A Long Overdue Update
Posted 11-04-2009 at 09:30 PM by meatasaurusx
Updated 11-04-2009 at 11:05 PM by meatasaurusx (accidentally posted before I was done...whoops!)
Updated 11-04-2009 at 11:05 PM by meatasaurusx (accidentally posted before I was done...whoops!)
So it is November and a lot has happened since my last update. I haven't been very good about keeping it up to date (obviously) but I will try and give an overview of everthing that has happened.
Flight Data
After getting out of the lab I started training on Flight Data. Although flight data is not the most glamourous position in the facility, it is still an important role to the entire operation. There are a lot of times when it is a rather slow position, but it provides for lots of good opportunities for studying, monitoring on the midnight scopes, or just hanging out with another controller who happens to be back there. It can get busy at times though. We are responsible for providing clearance delivery and route corrections for all of the uncontrolled airports within our airspace. As a funny side note, the two phone lines that the pilots call us on looking for releases are named the Bat phones. We also forward on PIREP information to flight service, record and forward NOTAM's, as well as collect the flight progress strips around the tracon every hour. One thing that we sometimes have to do is update the weather on the IDS4 if the automatic weather observations don't update on their own.
Flight data took about 3 weeks to fully certify. It requires a minimum of 8 hours, but the entire first week of training on Data was VFR weather so I didn't have any practice reading clearances to the uncontrolled airports. All of the pilots took off VFR and picked up their clearances in the air. The weather got a little worse the next week (which was good for me) so I was able to get lots of good practice reading the clearances. I finally certified and it was nice being able to work a position on my own, not to mention I was now somewhat, although still barely, useful.
VFR Advisories
VFR advisories is a position that is not normally open very often. It is, rather obviously, dependant on two main factors:
1) The weather is VFR
2) There are enough VFR aircraft looking for advisory services to warrant opening another position.
VFR advisories is typically open in the summer time when these conditions are more often met. We have this position open continuosly during the day during the Oshkosh weeks, because a lot of aircraft fly around Lake Michigan and need to transition our airspace to get up to Wisconsin. Chicago is a very busy Class B airspace, and we do not let VFR aircraft into the Bravo unless it is for a special circumstance. We have a small VFR corridor underneath the Bravo right along the shoreline that gets extremely busy with VFR traffic around Oshkosh. We also have a lot of traffic that flies above the Bravo, but that puts them in direct conflict with our departures and arrivals, depending on where they are. This is why we keep VFR Advisories open throught Oshkosh.
Fortunately for me, it was the beginning of summer when I started training on VFR advisories. I had already started doing some departure training after finishing Data. You don't have to actually have VFR done before you can start departures, which is a good thing because if you start in the fall or winter, you won't have any chance of VFR time until the next spring or summer.
VFR Advisories is fairly well explained by the name; it is traffic advisories for VFR aircraft in Chicago's airspace. It is very good practice for issuing traffic calls, because that is essentially all you do. As a person with no previous experience, I think it is a great way to start getting used to talking to pilots on a radio, learing the airspace, making traffic calls, learning aircraft types, and learning the ARTS keyboard entries.
It takes a little while to get used to hearing the GA pilots calling up, especially when they have not the best radios or when they have a loud engine that makes it hard to hear. Also, unlike on departures when you have a strip and a tagged up data block in front of you telling you who is calling, the pilots call up at arbitrary times with no prior warning. One of the hardest things is hearing the callsign properly and being able to type it into the keyboard in a timely fashion, as well as writing a strip on the aircraft.
I was very fortunate to also have to opportunity to train during Oshkosh. Most people get checked out on VFR with very minimal traffic, so they are somewhat swamped when they actually do get to work the Oshkosh traffic on their own. One thing that you can control is the number of aircraft that you will give services to, and then tell anyone else who calls "Unable due to traffic". However, you don't want to only work one aircraft and tell everyone else unable either. My checkride was during Oshkosh and it was, in the words of my supervisor, the "busiest VFR checkride (he) ever watched". It is really nice to have this under my belt because first it is a raise, but it is one step closer to the final goal of being fully checked out. Also, there are many important skills that transfer over to the other sectors that I started to learn on this position.
Departures
Currently I have 154 hours on departures. In October, I went through the Phase II lab, where I work on being able to handle a larger volume of aircraft on my own, as well as being able to handle the unusual situations on my own as well (missed approaches, emergencies, weather deviations, etc...). I feel like I am doing fairly well so far, but I still have about 100 hours to go. Once departures is done, it will be the second pay raise, but more importantly it is another step closer to being fully checked out.
Flight Data
After getting out of the lab I started training on Flight Data. Although flight data is not the most glamourous position in the facility, it is still an important role to the entire operation. There are a lot of times when it is a rather slow position, but it provides for lots of good opportunities for studying, monitoring on the midnight scopes, or just hanging out with another controller who happens to be back there. It can get busy at times though. We are responsible for providing clearance delivery and route corrections for all of the uncontrolled airports within our airspace. As a funny side note, the two phone lines that the pilots call us on looking for releases are named the Bat phones. We also forward on PIREP information to flight service, record and forward NOTAM's, as well as collect the flight progress strips around the tracon every hour. One thing that we sometimes have to do is update the weather on the IDS4 if the automatic weather observations don't update on their own.
Flight data took about 3 weeks to fully certify. It requires a minimum of 8 hours, but the entire first week of training on Data was VFR weather so I didn't have any practice reading clearances to the uncontrolled airports. All of the pilots took off VFR and picked up their clearances in the air. The weather got a little worse the next week (which was good for me) so I was able to get lots of good practice reading the clearances. I finally certified and it was nice being able to work a position on my own, not to mention I was now somewhat, although still barely, useful.
VFR Advisories
VFR advisories is a position that is not normally open very often. It is, rather obviously, dependant on two main factors:
1) The weather is VFR
2) There are enough VFR aircraft looking for advisory services to warrant opening another position.
VFR advisories is typically open in the summer time when these conditions are more often met. We have this position open continuosly during the day during the Oshkosh weeks, because a lot of aircraft fly around Lake Michigan and need to transition our airspace to get up to Wisconsin. Chicago is a very busy Class B airspace, and we do not let VFR aircraft into the Bravo unless it is for a special circumstance. We have a small VFR corridor underneath the Bravo right along the shoreline that gets extremely busy with VFR traffic around Oshkosh. We also have a lot of traffic that flies above the Bravo, but that puts them in direct conflict with our departures and arrivals, depending on where they are. This is why we keep VFR Advisories open throught Oshkosh.
Fortunately for me, it was the beginning of summer when I started training on VFR advisories. I had already started doing some departure training after finishing Data. You don't have to actually have VFR done before you can start departures, which is a good thing because if you start in the fall or winter, you won't have any chance of VFR time until the next spring or summer.
VFR Advisories is fairly well explained by the name; it is traffic advisories for VFR aircraft in Chicago's airspace. It is very good practice for issuing traffic calls, because that is essentially all you do. As a person with no previous experience, I think it is a great way to start getting used to talking to pilots on a radio, learing the airspace, making traffic calls, learning aircraft types, and learning the ARTS keyboard entries.
It takes a little while to get used to hearing the GA pilots calling up, especially when they have not the best radios or when they have a loud engine that makes it hard to hear. Also, unlike on departures when you have a strip and a tagged up data block in front of you telling you who is calling, the pilots call up at arbitrary times with no prior warning. One of the hardest things is hearing the callsign properly and being able to type it into the keyboard in a timely fashion, as well as writing a strip on the aircraft.
I was very fortunate to also have to opportunity to train during Oshkosh. Most people get checked out on VFR with very minimal traffic, so they are somewhat swamped when they actually do get to work the Oshkosh traffic on their own. One thing that you can control is the number of aircraft that you will give services to, and then tell anyone else who calls "Unable due to traffic". However, you don't want to only work one aircraft and tell everyone else unable either. My checkride was during Oshkosh and it was, in the words of my supervisor, the "busiest VFR checkride (he) ever watched". It is really nice to have this under my belt because first it is a raise, but it is one step closer to the final goal of being fully checked out. Also, there are many important skills that transfer over to the other sectors that I started to learn on this position.
Departures
Currently I have 154 hours on departures. In October, I went through the Phase II lab, where I work on being able to handle a larger volume of aircraft on my own, as well as being able to handle the unusual situations on my own as well (missed approaches, emergencies, weather deviations, etc...). I feel like I am doing fairly well so far, but I still have about 100 hours to go. Once departures is done, it will be the second pay raise, but more importantly it is another step closer to being fully checked out.
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