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Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#161

Post by kbaker »

NaOH wrote: post #135
nradov wrote: post #7

Obviously it will take some time for the full accident analysis but there have been quite a few near misses lately due to air traffic controller errors. Flight volume has been growing, airspace near airports is more congested, and controllers are overworked. Eventually all of the "Swiss cheese" holes line up. We're going to need to hire more controllers. Also, it appears that one of the aircraft was a military (not p…

Hiring controllers is not easy. A friend's daughter just went through the hiring process. She graduated from college with an appropriate degree right as COVID hit. Her FAA application wasn't accepted for four years. This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Agai…

Another problem is the maximum entry age for the ATC school - if you are over the age of 31 you can't apply.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#162

Post by NaOH »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #148
NaOH wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring controllers is not easy. A friend's daughter just went through the hiring process. She graduated from college with an appropriate degree right as COVID hit. Her FAA application wasn't accepted for four years. This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Agai…

> appropriate degree what's considered an appropriate degree for ATC?

In her case it was a Bachelors in Aviation and Aerospace Science with an Air Traffic Control Concentration. There may be other programs or concentrations which are acceptable.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#163

Post by YZF »

hattmall wrote: post #123
randerson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem space is too broad. E.g. On 9/11 ATC had to land almost 3000 planes in 1 hour. I'm not sure if that sort of national coordinated grounding is part of ATC training, but it's certainly not something I'd want to leave to some code that has never needed to run in production before.

It just seems like software could pretty easily compute non-intersecting flight paths for all planes and assign them accordingly. As well it could real time monitor all trajectories and continue to give out the updated flight paths. I don't see why you also couldn't run a trillion tests using real and simulated flight data to make sure it works well.

Air traffic control has a lot more things to deal with. There are scenarios like runway closed and all traffic has to be diverted. Loss of communication. Various emergencies. Weather changes. It's not just a question of 3D motion planning. Controllers in the tower also use their eyes.

In your imaginary system how is the software "tower" communicating with airplanes, using voice? I don't think we even have software that can reliably decode the variety of human voices over radio that a controller can respond to.

One can imagine a digital protocol to all airplanes but technology works its way really slowly into aviation.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#164

Post by tayo42 »

bsder wrote: post #77
LeafItAlone wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians. DCA is open to the public.

DCA is open to the public. But it has lots of ways for Congressmen to avoid the inconveniences that you and I have to endure. The other airports in the area do not have those.

> the inconveniences that you and I have to endure.

What are those? With pre check you just more or less walk through and use a metal detector.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#165

Post by insane_dreamer »

NaOH wrote: post #162
insane_dreamer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> appropriate degree what's considered an appropriate degree for ATC?

In her case it was a Bachelors in Aviation and Aerospace Science with an Air Traffic Control Concentration. There may be other programs or concentrations which are acceptable.

Since the chances of landing an ATC job are so slim with the degree, what kind of job options does that degree afford you? What kind of job did she end up taking (or doing while waiting on the FAA)?

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#166

Post by Jtsummers »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #153
Jtsummers wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness to the current administration, while the hiring freeze may have impacted ATC hiring, that is not causal here. No one hired last week would have been running things today (if they were hit with the freeze).

> not causal here but it does illustrate the type of future incident that it _could_ be causal of

Sure, I didn't say otherwise.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#167

Post by cyberax »

rayiner wrote: post #98
bsder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reagan should have been shut down for commercial use many moons ago. It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians.

Not disagreeing, but is there something particularly wrong with DCA?

It's in the middle of a city, with lots of restricted airspace just _seconds_ of flight time from it.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#168

Post by rayiner »

int0x29 wrote: post #142
smitty1110 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote the order itself: > This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. ATC surely falls under public safety. Additionally, the ATC issues stretch well back into the Biden term, and you can find plenty of articles discussing the controversy elsewhere.

I get a strong sense that they don't actually know what they cut as they stopped paying to guard ISIL prisoners. I could very easily see ATC getting hit by accident. Generally this administration neither thinks nor plans before acting https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily...

That article is propaganda from the same people who brought you the Iraq War. That’s exactly the sort of funding spigot we should be stopping so we can figure out what the hell is going on. Why the hell are we paying for prison guards in Syria? At one point CIA backed militias in Syria were fighting DOD backed militias: https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-...

Everyone obviously wants to use critical services as a shield to avoid scrutiny on them. But by all indications the administration was ready to go on day 1, and insofar as stuff is being cut or halted a decision was made to allow that to happen.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#170

Post by NaOH »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #165
NaOH wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In her case it was a Bachelors in Aviation and Aerospace Science with an Air Traffic Control Concentration. There may be other programs or concentrations which are acceptable.

Since the chances of landing an ATC job are so slim with the degree, what kind of job options does that degree afford you? What kind of job did she end up taking (or doing while waiting on the FAA)?

While waiting for the FAA and since declining the ATC position she's worked at her family's auto repair shop. Pre-FAA she did repair work and for the last few months since returning she's more on the management side. She hasn't yet decided if the family business or something else is the career she wants.
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