Training Update PT.2
Posted 04-07-2011 at 08:11 AM by meatasaurusx
Training on North Satellite
I started the classroom and lab for North Satellite (north sat.) in the middle of August. Training on north sat., despite the max hours being lower, can take longer than departures simply because the traffic isn't always consistent, and certain days have busy periods of traffic while others are very slow. It is certainly not the same as knowing that there are departure rushes at certain times of the day and they are consistent. Also, instead of having several departure sectors to pick from and move to depending on the traffic, there is only one north sat. position. Another factor that adds to the slow progression of training is that I can work departures now so if they need me to work instead of train, I am working. With several people training on one position with limited traffic, it can take a little while; it is a test in patience.
One thing you may wonder is that if it is so slow most of the time, then why should getting certified take so long if that is the type of traffic that you are most likely to encounter. The main reason is that when it does get busy, it can get busy in a hurry, and the supervisors need to know that I am able to handle a sudden onset of traffic and still be safe. Another thing is that despite being certified on departures, north sat. is completely new to someone with no previous experience.
This is the true meat and potatoes of ATC. I'm not just putting departures in line and shipping them to the center. I get to sequence arrivals, release departures, work overflights into the south sat. airports, and do VFR advisories. The lateral airspace boundaries are very big. It is all of C90's airspace north of O'Hare, but with only two altitudes, 3 and 4,000' (2,000' is available over the lake). Depending on the landing configuration at ORD, a chunk of the north sat. airspace can be taken away by the descent area used by arrivals. There is a wide range of aircraft types as well, from small GA aircraft to corporate jets. It makes using speed control based on a common turn on point very important, but without any prior experience it takes some time to learn. Not all traffic is coming from the same direction either. The traffic can come in from six different locations which makes counting miles to a common point that much more difficult.
There are two Class D towers in the airspace, the primary one being Chicago Executive (PWK- formerly Palwaukee) and Waukegan (UGN) with five uncontrolled airports. PWK is about eight miles north of ORD, so regardless of the wind, all of the approaches are done from the north via RWY 16 (ILS/LOC, GPS, and VOR). Then they either land straight in, cancel their IFR with the tower and circle VFR to RWY 34. If the weather is really bad, they will circle IFR to RWY 34, which requires a point out to ORD, and depending on the departure traffic they have, they may not be able to take a point out for a while. The departure releases off of PWK are also complicated by the proximity to ORD. If they can depart RWY 34, then departure releases are easy. If they have to depart RWY 16, then, depending on what ORD is doing for arrivals and departures, we have special procedures to use. If ORD can launch departures over PWK, then we have to get an acknowledgement from them that they will protect for a departure off of PWK RWY 16. When ORD is landing RWYs 14R and 22R, which PWK is conveniently nestled right between the approach courses to those runways, we have to use the PWK 2 SID, which requires a departure off of 16 to make a tight right turn that protects for the 14R arrivals and then depending of if there is traffic inbound to PWK a turn across the localizer that provides at least 45 degrees of divergence from the arrivals before losing 3 miles or 1,000 ft. This limits us to using an initial heading of between 025 and 040. Anything more that 040 would get in the way of the 22R arrivals.
UGN isn't nearly as complicated or busy as PWK. There are three approaches into UGN, GPS 5, ILS 23, and GPS 23. One thing that can add complexity to the entire operation is when UGN is advertising the GPS 5 approach and the weather is either IFR or very marginal VFR taking visual approaches out of the picture. The final approach course of GPS 5 crosses the RWY 16 final approach course into PWK. With only two altitudes to use, ever tool has to be used to keep the aircraft separated while keeping the operation efficient. The five uncontrolled airports don't get a significant amount of traffic, but they can add to the complexity when they do have even one arrival or departure. The biggest culprit here is Campbell airport (C81) which is right between where the UGN 5 and PWK 16 final approach courses intersect. The main problem is when the weather requires the crossing approaches and then an aircraft that cannot cancel their IFR until they are on the ground. Protecting for C81 while the IFR is still active basically shuts down approaches into UGN and forces you to stay at 4,000' for the PWK arrivals until they are well clear of C81, which is hard to say exactly how far you need to protect for the missed approach, because there is no guarantee that the pilot will climb and turn in a timely manner. Fortunately, this situation doesn't happen on a regular basis, but it does happen sometimes.
I know it is hard to describe everything without a picture, so I apologize if my descriptions are a bit confusing. I really enjoy north sat. and I hope to be done sometime in the spring.
I started the classroom and lab for North Satellite (north sat.) in the middle of August. Training on north sat., despite the max hours being lower, can take longer than departures simply because the traffic isn't always consistent, and certain days have busy periods of traffic while others are very slow. It is certainly not the same as knowing that there are departure rushes at certain times of the day and they are consistent. Also, instead of having several departure sectors to pick from and move to depending on the traffic, there is only one north sat. position. Another factor that adds to the slow progression of training is that I can work departures now so if they need me to work instead of train, I am working. With several people training on one position with limited traffic, it can take a little while; it is a test in patience.
One thing you may wonder is that if it is so slow most of the time, then why should getting certified take so long if that is the type of traffic that you are most likely to encounter. The main reason is that when it does get busy, it can get busy in a hurry, and the supervisors need to know that I am able to handle a sudden onset of traffic and still be safe. Another thing is that despite being certified on departures, north sat. is completely new to someone with no previous experience.
This is the true meat and potatoes of ATC. I'm not just putting departures in line and shipping them to the center. I get to sequence arrivals, release departures, work overflights into the south sat. airports, and do VFR advisories. The lateral airspace boundaries are very big. It is all of C90's airspace north of O'Hare, but with only two altitudes, 3 and 4,000' (2,000' is available over the lake). Depending on the landing configuration at ORD, a chunk of the north sat. airspace can be taken away by the descent area used by arrivals. There is a wide range of aircraft types as well, from small GA aircraft to corporate jets. It makes using speed control based on a common turn on point very important, but without any prior experience it takes some time to learn. Not all traffic is coming from the same direction either. The traffic can come in from six different locations which makes counting miles to a common point that much more difficult.
There are two Class D towers in the airspace, the primary one being Chicago Executive (PWK- formerly Palwaukee) and Waukegan (UGN) with five uncontrolled airports. PWK is about eight miles north of ORD, so regardless of the wind, all of the approaches are done from the north via RWY 16 (ILS/LOC, GPS, and VOR). Then they either land straight in, cancel their IFR with the tower and circle VFR to RWY 34. If the weather is really bad, they will circle IFR to RWY 34, which requires a point out to ORD, and depending on the departure traffic they have, they may not be able to take a point out for a while. The departure releases off of PWK are also complicated by the proximity to ORD. If they can depart RWY 34, then departure releases are easy. If they have to depart RWY 16, then, depending on what ORD is doing for arrivals and departures, we have special procedures to use. If ORD can launch departures over PWK, then we have to get an acknowledgement from them that they will protect for a departure off of PWK RWY 16. When ORD is landing RWYs 14R and 22R, which PWK is conveniently nestled right between the approach courses to those runways, we have to use the PWK 2 SID, which requires a departure off of 16 to make a tight right turn that protects for the 14R arrivals and then depending of if there is traffic inbound to PWK a turn across the localizer that provides at least 45 degrees of divergence from the arrivals before losing 3 miles or 1,000 ft. This limits us to using an initial heading of between 025 and 040. Anything more that 040 would get in the way of the 22R arrivals.
UGN isn't nearly as complicated or busy as PWK. There are three approaches into UGN, GPS 5, ILS 23, and GPS 23. One thing that can add complexity to the entire operation is when UGN is advertising the GPS 5 approach and the weather is either IFR or very marginal VFR taking visual approaches out of the picture. The final approach course of GPS 5 crosses the RWY 16 final approach course into PWK. With only two altitudes to use, ever tool has to be used to keep the aircraft separated while keeping the operation efficient. The five uncontrolled airports don't get a significant amount of traffic, but they can add to the complexity when they do have even one arrival or departure. The biggest culprit here is Campbell airport (C81) which is right between where the UGN 5 and PWK 16 final approach courses intersect. The main problem is when the weather requires the crossing approaches and then an aircraft that cannot cancel their IFR until they are on the ground. Protecting for C81 while the IFR is still active basically shuts down approaches into UGN and forces you to stay at 4,000' for the PWK arrivals until they are well clear of C81, which is hard to say exactly how far you need to protect for the missed approach, because there is no guarantee that the pilot will climb and turn in a timely manner. Fortunately, this situation doesn't happen on a regular basis, but it does happen sometimes.
I know it is hard to describe everything without a picture, so I apologize if my descriptions are a bit confusing. I really enjoy north sat. and I hope to be done sometime in the spring.
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