Center sectors and schedules

Mistake Not...

Mistake Not...

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Mistake Not...
I've been making the same trip every week or so since getting my plane. I think I'm beginning to recognize the voices of the controllers. I know I'm able to anticipate the hand offs on flight following with some accuracy.

Is there a public map showing the sectors (I guess that's the term) within a center's area of responsibility? For the controllers among us, is your schedule fairly regular or do you pull days for a while and then nights? Do you guys remember tail numbers of frequent flyers?
 
Unless we bid a rotating day off schedule, which is locally negotiated, we have regular days off. Most ATC schedules operate on a reverse 2-2-1 schedule (2 evenings, 2 days, 1 mid). If we don't have a mid, then it's a variation between a 3-2 or a 2-3 schedule (3 eves, 2 days or 2 eves, 3 days respectively).

If you fly on a regular schedule, it's entirely possible to recognize the same voice week in and week out.
 
MarkZ said:
Unless we bid a rotating day off schedule, which is locally negotiated, we have regular days off. Most ATC schedules operate on a reverse 2-2-1 schedule (2 evenings, 2 days, 1 mid). If we don't have a mid, then it's a variation between a 3-2 or a 2-3 schedule (3 eves, 2 days or 2 eves, 3 days respectively).

If you fly on a regular schedule, it's entirely possible to recognize the same voice week in and week out.
Click to expand...

I remember that was the shift schedule for towers in my area. When I was working center (ZBOS) we worked week long schedules. 1 week eve, one week day, one week eve, one week day and one week mids. We also rotated days off every 6 weeks.

For the OP.
As for working the same frequency all the time. We were qualified on 8 different sectors within the center. 4 low altitude and 4 high altitude. ZBOS had in the 1980s, 4 areas of 8 sectors each. You were only qualified in one area, all 8 sectors.
 
Centers you are pretty predictable. Approach controls are a bit more fluid (Potomac TRACON reconfigures itself depending on which runways are in use at IAD). Still I can usually tell within a few miles of where the handoffs are on my regular route. Every once and a while either they've shifted the boundary or I'm slightly east of course (or at a different altitude) and I'll get a handoff to ZDC rather than ROA but even then I know what frequency I'm getting as soon as PCT tells me Washington Center or ROA.

When I flew with C'Ron, he knew coming back from LNS where the handoff points were as well.

Of course, the fun ones was when checking in on PCT sometimes:

27K: Potomac Approach Navion 4327K Level 5000
PCT: Navion 5327K Potomac Approach, Charlottesville Altimeter 30.02. Coming back from your place in NC?
27K: Yes.
PCT: Where did you get that tow bar that you use?
 
Mistake Not... said:
I've been making the same trip every week or so since getting my plane. I think I'm beginning to recognize the voices of the controllers. I know I'm able to anticipate the hand offs on flight following with some accuracy.

Is there a public map showing the sectors (I guess that's the term) within a center's area of responsibility? For the controllers among us, is your schedule fairly regular or do you pull days for a while and then nights? Do you guys remember tail numbers of frequent flyers?
Click to expand...

IFR Low Alt Enroute Charts show Center control areas.

Look at L-19 chart
South of Groesbeck (GNL) VOR
Shows Fort Worth and Houston dividing line.

Edit for Typing Errors
http://skyvector.com/
 
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We definitely recognize regular flyers through the area. Even with the airlines, some pilots have distinct enough voices that you start to recognize them after a while. There's one guy who flies a TBM850 out of LOT all the time and I know he will climb really well, so I may give him a climb to top crossing traffic where I may be more conservative with a different tail number which I don't recognize.

I'm sure some people who fly in and out of the same airspace all day can predict how a particular controller is going to work with special requests, deviations, etc....controllers do the same thing with voices and tail numbers we recognize.

A lot of center and Tracon sector maps are actually available through VATSIM websites. In a lot of cases, they're pretty darn accurate. Also, googling "ZAU sector maps" brings up a handful of results in the images section, so you might have good luck there, too.
 
The overall boundaries of each Center's airspace are widely available, but for maps showing high and low sector boundaries you'll have to do more searching, or make a FOIA request with the facility. But it's highly likely you're hearing the same controllers on your regular flights. For example, Oakland Center has 4 areas and 6-8 sectors within each area. While there are a few hundred controllers there, each controller is certified in just one area, and therefore works the same sectors on their shift rotations.

Some Tracons are in fact "up/downs," meaning they are physically downstairs from the control tower at an airport. In that case, controllers are certified on all positions in the tower and the radar room, so you may hear the same voice on an approach frequency one day and ground control the next (or even in the same day, depending on how that facility works its shift rotations).
 
And some controllers have quite memorable voices as well. Heading back from Martha's Vineyard something seemed very familiar to me about the controller after checking on Providence Approach. A minute or two later she just laid into someone on the frequency about something seemingly minor and it clicked in my head immediately: she was the controller from the PVD runway incursion incident 12 years prior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUDFY5qlTSA
 
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