Flight simulator ATC youtube videos. :)

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Holy smokes.
Once again, I might be late to the party, but these videos came up in my youtube feed today,

I'm laughing so hard it hurts.

Here's one. They are endless. Edit- if this is how Boston handles things, d#$ if I'm flying there again!

[Embraer]

The phraseology is making me lose color vision.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Obviously- to a real pilot like yourself, it's pretty lame. The dichotomy (to me) in a lot of these videos- not necessarily this one, is that some people are taking the game uber seriously, and then all hell breaks loose from some far corner of a drunk teenager.

This, and the flight simulator x thread makes me want to go upgrade my computer and go fly. I haven't used flight simulator since around 1985. It's come a ways!

[rattlsnak]

Yes, ive been watching those for a while. hilarious! He also does in flight commentary..lol

[Eric Coffey]

OMG, I am dying here. Thanks for that OP.

[ted]

I was an ATC for 30 years and can say a few moments of that video brought back memories.
Some from working in the tower and a few from bad ATC dreams.
Replace the male controller's voice with a female voice for added annoyance.
The pilots would chip away "another empty kitchen".

Funny to hear them argue about the wind sock and runway configuration, that really happens due to wind or weather minimums.

Short story...
I was instructing a newer tower controller on ground control.
We got a position brief from the controller we relieved.
A pilot soon after called for taxi.
My trainee did not reply? He could not hear any of the pilots on his head set.
I quickly realized my student had plugged his headset into the wrong head set jack.
He was one jack off. lol

So I stretched out my headset cord and walked to the back of the tower and unknown to him I started to taxi aircraft.
He was staring out the tower window with out a clue to who or why planes were moving.
Never again had a problem with him plugging into the wrong headset jack.

[Embraer]

It's a kinder, gentler faa now, Ted. I stopped flying 14 years ago, and went to the other side of the mic. I started at ZLA, 0 to FPL in area C, in 11 months. Starting out, I took lots of clipboards to the back of the head.

We had t shirts with a jailbird chained to a scope..."ZLA...doing 25 to life.".

I had to get back to the Midwest, so I sold my soul and went management. FPL'd at a tower....spent 3 years there, then went to ZID as a manager. I'm an OM now, and miss talking to airplanes, everyday.

I've got 10 years, 10 months, and 23 days left...but who's counting?

Btw...the job gets real, really quick. One of my controllers had a fatal crash last week. I issued the ALNOT 16 minutes after when he should have landed (0230am). They found the charred remains in the woods about 6 hours later. It's frustrating reading the completely inaccurate information reported by the news with these events.

[Jeff Alton]

2 Years tower control and 22 years (with a 4 year break) in approach control. at CYVR. Many years doing procedure design, procedure writing, airspace defense planning etc. Oh, and training, even have students currently. All I can say is that I am glad these guys are having fun playing games... Hopefully they don't send in applications.

Cheers

[ted]

Mike and Jeff my advice retire when eligible, it's been 13 years for me.
Seemed like 3 times a month the voice recorders were being transcribed for an investigation.
Our mantra was No good comes from any investigation.
Middle of my career had a month off with ptsd when the approach controller had a hairy deal in my airspace.
Just maintaining a class 2 physical till you were eligible for retirement can be stressful.
Combine all that with crazy shift work, swing/day/mid, 3 shifts with only 8 hours off between shifts.
Retired life after ATC has been good.

[Jeff Alton]

Mike, I retired 5.5 years ago. Took my commuted value of my pension (works differently up here than in the US) and grew Turn3 into its 11,000 sq/ft current size. 15 months ago I got a call from one of our VPs asking if I would be interested in going back. So, I did. I can leave any day I want to. Re qualifying (took 3 weeks), and for the last 8 months I have been teaching a course. We have been on a 5/5 thanks to COVID since March 15th (lasting until November 17th) with plenty of stay at home "stand by" shifts where we need to be ready to report for our shift.

I have a great staff at the shop and I am there every day. Sometimes all day, sometimes in the AM, sometimes in the PM.

It is nice just talking to planes and teaching, not designing airspace, dealing with Airline execs, writing procedures etc like I used to do. Forgot how much I actually enjoy the challenges of approach/departure control without all of the politics. Plus knowing that any day I want can be my last makes it even better.... LOL

Cheers

[Embraer]

Yeah, I work straight mids now as the OMIC...I truly miss working airplanes. In fact, I'm sitting at the watch desk right now. I'm still area certified, and I'm the only OMIC who still gets time. I usually open a sector up at about 2 in the morning and sit there and talk to FEDEX and UPS guys as they arrive/depart. I only average about 8 hours a month. I was in India on vacation in March when covid hit...we were 5 on and 10 off for the first 2 months. Now we're 5 on 5 off for at least the rest of the year. It'll be interesting how traffic drops on Oct 1st if the CARES money really stops propping airlines up.

We were averaging about 7000-7500 ops a day pre-covid, down from peak numbers of just under 9K a day. Now we're lucky to hit 4500 ops a day at ZID. In April, we were around 1500 ops a day...on a busy day. Crazy.

The plan is to retire as soon as I'm eligible. Not married, no kids. We have a three part retirement system with the FAA and I've been maxing it out since day one. I'll make more in retirement than what ill make sitting at a desk all night.

Ted...you were probably gone when the "250 girl" was working Feeder at SoCal. we'd be perfectly on our metering times or giving her perfect in-trail, and you could hear the panic in her voice as she would yell over the shout line that she "needed everybody at 250!!!!" fun times. haha.

[svandamme]

Kennedy Steve moved to VR Boston

the Hotair balloon was nuts


look at the g0ddamned windsock !

[LEAKYSEALS951]

"I don't hear the windsock controlling the airspace!"

[john70t]

Originally Posted by svandamme

the Hotair balloon was nuts

I actually witnessed a Goodyear blimp diving towards ground at a 30-40deg angle, starting from approximately 2-3,000 ft original height.
Engines at full rpm as I could hear.
It leveled off at a few hundred feet above treeline.

Unbelievable.

[Jeff Alton]

Mike (Embraer), not Mike (Ted), are you managing or supervising an enroute facility?

We are down to about 45-50% of movements at CYVR. GA in the TCA is as strong as ever. Local towers (4) within the TCA are as busy as if Covid never was a thing. But GA doesn't generate revenue...

We still get decent spikes in arrival/departure traffic, but not sustained like in the past. But every cycle it seems like a few more movements get added.

[Embraer]

Yep..I am the night manager at Indy center. Our mid traffic hasnt been too affected, since we deal with two FedEx ops (mem and ind), ups (sdf), and now.... CVG, with amazon. The red-eye overflights are reduced, though. Our day shift and evening traffic is where we really took the hit.

[Jeff Alton]

Interesting, our midnight Oceanic and N/S coastal traffic is still there. Day/evening we picked up some extra cargo flights from Asia as well as a few flights that used to stop in LAX but can't now (Paris-Tahiti and and back) as well as a couple from NZ that stop at CYVR. Add a couple of new flights from Asia per day (one an A380, not sure what the load is like on that one as it is a strange time to add an A380 flight from Asia to CYVR... )

Another interesting thing is I have a student right now and we are not sure where to set qualification level with the lower traffic volumes...

[rattlsnak]

I can tell you that daily FDX flights have risen @ 40% over the last 3-4 months. Not enough planes to carry all the freight demand right now...

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by Jeff Alton

Interesting, our midnight Oceanic and N/S coastal traffic is still there. Day/evening we picked up some extra cargo flights from Asia as well as a few flights that used to stop in LAX but can't now (Paris-Tahiti and and back) as well as a couple from NZ that stop at CYVR. Add a couple of new flights from Asia per day (one an A380, not sure what the load is like on that one as it is a strange time to add an A380 flight from Asia to CYVR... )

Another interesting thing is I have a student right now and we are not sure where to set qualification level with the lower traffic volumes...

Our trainees have been hanging out at home and getting paid since march. I believe within the next 10 days, they will start filtering them back in. R-side trainees first. We've had record eligible guys decide to call it quits since COVID hit, which already puts even more of a strain on staffing. Supposedly, they will be installing plexiglass barriers in the areas. The FAA's mantra has been to "train to whatever the traffic is" and then we'll slam them in the DYSIM lab. even still, there's no substitute for working real, busy traffic.

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by ted

Mike and Jeff my advice retire when eligible, it's been 13 years for me.
Seemed like 3 times a month the voice recorders were being transcribed for an investigation.
Our mantra was No good comes from any investigation.
Middle of my career had a month off with ptsd when the approach controller had a hairy deal in my airspace.
Just maintaining a class 2 physical till you were eligible for retirement can be stressful.
Combine all that with crazy shift work, swing/day/mid, 3 shifts with only 8 hours off between shifts.
Retired life after ATC has been good.

I watch a lot of the ATC videos on you tube, fascinating stuff, even for a layman. You can hear the stress in the controllers' voices. Im curious, how long does it take to learn all the format and procedures?

BTW, did you ever drive at Willow?