dispatch offices, ARINC
etc.


I've heard that you're not allowed to accept IFR cancellations which are
relayed via other aircraft. Is this correct?

This is not correct. We can.

On a marginally related topic, my club had a talk recently about
in-flight medical emergencies. Let's say you were working me and I
said, "I've got a medical emergency, landing Podunk Municipal, get an
ambulance to meet me there" and then disappeared from the frequency.
What would you do? Do you have the resources/authority to get a medical
team dispatched to Podunk?

Yep. In the ARTCC's, we keep an updated index file on computer of hundreds
of emergency contact phone numbers for the airspace we serve. Going in to
Podunk, we would look up the emergency services for Podunk, place an
official sounding, recorded, urgent emergency call from FAA, and do our best
to get an ambulance to you if it was possible.

In Center airspace out in the boonies, you might have to make do with
whatever showed up at the airport though. One of the fun extra-duty jobs
I've had was verifying the Center's fire and emergency services numbers a
few years ago (something we do every year as part of facility SOP). I
called the official emergency number for Gilmer County Airport up in the
Blue Ridge of North Georgia.

"Yaller? Airport."

"Hello, this is the FAA Atlanta Air Traffic Control Center calling to verify
that this phone number is for emergency services at 49A."

"Say whut?"

"Err, this is the Federal Aviation Administration calling. Is this Gilmer
County Airport?"

"Weel yes sah, it's Gilma Counee, sheer is..."

"Err, could I speak with the airfield emergency services dispatcher?"

"He ain't here- he's out on the ambulance."

"How about the airport manager? I'm trying to verify that this is still a
good aircraft emergency contact number."

"Dang it, hold on..." He put down the phone, went to a door and yelled:
"Hey Jed! JED! Hey! It the Fed's! HEY JED DAMMIT! CLIMB ON DOWN AN'
COME 'ERE! PHONE CALL FROM THE FFA!"

"Sorry about that mister, he was out on the ambulance mowing the airport..."

Here's your sign....

Chip, ZTL

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
[snipped]

I'm not a controller and haven't visited an ATC facility in probably 20
years. I didn't assume that manual flight strips were still in use, but
knowing the gummint I should have figured that would still be the case.

Strips are far far far far far superior to *ANY* automated data for
reliability in my opinion. They don't break, they aren't broken, and they
don't need to be replaced. Like paper cheques, strips aren't obsolete.



It sounded from earlier responses you made that
NOTHING was done at the termination of an IFR flight. It is clear that
something is done, and that something is discarding the strip. Works
for me. It was the thought that no action was taken that had me
concerned.



I see. You were under the impression that strips were retained forever,
eventually filling the facility and requiring construction of another.

No, see above. I assumed that technology had progressed at least a tiny
bit since I visited a tower in the late 70s. Obviously, a poor
assumption.

Technology for technology's sake isn't always progress IMO. Especially not
in the air safety business.

Chip, ZTL

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...

I've worked for more than 20 years with both computers and people. The
computers are much more reliable at performing routine tasks. There is
simply no comparison. I prefer to have the controllers performing
functions that require higher mental skills.

I've automated many industrial processes that had formerly been operated
by humans. In every single case, the process was more stable and more
reliable when the humans weren't "in the loop."



Please explain how you'd automate the search.

I'd automate the initiation of the search. Never said I'd automate the
search.

Chip Jones wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
[snipped]


I'm not a controller and haven't visited an ATC facility in probably 20
years. I didn't assume that manual flight strips were still in use, but
knowing the gummint I should have figured that would still be the case.


Strips are far far far far far superior to *ANY* automated data for
reliability in my opinion. They don't break, they aren't broken, and they
don't need to be replaced. Like paper cheques, strips aren't obsolete.

Paper cheques are rapidly becoming obsolete. Credit and Debit cards
have already overtaken checks based on some stats I saw just a few weeks
ago and the rate of change is pretty high with checks dropping rapidly.
Another 10-20 years and checks will be all but gone.

Paper strips are only as reliable as the computer and printer that print
them ...
which are automated systems already.



It sounded from earlier responses you made that
NOTHING was done at the termination of an IFR flight. It is clear that
something is done, and that something is discarding the strip. Works
for me. It was the thought that no action was taken that had me
concerned.



I see. You were under the impression that strips were retained forever,
eventually filling the facility and requiring construction of another.

No, see above. I assumed that technology had progressed at least a tiny
bit since I visited a tower in the late 70s. Obviously, a poor

assumption.

Technology for technology's sake isn't always progress IMO. Especially not
in the air safety business.

Never suggested technology for technology's sake. Do you consider all
of the automation that has already happened in avionics and ATC to be
technology for technology's sake?


Matt

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
Chip Jones wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
[snipped]

Paper strips are only as reliable as the computer and printer that print
them ...
which are automated systems already.

Not true. Paper strips are designed to be *written on* by human beings.
They reflect control data written in pencil or pen using control symbology
as a form of communication. That control data is not the product of an
automated system. Rather it is the product of the human air traffic
controller. A good controller can write and talk at the same time far
faster and with far more accuracy than he/she can input data into a computer
via an interface like a key board. I can literally write as fast and
accurately as I can think and talk. After years of practice inputting data,
I am still far more prone to error using a keyboard to attempt to do the
same thing. Furthermore, strips serve air safety in other vital ways, such
as serving as memory aids (Did I switch him? Is he still on a vector? Did
I pass that speed? Did he request a reroute? Is he pointed out to the
adjacent facility? Is WAFDOF approved down the line? Am I even talking to
this airplane?), conflict probes (Do I have any other guys at FL330?) etc.
In my facility, back when we actually had staffing, two or three proficient
controllers could work a balls-to-the-wall enroute sector full of high
complexity and volume without ever uttering a single word to one another,
using strips and detailed stripmarking as the sole form of safe and
effective team coordination. It worked because each controller would work
and write on the strip, cock the strip out of the bay on piority items etc.

Add to that the fact that strips serve as fail safes in enroute automated
environments because *they never break*. Strips can be written, used and
processed by *hand*. You don't even need a computer, and you don't even
need a printer... I'd argue that strips are *more* reliable than the
computer and printers that print them.


[snipped]

Technology for technology's sake isn't always progress IMO. Especially
not
in the air safety business.

Never suggested technology for technology's sake. Do you consider all
of the automation that has already happened in avionics and ATC to be
technology for technology's sake?

Of course I don't. I can't speak for avionics, but I can tell you that in
the enroute ATC world, technology for technology's sake sometimes seems to
be the case. For example, we have an automated POS called URET (Stands for
User Requested Evaluation Tool). In this case the "User" who made the
request wasn't the enroute air traffic controller, but rather the airline
industry looking for more direct routings and believing that a good conflict
probe would facilitate their desire. URET was sold to FAA as a conflict
probe/electronic strip replacement tool. The probe doesn't work. It's
crap. Human ATC's don't need a conflict probe anyway-they have eyes, radar
and paper strips. The automated flight plan processor is a **** poor
substitute for the strips it is unsuccessfully trying to replace. It is
completely unsuited to non-radar operations. It requires heads-down time
for data input. URET equipped facilities commit operational deviations
*daily* using automation to replace simple strip functions such as mandatory
coordination with the next sector. They do this because the automation that
they have been forced to use is inferior to the paper strip it has
replaced., and they forget things because they aren't processing strips.
They don't get dinged because controllers don't turn each other in for
deviations unless it is in self-defense. You don't throw rocks in a glass
house in ATC-World. By the way, paper strips are still mandated to be
printed in URET facilities "just in case" the automation goes belly up. So
far, it has gone belly up in ZID, ZJX and ZKC that I know of. Strips just
keep swimming....


Chip, ZTL

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...

I'd automate the initiation of the search. Never said I'd automate the
search.


Please explain how you'd automate the initiation of the search.

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...

Paper strips are only as reliable as the computer and printer that print
them ...
which are automated systems already.


Right. When the computer goes down the print fades right off the strip.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
I saw comments about nothing happening and nothing needing to happen,
but no explanation as to what actually was happening. I never said I
didn't buy having a strip that stays in front of the controller until
the controller manually disposes of it.


Okay, so do you now understand that nothing happens and nothing needs to
happen?

In addition, I thought we understood that at some time (presumably after an
appropriate timeout), some FAA computer decides to delete the flight without
human intervention. I just wanted to be reassured that is an exception to
the the "nothing happens". Otherwise I suppose you'd quickly run out of
available squawk codes and eventually memory space.

-- David Brooks

"David Brooks" wrote in message
...

In addition, I thought we understood that at some time (presumably
after an appropriate timeout), some FAA computer decides to delete
the flight without human intervention. I just wanted to be reassured
that is an exception to the the "nothing happens". Otherwise I
suppose you'd quickly run out of available squawk codes and
eventually memory space.


Yes, the flight plan is deleted from the computer without any human action.
Understand that this happens at the end of the line for any particular
flight, there's just no reason to retain the information.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...

Paper strips are only as reliable as the computer and printer that print
them ...
which are automated systems already.



Right. When the computer goes down the print fades right off the strip.



You don't write yours by hand like KP and Chip? :-)

Matt