Teller1900
En-Route
Had an absolutely fantastic tour of the Newark Tower, this morning. The controllers could not have been more welcoming, or seem more eager to talk to us! The facility is beautiful, and the view was even better than I expected. Unfortunately, the Sup on duty asked that I not take pictures, so all I got was the shot of the outside of the tower, below.
After a quick elevator ride to the 23rd story, we walked the last two flights of stairs up to the cab of the 328ft tall tower. Just like walking up the steps into a baseball stadium on game day, the last few steps into the cab were astonishing. The stairs face straight out over the 22s, and thus out toward downtown Manhattan...no better way to be welcomed to work every morning, I'd say.
The supervisor and Traffic Management Coordinator sit in the middle of the cab, in the middle of a U shaped desk facing the runways. Turning right at the top of the stairs it's a good 20 feet or more to the windows facing the departure end of 22, in front of which stands the traffic management and Clearance Delivery controller. He stands over the ubiquitous metal frame, used to hold the every growing pile of paper strips that come off the printer ever 30 seconds, or so. This is where most of the similarities to other towers I've seen end. He also oversees the computer running the AWOS/ATIS, D-ATIS, and PDC services, as well as a second computer that allows them to look up...well...anything. Want to know the weather at Lyndon? It's on there. Want to know how much runway you have remaining on 22R at M? It's on there. I'm pretty sure the only bit of information not on there is the baseball scores...and maybe they just didn't have time to show us that.
Five feet to the right of the clearence guy is the Flow Control position. This is the guy that figures out who needs to be where and in what order on the taxiway so that everyone can make their assigned departure time with the nessisary spacing over each of the departure fixes. The position was closed this morning, as they were actually pretty slow, but the woman showing us around said this is everyone's least favorite place to work, "it's absolute chaos." I can imagine why, he's the guy that has to coordinate with the ground controller and figure out that plane X has a wheels-up time of XX:XX, so he needs to be at the runway ahead of so many other airplanes, but he also needs 3 other planes between plane X and plane Y ahead of him, because they're both going out over WHITE. Now how do we get them both there on time? Part of that also involves working out gatehold procedures...but that's a whole different mess.
Making a 90 degree turn next to flow is Ground Control. He, too, has his own frame for the strips, with one that really stands out labled in bright red "TAXI." Not surprisingly, they call this the taxi line. All the strips below the taxi line are actually on a taxi way in his control; above it, he's just waiting to hear from them. The paper strips are only half his effort, though. He also has a digital strip system next to him. When someone calls for taxi, he scans their strip on what looks like a grocery store scanner, and all their data pops up on this screen. From here he hands them off (both physically with the paper, and digitally) to Local Control.
Above the ground controller's head are two flat screen monitors on a roller track and fully adjustable arm. One has the local airborne radar feed (complete with extended final approach courses for all the EWR runways, and depictions of all the airports and waterways in the area) and the other presents an electronic depiction of the airport diagram in green monotone. There are a dozen or so little green blobs moving around the airport, thanks to the airport's surface survalence radar (not the official name). The system only displays data tags for arriving aircraft - departure are nothing but a blob...it astounds me how they get anything done when the ceilings are down! The computer picks up targets on about 1 mile final, and from then on predicts where they're going to be in 20 seconds, and alerts the controler if there is a conflict. They're currently testing the next gen system that will give data tags for everybody and is supposed to give them a much better "look" at what's happening on the airport.
Five feet to the left of ground is Local Control (tower). Much like the previous positions, he has his strips in front of him and radar display above him. The one thing at this position that really caught my eye was a 6inch by 4inch metal box with two large red buttons on it, one labled TEST and the other CRASH. They didn't demo that system for us.
Making another 90 degree turn there's room for another local controller, but again this position was closed today. 180 degrees and about 20-30 feet behind the tower controller (facing away from the airport) was yet another controller, sitting over a radar screen. Unfortunately I forget what his position is called, but this is the guy that handles all VFR traffic in EWR's airspace (which, coincidentally is only 8 miles in diameter, and if you're outside that, they really don't want to talk to you).
Next to this last guy are the stairs from whence we came. And thus ended our tour, almost two hours after we first arrived.
Other notes:
1. There is no love lost between the folks in the tower and the folks in NY TRACON! (TRACON doesn't seem to care about spacing/speed control when they hand planes off to the tower).
2. There is no love lost between the folks in the tower and the folks in FAA management (but that's no surprise).
3. They don't want to bust you, but the FAA is cracking down...if you make a mistake ADMIT IT and they'll fix it, that way no one gets in trouble.
4. If you're unfamiliar or uncertain about anything ASK. They will never get mad if you ask for clarification (though one guy did admit they sometimes get grumpy if they have to repeat themselves)
5. If you're not sure if you've been cleared to land ask somewhere BEFORE short final, as they tend to have a mild heart attack when someone asks in the flare (they start wondering if they missed something/the runway is fowled).
6. Telling them you've got traffic on TCAS does NOTHING for them.
7. Calling the airport in sight does NOTHING for them.
8. Calling preceading traffic in sight does EVERYTHING for them.
9. Maintain your speed to the marker/5 mile final, after that they don't care as long as they can maintain 2.5miles of separation on final.
10. If they give you a DP or heading departure, for God sake, fly the right thing!
Those were the sailient details, as best I can remember. It really was a wonderful morning in the tower (followed by a great flight and darn good landing in ORF, if I do say so myself
), and I really appreciate the hospitality of all the fine folks in Newark Tower - and all of ATC, for that matter.
After a quick elevator ride to the 23rd story, we walked the last two flights of stairs up to the cab of the 328ft tall tower. Just like walking up the steps into a baseball stadium on game day, the last few steps into the cab were astonishing. The stairs face straight out over the 22s, and thus out toward downtown Manhattan...no better way to be welcomed to work every morning, I'd say.
The supervisor and Traffic Management Coordinator sit in the middle of the cab, in the middle of a U shaped desk facing the runways. Turning right at the top of the stairs it's a good 20 feet or more to the windows facing the departure end of 22, in front of which stands the traffic management and Clearance Delivery controller. He stands over the ubiquitous metal frame, used to hold the every growing pile of paper strips that come off the printer ever 30 seconds, or so. This is where most of the similarities to other towers I've seen end. He also oversees the computer running the AWOS/ATIS, D-ATIS, and PDC services, as well as a second computer that allows them to look up...well...anything. Want to know the weather at Lyndon? It's on there. Want to know how much runway you have remaining on 22R at M? It's on there. I'm pretty sure the only bit of information not on there is the baseball scores...and maybe they just didn't have time to show us that.
Five feet to the right of the clearence guy is the Flow Control position. This is the guy that figures out who needs to be where and in what order on the taxiway so that everyone can make their assigned departure time with the nessisary spacing over each of the departure fixes. The position was closed this morning, as they were actually pretty slow, but the woman showing us around said this is everyone's least favorite place to work, "it's absolute chaos." I can imagine why, he's the guy that has to coordinate with the ground controller and figure out that plane X has a wheels-up time of XX:XX, so he needs to be at the runway ahead of so many other airplanes, but he also needs 3 other planes between plane X and plane Y ahead of him, because they're both going out over WHITE. Now how do we get them both there on time? Part of that also involves working out gatehold procedures...but that's a whole different mess.
Making a 90 degree turn next to flow is Ground Control. He, too, has his own frame for the strips, with one that really stands out labled in bright red "TAXI." Not surprisingly, they call this the taxi line. All the strips below the taxi line are actually on a taxi way in his control; above it, he's just waiting to hear from them. The paper strips are only half his effort, though. He also has a digital strip system next to him. When someone calls for taxi, he scans their strip on what looks like a grocery store scanner, and all their data pops up on this screen. From here he hands them off (both physically with the paper, and digitally) to Local Control.
Above the ground controller's head are two flat screen monitors on a roller track and fully adjustable arm. One has the local airborne radar feed (complete with extended final approach courses for all the EWR runways, and depictions of all the airports and waterways in the area) and the other presents an electronic depiction of the airport diagram in green monotone. There are a dozen or so little green blobs moving around the airport, thanks to the airport's surface survalence radar (not the official name). The system only displays data tags for arriving aircraft - departure are nothing but a blob...it astounds me how they get anything done when the ceilings are down! The computer picks up targets on about 1 mile final, and from then on predicts where they're going to be in 20 seconds, and alerts the controler if there is a conflict. They're currently testing the next gen system that will give data tags for everybody and is supposed to give them a much better "look" at what's happening on the airport.
Five feet to the left of ground is Local Control (tower). Much like the previous positions, he has his strips in front of him and radar display above him. The one thing at this position that really caught my eye was a 6inch by 4inch metal box with two large red buttons on it, one labled TEST and the other CRASH. They didn't demo that system for us.
Making another 90 degree turn there's room for another local controller, but again this position was closed today. 180 degrees and about 20-30 feet behind the tower controller (facing away from the airport) was yet another controller, sitting over a radar screen. Unfortunately I forget what his position is called, but this is the guy that handles all VFR traffic in EWR's airspace (which, coincidentally is only 8 miles in diameter, and if you're outside that, they really don't want to talk to you).
Next to this last guy are the stairs from whence we came. And thus ended our tour, almost two hours after we first arrived.
Other notes:
1. There is no love lost between the folks in the tower and the folks in NY TRACON! (TRACON doesn't seem to care about spacing/speed control when they hand planes off to the tower).
2. There is no love lost between the folks in the tower and the folks in FAA management (but that's no surprise).
3. They don't want to bust you, but the FAA is cracking down...if you make a mistake ADMIT IT and they'll fix it, that way no one gets in trouble.
4. If you're unfamiliar or uncertain about anything ASK. They will never get mad if you ask for clarification (though one guy did admit they sometimes get grumpy if they have to repeat themselves)
5. If you're not sure if you've been cleared to land ask somewhere BEFORE short final, as they tend to have a mild heart attack when someone asks in the flare (they start wondering if they missed something/the runway is fowled).
6. Telling them you've got traffic on TCAS does NOTHING for them.
7. Calling the airport in sight does NOTHING for them.
8. Calling preceading traffic in sight does EVERYTHING for them.
9. Maintain your speed to the marker/5 mile final, after that they don't care as long as they can maintain 2.5miles of separation on final.
10. If they give you a DP or heading departure, for God sake, fly the right thing!
Those were the sailient details, as best I can remember. It really was a wonderful morning in the tower (followed by a great flight and darn good landing in ORF, if I do say so myself
), and I really appreciate the hospitality of all the fine folks in Newark Tower - and all of ATC, for that matter.
. This is, I think the fourth tower I've been to and I learn a lot every time! Next stop will (hopefully) be Potomac Approach or Wash Center, if we can get it set up.
)
