Drunk and asleep on the job, ATC pushed to limit

derg said:
It's just hilarious seeing authors use variations of "drunk" + aviation related employees then clutching their pearls.

Yeah, we're just like other labor groups, egads! :)
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Plenty of inexplicably sweaty/energetic entrepreneurs with like 27 business ideas (read coked up) and drunk doctors at the party…
 
All the time!

Cocaine does sound fun. I'd finally get that to-do list done.
 
I wish I had something creative to offer in this discussion, as I’ve very much got a dog in this fight given their control contributes significantly to my systems safety, but unfortunately I don't.

You controllers do a heck of a tough job, in unreasonably difficult conditions, with a schedule I can only balk at, and do it for it a-lot less than deserved. I hope someone far more intelligent finds a solution.

Theres a very short list of jobs I just could never do emotionally or physically, and yours is the top of the list.
Thanks for what you do…its appreciated.
 
nabbyfan said:
The academy is a huge logjam, and IMO is not necessary for enroute. You spend the first month and a half learning old school non radar that nobody outside of 1-2 facilities will use in the real world. Then another month or so learning a fictional version of some airspace over Jackson MS.

Skip it, send us kids with an aviation background direct to the facility, and let us train them. The Centers all have training programs designed to get people from 0 experience to CPC, the class in Oklahoma does very little to help that.

But again, the root of the issue is that we do not have enough people, and nobody within the FAA really seems to care. They’ve clearly made the choice that it’s fine to “run it until the wheels fall off” with forced OT for the front line employees.

This used to be a job people would kill for. Now, trainees and even CPCs are straight quitting. You can make controller money in alot of different ways that don’t include the worlds worst schedule for your health, 6 days a week, and people are realizing that. Well, everybody besides the FAA is.
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Thank you. I've been thinking this for 30 years. The system is broken. I washed out of the academy around 85 but worked as an ATA at LA tracon. Many of my friends there said I would make a great controller and I should stick with it but I got back into flying and the rest is history. The academy is a joke. There has to be a better way. I thought the junior college 2 year degree in ATC would be a good way to bring people in.
 
DE727UPS said:
Thank you. I've been thinking this for 30 years. The system is broken. I washed out of the academy around 85 but worked as an ATA at LA tracon. Many of my friends there said I would make a great controller and I should stick with it but I got back into flying and the rest is history. The academy is a joke. There has to be a better way. I thought the junior college 2 year degree in ATC would be a good way to bring people in.
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Well we still have military ATC at least.....which is probably similar, I'd guess, but at least they come to the FAA with some years of actual experience
 
///AMG said:
Well we still have military ATC at least.....which is probably similar, I'd guess, but at least they come to the FAA with some years of actual experience
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Military controllers "experience" varies greatly. It is better to ask one of the military folks around here, but I know a lot of people got to apply on certain bids whose jobs were ATC adjacent at best. Then there are the people who got their experience at places like Diego Garcia or stationed on amphibs. Not very useful experience in the FAA world.
 
Unless it’s changed the FAA doesn’t recognize ship-born ATC as prior experience. Need a shore based CTO or RAPCON rating.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Unless it’s changed the FAA doesn’t recognize ship-born ATC as prior experience. Need a shore based CTO or RAPCON rating.
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Maybe for prior experience bids, but it definitely allowed people to get in on the old VRA appointments. I don't know if they even do those anymore.
 
greg1016 said:
Maybe for prior experience bids, but it definitely allowed people to get in on the old VRA appointments. I don't know if they even do those anymore.
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That’s because VRA stands for Veterans Readjustment Act and prior ATC had nothing to do with it in theory. Although I was hired on a VRA bid (I think you were too?) and seem to recall it being treated the same as a prior-experience bid and discussions on stuckmic about which quals counted and which didn’t.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Unless it’s changed the FAA doesn’t recognize ship-born ATC as prior experience. Need a shore based CTO or RAPCON rating.
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Pure curiosity on both the FAA's ongoing skull-•ing of the workforce plus all things Naval Aviation—is the "underway" work that different?
 
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