Fire in Chicago ARTCC... Again....

N801BH said:
Every controller and their union would have a stroke over that idea.....

Their attitude is YOU NEED US, AND WE CAN'T BE REPLACED......

Can we all say PATCO... and then unemployment...
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I never said it would be easy. :no:
 
gismo said:
All true but only because that's the way ATC has worked for years.
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We I agree, eventually controllers will be replaced by computers. I was just talking about this with my brother recently. He sees a time, although not before he retires, of a computer automatically assigning commands via text. The controller would then be there to take over if the computer crashes. I imagine they'd be pretty rusty in that situation though as would a pilot who's gotten used to automation when it fails.

The same type of computer automation could be applied in the visual tower environment. There's already a device out that can be set up at a field and uses radar and a computer voice to sequence and clear arrivals and departures to the runway.

Eventually Free Flight will happen in this country and the role of ATC will be less important. Unfortunately, because of the monetary / equipment constrains we currently have, it's decades away.
 
N801BH said:
Every controller and their union would have a stroke over that idea.....

Their attitude is YOU NEED US, AND WE CAN'T BE REPLACED......

Can we all say PATCO... and then unemployment...:yes:....;)
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Wow -- it took 12 pages to arrive at the obvious reason why a fire at a single facility can cripple air traffic over much of the U.S..

$77/hour, and they can't be cross-trained to work multiple sectors because it's "too hard"? This is a management problem, not a systems problem.
 
StinkBug said:
And again, the problem is not duplicating the facilities, it's duplicating the people.
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You don't have to duplicate the people if you have the same people move to the backup facility after evacuating the primary facility. There's obviously some travel time involved, but unless the fire were very minor, it would be faster than waiting for the primary facility to be made usable again.
 
TriGear28 said:
I hear ya. I have heard 121 carriers getting visual all the time though so it's not unusual to me at all. Only concerning statement to me was "over the fog on flight following." Fog is technically a cloud... How thick was it and were you operating Vfr on top, which is an ifr operation. Just checking what it was like.
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He could have been operating VFR "over" the top, which is not an IFR operation.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Wow -- it took 12 pages to arrive at the obvious reason why a fire at a single facility can cripple air traffic over much of the U.S..

$77/hour, and they can't be cross-trained to work multiple sectors because it's "too hard"? This is a management problem, not a systems problem.
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There is a lot of talk from people who truly don't understand how the system works. Most of us don't make $77 per hour, but that is irrelevant. There is a reason airline pilots don't fly every aircraft type in the fleet (well, except when there's only one, like SWA). There's a reason you have to have so many instrument approaches to remain current.

I am certified on 20 different sectors, some of which are combined together most of the time, some are not. Keeping proficient on that many is difficult, if I had to work 20 more (another large TRACON worth), it would be impossible to stay proficient; there just aren't enough hours in the month.

You would be asking a heart surgeon to do a kidney transplant one day per month, then remove a brain tumor the next day.

When you have an emergency, do you want a controller who works that airspace regularly, who knows the local airports, geography, neighboring facilities, etc....or someone who hasn't sat at that scope in 3 weeks?

I would encourage anyone who thinks that being an air traffic controller at an ARTCC (or any other busy facility) is "easy" to go visit one and actually see what is involved.
 
StinkBug said:
And again, the problem is not duplicating the facilities, it's duplicating the people. Financial institutions are all about numbers and data. Everything is on a server somewhere and it really doesn't matter who is at the terminal or where. You can literally do the exact same thing from anywhere on earth with any person who knows the ropes.

Despite what Nick seems to believe, simply having access to the ATC data stream in a different location wont help some random controller who isn't familiar with the area. Yeah, they know how to do the job, and they could probably keep planes from crashing into each other, but it's HIGHLY doubtful that they could actually keep traffic moving in and out of a complex and busy area that they are unfamiliar with.

Imagine trying to give a hundred people driving directions using google maps over the radio, but WITHOUT the actual driving directions function. All you know is where they are and what the destination is. You have a map, but aren't familiar with it. If you know all the roads in town, you can do it pretty quickly and efficiently. If you dont, it's gonna be a long slow process, and someone is gonna be driving in circles or find a dead end.
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People don't have to be duplicated. They simply go from one location to another. When the ARTCC went down, nobody was injured (mostly). Ten percent of those now un-used personnel could have made their way to a remote location and continue working as they did before.
 
N801BH said:
Every controller and their union would have a stroke over that idea.....

Their attitude is YOU NEED US, AND WE CAN'T BE REPLACED......

Can we all say PATCO... and then unemployment...:yes:....;)
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It's not like the FAA's contracting process has been stellar in terms of airspace automation. Look up the debacle that was AAS sometime.
 
TriGear28 said:
I hear ya. I have heard 121 carriers getting visual all the time though so it's not unusual to me at all. Only concerning statement to me was "over the fog on flight following." Fog is technically a cloud... How thick was it and were you operating Vfr on top, which is an ifr operation. Just checking what it was like.


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VFR on top is not an "IFR operation" whatever that is. As a student pilot, you can't lose sight of the ground, but if you are a non-instrument rated private pilot there is no such prohibition.
 
nddons said:
VFR on top is not an "IFR operation" whatever that is. As a student pilot, you can't lose sight of the ground, but if you are a non-instrument rated private pilot there is no such prohibition.
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VFR on top is MOST CERTAINLY an IFR operation. You cannot be VFR on top WITHOUT being on an IFR flight plan.

See AIM 7-3-1:
http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc/atc0703.html

A VFR flight can indeed fly over a solid overcast but that is not VFR on top. Call that VFR over the top if you'd like :)
 
Palmpilot said:
You don't have to duplicate the people if you have the same people move to the backup facility after evacuating the primary facility. There's obviously some travel time involved, but unless the fire were very minor, it would be faster than waiting for the primary facility to be made usable again.
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If you look farther up you'll see that I suggested that exact thing. The post you just quoted was my response to guys like Nick and SkyHog saying that we should just standardize everything and it'd be the answer to situations like this. That's simply not possible.
 
TriGear28 said:
I hear ya. I have heard 121 carriers getting visual all the time though so it's not unusual to me at all. Only concerning statement to me was "over the fog on flight following." Fog is technically a cloud... How thick was it and were you operating Vfr on top, which is an ifr operation. Just checking what it was like.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Naaa, no concern, it was unlimited visibility above it and the fog was pretty patchy so clear sight of ground was a non issue. Technically my flight would have been VFR over the top since destination was vfr clear sky. And technicalities aside I am a current IFR rated pilot and was just working within the system that was function that day under the chicago debacle so all was good. :wink2:

The surprise I had was actually the commercial carriers popping into their destination TRSA VFR without ATC knowing they were coming from Chicago since the system was down. That was a first for me.
 
mikea said:
It's STILL noticeably quiet in the air around here.
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Yep. I listened to two or three Chicago Center frequencies as I flew through those sectors today, and there was not a peep on any of them.

I did hear a lot of traffic on guard as airliners were missing frequency changes and such because all of the surrounding facilities are trying to pick up the slack.

On the way down to Gaston's on Friday, I heard some of the class C TRACONs picking up parts of the traffic. I heard quite a few airliners inbound to O'Hare get MZV PLL GIBNS, and the outbounds to the west were getting BADER UIN.

There was a VERY noticeable lack of airline traffic, though, compared to normal. And when I got my briefing this morning, there was a NOTAM for Chicago Center being OTS through the 30th.
 
StinkBug said:
If you look farther up you'll see that I suggested that exact thing. The post you just quoted was my response to guys like Nick and SkyHog saying that we should just standardize everything and it'd be the answer to situations like this. That's simply not possible.
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Understood.
 
Duplicating the equipment of a single ARTCC would require more than a few billion dollars. Multiply that by 23 and you get the picture of why civilian scale redundancy is not an option.

Curious: news reports talk about this guy being in the "basement". I'm going to guess that he was on the floor in the bay devoted to facilities monitoring and maintenance.
 
Was just talking to my lead flight coordinator. FAA said they're hoping to be at 100% on the 13th... The proposition to come in VFR under the bravo and contact tower directly wouldn't work; They're only running 4 TEC routes at a rate of 24 ops per hour, and are not accepting any VFRs into ORD...
 
Oh, that was the other thing - ATIS at the home drome advised that no practice approaches are available, either VFR or IFR. Milwaukee Approach must be pretty busy picking up some of the slack. I heard they've been denying flight following too.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Oh, that was the other thing - ATIS at the home drome advised that no practice approaches are available, either VFR or IFR. Milwaukee Approach must be pretty busy picking up some of the slack. I heard they've been denying flight following too.
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Yep. I tried to get FF while flying to Ephram on Saturday morning. No go, and MKE approach said it was because of the Chicago situation. I was able to get FF from Green Bay approach. On my return trip yesterday afternoon, I got FF from Green Bay to about 25 miles south of Green Bay. MKE approach sure sounded like they had their hands full on Saturday afternoon.
 
Farm it all out to LockMart, just like FSS. It'll be all run out of a handful of locations within a year.

(You decide if I'm serious or being sarcastic, I'm not saying. I bet both for and against arguments could easily be made. Doesn't matter anyway, to farm it out would require that a Senator's friend stands to make at least $100M so there's plenty of graft for the Senator.)
 
DrMack said:
Duplicating the equipment of a single ARTCC would require more than a few billion dollars. Multiply that by 23 and you get the picture of why civilian scale redundancy is not an option.
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I dont doubt that you are correct, but I wonder if it might be feasible to add a couple extra seats at each of a bunch of local airports, that could be wired into the system such that in a case such as this the controllers could be sent to various existing ATC sites and keep things going at some functional level. Having entire ARTCC backup sites would be incredibly expensive and hard to justify, but having a little extra equipment in facilities that are already there might not be such a huge thing to do. Plus they could probably justify some of it as backup for the equipment in that facility as well.
 
Traffic picked up a bit yesterday coming into ORD, and fortunately my flight out of MDW got out (1:45 late). The airlines were having to put in for and receive their clearances the old fashioned way, over the radio, waiting patiently with pencil in hand to copy it down when ready.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Oh, that was the other thing - ATIS at the home drome advised that no practice approaches are available, either VFR or IFR. Milwaukee Approach must be pretty busy picking up some of the slack. I heard they've been denying flight following too.
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Same situation for KAZO (Kalamazoo Michigan) No FF or practice approaches.
 
nddons said:
Yep. I tried to get FF while flying to Ephram on Saturday morning. No go, and MKE approach said it was because of the Chicago situation. I was able to get FF from Green Bay approach. On my return trip yesterday afternoon, I got FF from Green Bay to about 25 miles south of Green Bay. MKE approach sure sounded like they had their hands full on Saturday afternoon.
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I flew out to the mid atlantic and back this weekend, and I had a similar experience.

Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Grissom approach were all swamped and not accepting flight following. Lots of aircraft on guard too, having trouble contacts g the appropriate controllers or missing frequencies.
 
DrMack said:
Duplicating the equipment of a single ARTCC would require more than a few billion dollars. Multiply that by 23 and you get the picture of why civilian scale redundancy is not an option.
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A "few billion dollars" is an absurd amount of money, that seems way too high.
 
MyassisDragon said:
IE : "Lansing approach Embraer xxxx descending through 18,000 VFR from chicago with Juliet" And after contact was made I heard multiple times "its a mad house in Chicago" or "Its crazy , Thank goodness we dont have to go back today"
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That doesn't sound quite cricket. If Embraer was descending through 18,000, I don't think they can be VFR, unless you meant VMC? Or the plane was busting the IFR clearance altitude rules?
 
You wouldn't need a backup facility for every ARTCC. How often is there a simultaneous loss of more than one or two facilities? The logical thing to do would be building one or two fail-over facilities for the nation. In this circumstance, you take the controllers, book hotels at the backup facility location, and fly everyone there. Everyone works from the fail-over location until repairs are complete.
 
I have a few questions, and admit I don't know much how the ATC system works, beyond the basics

How was it that in 1985 when all the controllers were fired that mgmt, and some armed forces controllers were able to step in with very little disruption? The topology hasn't changed much, and the airspace hasn't changed much except for the class B which was a TRSA back then.

For those of you in the upper midwest on VFR flight plans, why are you calling up ATC asking for FF? Maybe you should just squawk 1200 and keep your head outside for a few weeks? Leave people alone to get the important biz done?

I understand that comm flights don't use VFR for anything. Can that rule be relaxed in a case like this(flights below 18k of course)?
 
docmirror said:
That doesn't sound quite cricket. If Embraer was descending through 18,000, I don't think they can be VFR, unless you meant VMC? Or the plane was busting the IFR clearance altitude rules?
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Yeah, it may have been 16,000...I heard a few that day in the 14-15k range and didn't even think about class A above 18k since I dont fly there. (musta been bob Marley background music distorting my audio:lol:) .

Im sure it had to have been lower cause they were issuing squak codes to enter the local TRSA which seems they were not on IFR plans.
 
docmirror said:
I have a few questions, and admit I don't know much how the ATC system works, beyond the basics



How was it that in 1985 when all the controllers were fired that mgmt, and some armed forces controllers were able to step in with very little disruption? The topology hasn't changed much, and the airspace hasn't changed much except for the class B which was a TRSA back then.



For those of you in the upper midwest on VFR flight plans, why are you calling up ATC asking for FF? Maybe you should just squawk 1200 and keep your head outside for a few weeks? Leave people alone to get the important biz done?



I understand that comm flights don't use VFR for anything. Can that rule be relaxed in a case like this(flights below 18k of course)?
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It was no big deal not getting FF. It's often busy flying up the lakeshore on nice weekends, so as with most of what we do, it's nice to have BOTH a belt and suspenders. So, we didn't have our suspenders, but things still worked out fine.

I did notice a higher than normal frequency of MKE approach calling out unknown traffic to IFR traffic. On a normal weekend, I would imagine that much of that unknown traffic would be known via a discrete transponder code obtained by requesting FF.
 
DrMack said:
Duplicating the equipment of a single ARTCC would require more than a few billion dollars. Multiply that by 23 and you get the picture of why civilian scale redundancy is not an option.
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Billions? Every ARTCC would not have to be duplicated, it's unlikely they'd all be rendered unusable at the same time. To my knowledge, in almost eighty years of operations, this is the first time an ARTCC has been put completely out of service for an extended period of time. What is the nation willing to spend on duplication of facilities to avoid the reoccurrence of such a rare event?
 
docmirror said:
I have a few questions, and admit I don't know much how the ATC system works, beyond the basics

How was it that in 1985 when all the controllers were fired that mgmt, and some armed forces controllers were able to step in with very little disruption? The topology hasn't changed much, and the airspace hasn't changed much except for the class B which was a TRSA back then.

For those of you in the upper midwest on VFR flight plans, why are you calling up ATC asking for FF? Maybe you should just squawk 1200 and keep your head outside for a few weeks? Leave people alone to get the important biz done?

I understand that comm flights don't use VFR for anything. Can that rule be relaxed in a case like this(flights below 18k of course)?
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First off the PATCO strike was in 1981. I'll go ahead and let you figure out how the traffic levels today compared with what they were 33 years ago. There was a noticeable disruption to air traffic at that time, too.

Regarding flight following, step off your macho pilot high horse and don't worry about what other pilots do - I prefer to use it when able. If the controllers are busy (as they were this weekend in my area due to ZAU ARTCC) they don't have to provide it. No sweat off my back.
 
docmirror said:
How was it that in 1985 when all the controllers were fired that mgmt, and some armed forces controllers were able to step in with very little disruption? The topology hasn't changed much, and the airspace hasn't changed much except for the class B which was a TRSA back then.
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It was 1981, and only the controllers that chose to remain on strike were fired. Enough stayed that together with management types returning to the boards and military controllers, and also some temporary changes in procedures, enough service could be provided while the controller ranks were refilled.
 
roncachamp said:
It was 1981, and only the controllers that chose to remain on strike were fired. Enough stayed that together with management types returning to the boards and military controllers, and also some temporary changes in procedures, enough service could be provided while the controller ranks were refilled.
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Sorry, I lose track of time, and rarely google. Wasn't it a majority of the controllers though? I seem to recall that staffing was way down from the normal level. Point being that there was a significant event, and people stepped in to jobs that were not their normal jobs and it got done. I'm pretty sure there were aux controllers from all over parts of the country working sectors they were not intimate with, and doing the job that needed doing.
 
docmirror said:
Sorry, I lose track of time, and rarely google. Wasn't it a majority of the controllers though? I seem to recall that staffing was way down from the normal level. Point being that there was a significant event, and people stepped in to jobs that were not their normal jobs and it got done. I'm pretty sure there were aux controllers from all over parts of the country working sectors they were not intimate with, and doing the job that needed doing.
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It was a majority of controllers nationwide but not necessarily a majority of controllers at every facility and not every facility has the same impact. For example, the loss of Dubuque Tower is insignificant, the loss of Chicago ARTCC has nationwide effect.

Chicago ARTCC was hit pretty hard by the PATCO strike, Jacksonville and Cleveland ARTCCs not so much. So some Jax controllers came to ZAU temporarily and Cleveland Center assumed control of three high altitude ZAU sectors for a few years. The shuffled controllers were trained on the new sectors and went to work.

Some low traffic control towers were shut down completely and their controllers moved to higher traffic facilities.

The General Aviation Reservation Program was instituted, that lasted about three years, IIRC. GA flights had to have a reservation to operate IFR, no popups, and if you couldn't get a reservation you either went VFR or didn't go.

Meanwhile, the FAA Academy was running three shifts a day to train controllers. There was more to it than what I've mentioned but I think you can get the idea.
 
Jmcmanna said:
There is a lot of talk from people who truly don't understand how the system works. Most of us don't make $77 per hour, but that is irrelevant. There is a reason airline pilots don't fly every aircraft type in the fleet (well, except when there's only one, like SWA). There's a reason you have to have so many instrument approaches to remain current.

I am certified on 20 different sectors, some of which are combined together most of the time, some are not. Keeping proficient on that many is difficult, if I had to work 20 more (another large TRACON worth), it would be impossible to stay proficient; there just aren't enough hours in the month.

You would be asking a heart surgeon to do a kidney transplant one day per month, then remove a brain tumor the next day.

When you have an emergency, do you want a controller who works that airspace regularly, who knows the local airports, geography, neighboring facilities, etc....or someone who hasn't sat at that scope in 3 weeks?

I would encourage anyone who thinks that being an air traffic controller at an ARTCC (or any other busy facility) is "easy" to go visit one and actually see what is involved.
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Yup.... I am always amazed at the ignorance displayed, often publicly, about stuff like this. As an airline pilot, it's a constant onslaught of "expert" opinion (often touted as "fact") from folks who have never flown an airplane, much less in the airline environment. :mad2:

My oldest friend is a controller at JFK TRACON. When I was based at JFK, I'd go visit him there often, and was always amazed at just how complex that job is. It's much different than what I had envisioned from the other side of the mic prior to visiting him. He also used to FAM ride a lot on my airplanes, and it was good for both of us to see the other's POV. Thanks to political buffoonery and then 9/11, the FAM program is long gone. I flew in his airspace every day, and still had a hard time making sense of his radar displays, as the fixes were all just dots stuck on the scope.

For those that don't know, it can take years to get certified on one position/sector and most are checked out on at least several. Some folks are never able to do it. Keep in mind that every single one of these folks have thousands of lives in their hands every shift.

It's ridiculous that ATC folks are always used as political pawns. They DESERVE every penny that they earn, and thanks to the great Marion Blakey purges a few years ago, it's not nearly enough.

For those of you that doubt me, go check out a tower at a somewhat busy GA airport on a nice weekend morning, then multiply that by 100, and you'll get an idea of what these folks at the busy ARTCC and TRACON facilities do, all day, every day.

Keep up the good work guys....
 
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Slipkid65 said:
For those that don't know, it can take years to get certified on one position/sector and most are checked out on at least several. Some folks are never able to do it. Keep in mind that every single one of these folks have thousands of lives in their hands every shift.
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I never looked at it that way. To me, every target represented the center of an imaginary hockey puck five miles in diameter and 1000 feet thick and no puck was allowed to overlap another. Didn't matter if there were several hundred people aboard each puck or just one.
 
roncachamp said:
I never looked at it that way. To me, every target represented the center of an imaginary hockey puck five miles in diameter and 1000 feet thick and no puck was allowed to overlap another. Didn't matter if there were several hundred people aboard each puck or just one.
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LOL......

Understood....

While I am fully aware that I am responsible for several billion (with a B ) dollars of liability every time I push the throttles up, not to mention the lives of hundreds of folks sitting behind me, I figure that if I make there alive, so will they........... and operate accordingly.
 
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