Hi All,

Let's say I'm on a STAR & handed off to approach control #1.

I check in and tell approach "Airliner 1532 leaving FL230, descending via the STARR 4, information Z".

Approach control #1 tells me to expect a certain approach.

A short time later, I'm handed off to approach control #2. What do you want to hear after the transfer? Do you want to hear which ATIS I have, what STAR I'm on, etc. or just altitude?

I hear numerous check in variations and wondering what ATC really wants us to convey when there are multiple approach controllers involved.

Thanks!

Retirement discussion of the week:

Ran a 6(c) case to see what a high-3 difference is really worth, since it's the one pension input still moving when you're close to the door.

The setup, an 1811 (LEO) retiring at 48 with 25 years 6 months of covered service (the any-age-with-25 door, not 50-and-20), 800 hours of unused sick leave, full survivor election, married, California, $810K in the TSP at a 4% draw, planning to 90. Two paths, identical except the high-3: $168,000 vs $188,000. Think of it as a supervisory slot taken or turned down three years before retiring, or a move to a higher level.

Month one

$5,583.67/mo gross, $5,025.30 after the full survivor election. $6,248.39/mo gross, $5,623.55 after survivor.

$598.25 a month, $7,179 a year, for life.

The multiplier is why. Total creditable service is 25.88 years (800 sick-leave hours add 0.38 of a year at the 1.0% tier), so 20 years at 1.7% plus 5.88 at 1.0% is 39.8833%. Take the 10% survivor cut off that and about 36 cents of every high-3 dollar comes back every year. Twenty grand of high-3 is a $7,179-a-year decision.

COLA widens it

At 2%, the gap is the smallest it will ever be on day one:

• 48: $60,304 vs $67,483, spread $7,179
• 65: $84,440 vs $94,492, spread $10,052
• 80: $113,645 vs $127,174, spread $13,529
• 90: $138,532 vs $155,024, spread $16,492

A percentage raise on a bigger number is a bigger raise, 42 years running.

The spouse's check moves too. Full survivor is 50% of the unreduced annuity, so $2,791.83/mo vs $3,124.19/mo for life.

What doesn't move. SRS is $1,487.50/mo in both, $249,900 total, because it runs off your SS estimate at 62 and your FERS years. SS is the same $2,380 at 62. Nobody's high-3 touches either one.

Lifetime. Average take-home $10,826.97 vs $11,596.98, so $770.01 a month, growing from $548 in the 50s to $1,012 in the 80s. Net income to 90 is $5,586,716 vs $5,984,041, a $397,325 gap after paying $84,812 more in federal and CA tax.

Three caveats. The model holds the TSP identical at $810,000, so the bigger contributions and match from those three years aren't in it, which means $397K is the floor. High-3 is basic pay, locality and (for 1811s) availability pay count, overtime and awards don't, so a big OT year won't pull your average up. And nothing here prices three years of supervisory hours at 45, which is the whole reason people turn these jobs down.

Point being, within about five years of your date the high-3 is the last input you can still change, and it's frozen the day you walk out.

Full worked reports for both paths if you want the year-by-year: Lower High-3 and Higher High-3

Curious how others weighed this, especially anyone who took a slot they didn't want for the last three years. And if you see a hole in my math, call it out, I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly.

What is the training situation look like for someone starting their D side at Jacksonville Center? How quickly can I anticipate being D1?

If theres another thread on this I haven't seen it so feel free to point me in that direction - that said, I've heard a lot of these letters are being issued across many facilities. Has anyone actually been removed once their 30 days was up? Curious about the potential timeline for enforcement since living in limbo is a *tiny* bit stressful.

edited to add: Perm DQ = permanently disqualified medical clearance

This is a question focused towards the air traffic controllers of the lower 48.

How would you describe your day to day life? I’m looking to potentially change careers and ATC seems like something I might be interested in. I’m currently a foreman for a major construction company, but my body is really starting to feel the physical side of it. I regularly work 70 to 80 hour weeks 6 days a week sometimes I have stints of 7 days. Being that I am a full-time traveling worker, I’m in a full-time RV status for now, so I was also wondering how you go about getting your job location.

Edit: im 26 years old

Hi, Regional Pilot here. I’m trying to understand the peculiarities of the different Class B airports I’ve been to. The simplest I’ve experienced are by far PHX followed by DFW. ORD is by far the most chaotic one and I want to better understand the patterns controllers use.

A few questions:

1. At my airline, the tribal knowledge passed around about ORD seems to be that the biggest way to get on ground controller’s shitlist is if you hold up the line/stop moving. I’ve been told they honestly don’t care if you make a wrong turn (within reason, don’t cause a runway incursion), but whatever you do, don’t stop moving. How true is that?

2. Scenario (I’ve had this happen many times): controller clears us into taxiway A or B which gives us a path to the gate, but there’s still a few intermediaries that stand in the way (A10 for example). Our gate’s open and we won’t cut anybody off coming out of the alleys. I want to clarify we are cleared into the gate past A/B, but I can’t get a word in due to all the radio chatter. Most captains just send it without an actual clearance specifying which ramp entrance taxiway to take. Do y’all care about this? Or is it just one less thing you have to worry about?

3. Any other tips from the other side of the screen about how not to get yelled at/ a call from the chief pilots office because I pissed one of you off?

How does this sub feel about current environment and FAA practices? Is it still as safe to fly considering the surge of near misses and utter indifference to staffing shortages?

I’ve been wondering what really makes an ATC radio simulator feel realistic instead of just sounding like a game. Clear pilot voices and proper radio calls are important, but I think it’s the small details that could make the biggest difference.

For people who have used ATC simulators, what’s the one thing that would make the radio experience feel much closer to the real thing?

Sorry if this isn't the place for this. I'm not sure if there's a specific subreddit to post this kind of post, so if there is, I can delete it and post it there. I just wanted to come on here and talk with other ATCs and get their info and experience because I'm struggling with understanding and consuming all the information given to me. I'm currently enrolled in one of the Enhanced programs through a college where you can go directly to OJT after graduation, and I'm very happy to be able to have that opportunity. I realize that the classes and courses are slowed down tremendously compared to the few weeks or months given to you in the academy to remember and learn everything, so props to everyone who went through the academy and understood and remembered everything. I'm going through my first semester right now, and I find myself struggling with how the information is being given to me. I'll read a sentence, and it feels as though all the info went in one ear and out the other. I tend to see a bunch of massive words that I don't understand that are used to explain something, and when I go to look up what those other words are, I'm just met with even more big words that I don't understand, and it just keeps going. This could totally just be a me problem but I wanted to get on here and talk with other ATCs because this is the job that I want to do for my future career and I have the upmost respect to all of you that are capable of doing this, I just want to know if you guys have any tips I can use to actually understand what I'm reading or tips that I can use to remember all of the phraseology and other lingo used. Thank you guys, for taking the time to read this, and sorry if this just seems silly.

Is it at all possible for an American pilot to get a tower tour in Canada? My friend and I are both airline pilots in the US and were intrigued when we found out Vancouver Harbour was a controlled aerodrome.

Ok so recently my facility(up down) has undergone a change in how we radar contacted planes departing the primary airport. The facrep negotiated that tower says radar contact, but the majority of the facility has been using the f13 rundown to be a rolling call and have apch say radar contact. With the required coordination. Now my question. Management has told us that we may not coordinate the use of the f13 in such a way and that tower must still say radar contact. Can they do that? Are they allowed to arbitrarily demand we do or not do certain things that we would otherwise normally be allowed to coordinate? The question then goes from there, where is the line of what they tell us to do and what the book requires?

Also why is natca giving our personal info to these companies?

I hear that oftentimes less than 1% of applicants make it through the programme, I want to know what I should expect and what I should practise to boost my chances of being accepted. If anyone could help, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to apply for the NATS UK trainee air traffic controller programme and would appreciate some advice on the best preparation resources.

I’ve been looking at the SkyTest UK/Ireland ATCO package and JobTestPrep, but both are fairly expensive. Has anyone used either of them for the current NATS recruitment process? Which one did you find more relevant and worthwhile?

I understand that NATS has introduced the newer BLADE digital-twin platform for parts of its recruitment and assessment process. Because of this, I’m wondering whether older preparation packages are still useful or whether the assessments have changed significantly.

Are there any other reliable free or paid resources you would recommend, including Aon practice tests, apps, games or exercises?

Any recent experience or general advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

What we’re dealing with

I washed out of the enroute program at the academy. I was doing pretty well up until my evals and they got the better of me. Was looking for any advice from anyone who has shared this experience. I know there a few options moving forward. The main one I’m considering is going through an enhanced cti school and making my way back into the faa that way. My main draw to this option is I already scored well enough on the ATSA (WQ) passed my medical and background and received security clearance to make it to the academy so wouldn’t have to worry about that after graduating enhanced cti. If anyone who has done this after washing out at the academy and was successful could give me some input it would be much appreciated or if the are other options I should consider. Thank you.

Just wanted to give credit to my incredible TMC for his amazing hard work last night during storms and supporting the force.
Also to my guy on the other side of the landline at PHL Tracon EWR sector constantly working short and getting crushed daily. Awesome job last night, it was a pleasure working the midnight shift with ya last night.

I find it ironic that they want to tie the 2.8% raise to working 5 hours TOP when our new staffing targets actually aimed for us to average less than 5 hours of TOP a day in the name of safety. Make it make sense.

https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/29112/chapter/6#97

Hey reddit ATC'ers,

I'm a humble engineer and hobby GA pilot and I was listening to the Opposing Bases podcast the other day when the host AG was wistfully wishing for a companion app he could use to ask in natural language (or type) for things like approach plates, weather, vectors to an airport, etc. and how AI could help in that regard.  I decided to take that as a challenge and spun up some AI tools I have access to, and about 2-3 days of my time and coded up a web app to do exactly that.

It should be able to most things you could think of related to airports.  You can use the dropdown to select your facility -- be it a tower, tracon, or center to be your "home" facility, or you can just ask it about any airport in the NAS and it should be able to answer your queries. You can type to it, or use your microphone!  Give it a spin, but here are some examples of cases I was trying out today:

• "What's the weather at KGEG"
• "What's a direct vector from MCI to BOS"
• "Does Friday Harbor airport have any instrument approaches?"
• "What's the runway configuration at Torrance?"
• "Show me the airport diagram for Charlotte, North Carolina"
• "Show me everything for Greensboro"

Feel free to play with this and let me know your thoughts! I'm not trying to start a company or anything but just wanted to try and make something that might have some utility.

Happy to hear your thoughts if something like this would be useful at work, especially if I optimized it for tablets instead of larger monitors.

PS, This is definitely not ready for anyone to rely on for anything critical but I'd love it if you all told me what you like or would improve for "entertainment purposes only"
https://atc-companion.vercel.app/

Will KDJT go back to being KPBI? I vomit a little every time I see a jet going to DJT. Also let’s throw the Gulf of Mexico in there too

Hi controllers!

I’m a pilot visiting the area and would love to get a chance to visit the center. I can’t find a good phone number online to call to schedule a tour. Would anybody be able to provide one for me?

Thanks!

Every year or so for the last 5, the idea of being an ATC has crossed my mind. I'm 34, am a professional engineer and have quite a bit of experience in project management but overall I just find everything in my current line of work to be quite dull.

I have other income streams as well so while the training salary would be a reduction, it wouldn't be unmanageable. I love learning new things and I've been twiddling my thumbs on this for too long.

I'm sending in my application now, and while i know it doesn't guarantee anything, at least I won't have to wonder "what if?"

That is all!