The Slowest Tower

Ramstar13 Senior Member

So...i was bored and ran some stuff on the Atads database and looked up to see which airport is the slowest traffic wise in fisal year 2009. and the winner is.......
1. VBG-Vandenberg Air Force Base-FCT 3,351 total ops
2. OTH-North Bend Airport(Oregon)-FCT 6,454 total ops

All numbers include VFR overflights.

Can you imagine working at one of these places? It would drive me insane. Probably you only can look forward to cutting the ATIS every hour. If anyone works at these 2 on SM, please, share with us how boring it is.

DotsonUSAF Rookie Little Rock, AR

I'm showing RAF Fairford with a mere 91 Operations. It's commanded by USAFE. I'd love to work there, you'd just be 'on call' the whole time. You could see the world and still get a paycheck =)

NiaX Site Editor Derby City

great googa mooga...

your eyeballs would glaze over then dry out...

Cirrus12 Epic Member So. NH

I'd be bringing my laptop in and playing on Jeremy Justice all day just so I could still tell people I'm an ATCer

psachs Trusted Member Chicago

I flew into OTH a few years ago before they (re)opened the tower. It was just me and a QXE Dash-8 during the hour I stopped over for lunch. Not sure when or why the tower opened, but I do know SKW flies there instead of QXE. That works out to about 20 ops/day or a bit more than 1 an hour if they all happen while the tower is open. I would look forward to that one guy more than reading the ATIS.

towerflower Junior Member Palm Coast, FL

Ramstar,

Did your figures show the total for the Shuttle landing facility (X68)?

AW2992 Junior Member

OTH only 89 per day. The view from the tower must be nice and boring.you could count the boats that go bye.

CLEATCT2010 Senior Member Ohio

The Shuttle Landing Facility lands more than just the Space Shuttle. There are a lot of military ops off of the runway throughout the year, so it's used more than some people think.

Wouldn't want to land a Cessna on it... you would probably shred the tires.

GolfJuliet F*** Terrorism

Noob question....how do they count operations?

duranme Trusted Contributor San Diego (SCT)

what about Thule AFB (greenland)? i had an old supervisor that used to work there said he would work part time in the bowling alley, get a phone call, get to the tower clear the guy to land/depart and then go back to the bowling alley.