"Newps" wrote in message
...


Matt Whiting wrote:

Do good controllers make good managers? I know that good engineers
often don't make good engineering managers.

Bad controllers can make good managers. Some people are just not cut
out to control. Had a guy who transferred in here as a supervisor. He
got thru ground control but was pencil whipped thru tower and radar.
Was the temporary manager for about 6 months and was pretty good at it.
Eventually transferred out and went to Boise as a controller. Made it
thru ground control training but never had a chance as a tower
controller, his brain isn't wired to work that way. Stayed at Boise
awhile as a QATS and then became manager at Helena, MT tower, where they
loved him. Is now at TIW as the manager. What you don't want is the
gung ho type bad controller. Those make terrrible management.

In a big radar facility like an ARTCC, the last thing you want is for an
incompetent controller to become a QATS person. Sadly, at my facility our
QA (quality assurance) people haven't worked traffic since they ran from the
control room floor 12 years ago. They can't even keep up with procedural
changes, and they are *permanent* AT staff. No wonder my ARTCC is leading
the nation this year in Deals.

I represented a controller who had misapplied enroute visual separation
between a plane at 17,000 and another at FL180 during a vertical control
maneuver. I had to freaking *argue* with the QA specialist that enroute
visual separation was legal above 10,000 and my guy had simply had a brain
fart during the Error. She was so out of touch I thought I was talking air
traffic control procedures to a janitor...

Chip, ZTL