No. of Recommendations: 3
From a friend who became a pilot and A&P mechanic.
The general aviation airport in Anchorage, AK is supposed to be the busiest GA airport
in the world. I've flown in and out of there a few times. When I was contemplating
getting my private pilot license, I climbed up into the tower there to see how air traffic
controllers did their jobs. A good idea encouraged by the air traffic controllers. The
controller on duty had several airplanes lined up to land on the two runways, which were
at right angles to each other. I could see them, one behind the other with their landing
lights on. Lots of different airplanes flying at different speeds heading for the same
runways: slow bush planes and fast twin engine planes and everything in between. The
air traffic controller on duty had to keep track of all those aircraft at the same time and
resolve any conflicts. She said, “You have to think fast and talk slow.” Wow! She
must have been thinking at light speed, because she wasn't talking slow. She was good.
No. of Recommendations: 3
John Oliver just did a piece on air traffic controllers. Very interesting.
One thing that needs to happen is that they are removed from discretionary spending into mandatory spending in the federal budget. That would help them secure stable funding, which would enable updating equipment (which was a GWB initiative around 2005, that never happened because it was discretionary), hiring more people, building a second training facility, etc.
They still run computers on win95, and use plastic sticks to organize flights.
