Bill to Privatize US ATC...

Roger Roger said:
Especially given the incoming administration, do you see any remotely realistic chance that the above doesn’t happen during a privatization scheme?Again, the problems at air traffic are because it’s already run too much like a business. Too many idiot VPs of so and so, and refusing to listen to the rank and file re: amount of work vs. manpower available. Just like every single aviation business I’ve worked for. What really needs to happen is the FAA and DOT need to put their foot down on traffic at certain facilities and limit slots etc to something more appropriate to the staffing. That’ll never happen, because again, they’re operating like a business where pushing the tin, not safety, is priority.
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One of my favorite things at my facility is the FAA employee flow chart, showing CPC (Fully Certified Controller) in the bottom left corner as an afterthought, with like 50 jobs coming vertically out of it. All kinds of made up managerial spots for people who do not talk to Airplanes. The agency could accomplish its mission without 90% of these people, and the ones it really needs are jammed into the bottom left corner, just above Janitorial and Security Guards. Its wild.

The only thing better are the signs encouraging us to keep our phones off in the operation. The union legit went along with signs hung up in the facility that say IT CAN WAIT, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR HEALTH, YOUR RELATIONSHIPS, IT CAN WAIT. Tonedeaf......

I dont trust privatization at all, but something has to change. The situation in some facilites is becoming almost untenable with 0 hope of ever transferring, and new trainees showing up and quitting.
 
Re: ADSB billing:

There's a circuit breaker for that.

Re: User fees

It will be realized right away what a mistake this was when the number of TAs/actual collisions goes way up because Joe Skyhawk doesn't want to pay for flight following or and instrument clearance, and decides to provide his own separation flying FFR (ForeFlight Rules).
 
nabbyfan said:
One of my favorite things at my facility is the FAA employee flow chart, showing CPC (Fully Certified Controller) in the bottom left corner as an afterthought, with like 50 jobs coming vertically out of it. All kinds of made up managerial spots for people who do not talk to Airplanes. The agency could accomplish its mission without 90% of these people, and the ones it really needs are jammed into the bottom left corner, just above Janitorial and Security Guards. Its wild.
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My experience in corporate America - expect more managers, not less. And expect lots of workload to be added that does not involve talking to airplanes. TPS reports, all hands meetings, one on one meetings, metrics dashboards, etc., etc....
 
nabbyfan said:
One of my favorite things at my facility is the FAA employee flow chart, showing CPC (Fully Certified Controller) in the bottom left corner as an afterthought, with like 50 jobs coming vertically out of it. All kinds of made up managerial spots for people who do not talk to Airplanes. The agency could accomplish its mission without 90% of these people, and the ones it really needs are jammed into the bottom left corner, just above Janitorial and Security Guards. Its wild.

The only thing better are the signs encouraging us to keep our phones off in the operation. The union legit went along with signs hung up in the facility that say IT CAN WAIT, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR HEALTH, YOUR RELATIONSHIPS, IT CAN WAIT. Tonedeaf......

I dont trust privatization at all, but something has to change. The situation in some facilites is becoming almost untenable with 0 hope of ever transferring, and new trainees showing up and quitting.
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When they quit are they quitting the FAA and ATC or going to a different facility? If it's the former, there needs to be some sort of education on what the job is like. I'm on a facebook page where ATC comes up as an alternative path in aviation to being a pilot. Stuff like "what college has the best path to ATC". I can't imagine going thru all the work to get into ATC only to just quit when you see what the job is really like. It seemed like a pretty cool job....back in the 80's....
 
drunkenbeagle said:
My experience in corporate America - expect more managers, not less. And expect lots of workload to be added that does not involve talking to airplanes. TPS reports, all hands meetings, one on one meetings, metrics dashboards, etc., etc....
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And none of these people are likely to learn anything from the people doing the work, and their memory of doing the work is pretty distant—and they might be in those roles because they either weren’t very good at doing the work or they don’t want to do the work anymore, which is a non-zero number of flight operations functionaries.

Yes, this job involves nights weekends and holidays. Shocking, I know!
 
nabbyfan said:
One of my favorite things at my facility is the FAA employee flow chart, showing CPC (Fully Certified Controller) in the bottom left corner as an afterthought, with like 50 jobs coming vertically out of it. All kinds of made up managerial spots for people who do not talk to Airplanes. The agency could accomplish its mission without 90% of these people, and the ones it really needs are jammed into the bottom left corner, just above Janitorial and Security Guards. Its wild.

The only thing better are the signs encouraging us to keep our phones off in the operation. The union legit went along with signs hung up in the facility that say IT CAN WAIT, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR HEALTH, YOUR RELATIONSHIPS, IT CAN WAIT. Tonedeaf......

I dont trust privatization at all, but something has to change. The situation in some facilites is becoming almost untenable with 0 hope of ever transferring, and new trainees showing up and quitting.
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DE727UPS said:
When they quit are they quitting the FAA and ATC or going to a different facility? If it's the former, there needs to be some sort of education on what the job is like. I'm on a facebook page where ATC comes up as an alternative path in aviation to being a pilot. Stuff like "what college has the best path to ATC". I can't imagine going thru all the work to get into ATC only to just quit when you see what the job is really like. It seemed like a pretty cool job....back in the 80's....
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That’s why the best facility to work, is one like the below. Not some crazy place like ZLA, ZOA, N90, D10 etc. :)

IMG_3529.jpeg
 
DE727UPS said:
When they quit are they quitting the FAA and ATC or going to a different facility? If it's the former, there needs to be some sort of education on what the job is like. I'm on a facebook page where ATC comes up as an alternative path in aviation to being a pilot. Stuff like "what college has the best path to ATC". I can't imagine going thru all the work to get into ATC only to just quit when you see what the job is really like. It seemed like a pretty cool job....back in the 80's....
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The people quitting are leaving the career field entirely for the most part, some are leaving FAA for DOD ATC opportunities or the few jobs in Qatar or Dubai that take American Controllers.

The last few years they seem to have dropped targeting anyone with aviation background/interest. So people from all over the USA are getting hired, passing the academy, then getting assigned somewhere like ZOA and realizing they have 0 chance to ever have a house within a reasonable commute of the center, will have a crappy schedule forever, and have almost no chance to transfer. We've had quite a few show up to ZLA and nope the hell out of the FAA too after realizing they were being signed up for a 30 year sentence in Palmdale, lol.
 
NovemberEcho said:
I mean sure if you enjoy being bored to tears for 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
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There’s an Army NG Auxiliary field out here with a tower and a mobile PAR that gets little traffic. They’re like the Maytag repairman, soliciting our birds if we would like some practice. 😂
 
MikeD said:
There’s an Army NG Auxiliary field out here with a tower and a mobile PAR that gets little traffic. They’re like the Maytag repairman, soliciting our birds if we would like some practice.
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Currency is a bitch for those guys.

We can’t ever get enough of our ATC company the reps to have them maintain it.


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Roger Roger said:
I’d like you to elaborate on this as well. The elements of it I’m familiar with, as well as what I’ve skimmed from wiki, seem like they work fine and were a needed upgrade. Once again the biggest issues seem to be grift by for-profit contractors, and reluctance by NAS users to upgrade and participate.
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I was gonna say, while everything can always be better, ADS-B is freaking glorious.
CoffeeIcePapers said:
As I said earlier, I won't pretend to have the answers, but a private/government hybrid solution has been implemented in other countries. It is worth investigating. It's clear something is very wrong with the current system. If that could be fixed, fix it. If a company like Boeing were put in charge of the privatization of ATC, we're all hosed.
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What are the incentives that a private organization would have? Start there and work backwards until you get to you keying the mic. What does that world look like.
Roger Roger said:
Your account is locked. Contact NG technical support to reset your password.

Error. New password cannot be your old password
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<hits mountain while on hold>
 
Lawman said:
Currency is a bitch for those guys.

We can’t ever get enough of our ATC company the reps to have them maintain it.


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They do good work. This aux field has four lanes and a tower, POL, and crash rescue, and yet the WAATS training birds all go jam up the traffic patterns of nearby civil fields more than they seem to use their own aux field. I pass through there often and the tower controllers are just happy to talk to someone.
 
MikeD said:
KPCA. KFHUs PAR was just decommissioned. The only full time ASR/PAR in Arizona is KNYL.
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Interesting place. Just looked at it on google maps. Curious if any of the local flight training aircraft have ever asked for a PAR. I used to do do them at Gray AAF and they never said no but that was back in the 80's. NAS Whidbey was known to say no and I never tried. Really no reason a 172 couldn't do a low approach to an 800 foot "runway" even though it has an H on it. It was well understood that you didn't land at Gray, just a low approach.
 
DE727UPS said:
Interesting place. Just looked at it on google maps. Curious if any of the local flight training aircraft have ever asked for a PAR. I used to do do them at Gray AAF and they never said no but that was back in the 80's. NAS Whidbey was known to say no and I never tried. Really no reason a 172 couldn't do a low approach to an 800 foot "runway" even though it has an H on it. It was well understood that you didn't land at Gray, just a low approach.
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Being a mobile PAR, it’s up by NOTAM, and I don’t know if the word necessarily gets out about the times and days it’s in operation.

KPCA is also one of those few airfields that have a tower, but no ATA / Class D airspace. But still has to be treated as if it is one. Yet, aircraft are often barreling through there without contacting the tower. Even at night when it’s military airport beacon is on.
 
MikeD said:
Being a mobile PAR, it’s up by NOTAM, and I don’t know if the word necessarily gets out about the times and days it’s in operation.

KPCA is also one of those few airfields that have a tower, but no ATA / Class D airspace. But still has to be treated as if it is one. Yet, aircraft are often barreling through there without contacting the tower. Even at night when it’s military airport beacon is on.
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They (ATV company’s) usually don’t have the manning to do more than about 4 hours in a stretch and the NOTAM is a time it may be available only to be disappointed when you call the POC.

Our guys don’t want to drive back from where they set up late so they work hours that are almost devoid of most of the training flights so they kind of get ignored. My unit in Germany was way better but they were also the only instrument approach in town so they got regular work being in Germany supporting an entire Brigade.


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