Position Relief

polo708 Epic Member tower

We have to use a freakin oven timer for our overlaps... they trust us to use the clocks and keep track of 2 and 3 minutes in our head while separating million dollar aircraft with hundreds of passengers aboard but god forbid we dont hit the timer for a stupid ass overlap, lol. Gotta love management.

otterstrom Trusted Member of NATCA

cook timers?! im shocked. thats pathetic. you should probably start setting those to alarm with your void times. clearly you cant be trusted to keep track of time.

Roddy_Piper Resident Knucklehead Vegas baby

i set my watch alarm to ding at 2 hours on position. i hope i don't ever have to hear that alarm.

klkm Senior Member

I guess we are just a little too slow, we are required to do a 5 minute post brief.

djmodifyd Senior Member

We have a "minimum of 2 minutes"

we can say whatever we want after the initial briefing. Most people say "checklist pending, DJ". Then after at least to minutes we have to say "checklist complete, DJ"

MikeATC Retired FAA, NATCA Member Nashville TN

I've seen anywhere from 2 minutes to a 5 minute overlap, when traffic is slow yes I agree that it is stupid, but I've seen people forget things in their briefing when it was busy (example: so and so hasn't cancelled IFR after he landed XYZ and they already filed the strip).

The idea behind the overlap is to help improve safety, and to give you a few minutes just in case you forgot to brief something.

GLF5 Senior Member

Increased safety!

Where I used to work, if it was slow...the CIC would waive the 2 minutes. Guess having to record ourselves talk to ourselves is part of the new Safety Culture?.

SnowAviation Senior Member Escondido, CA

The mandatory 2 minute (minimum) is crazy, but I've seen worse so 2 minutes isn't bad.

We have a facility Memo outlining the procedure, it also spells out what happens to the Supe/CIC if they waive it and there is a loss of separation as a result (not pretty).

It's never waived in my area.

Ramstar13 Senior Member

I usually only do a 1 minute overlap, even though we are supposed to do two. And i say, "blah, blah, blah," then unplug

atcpookie Junior Member FAA Headquarters, Washington, DC

The order we had ended the 17th and it wasn't incorperate into the local orders.... so no more 2 min anything......