> The ad also highlights the salary on offer to controllers, saying it is $155,000 (£115,000) after three years of work.
Unless the US government shuts down again, at which point you stop being paid, you are required to keep working, you have no right to strike[0], and the competences you've built across this job are largely hard to directly make use of elsewhere so the incentive to job-hop is low.
This is why shutting down the right to strike is a short term approach: you can't make people choose to start or keep working in your sweatshop, so eventually you run out of staff.
What you can do, at state scale, is pass everybody through a services training filter and sit them under the sorting hat after three months to winnow out skills and potentials of interest.
Some are clear rejects, some are good for getting up early and walking perimeters, others would suit the motor pool. An occasional few will gel for traffic control, signal intell, etc.
The trick then, for a state, is to incentivize with carrots, sticks, patriotic abstractions like duty, etc. the ones they want for the jobs they have.
You can draft a doctor, from pool of doctors. You can't draft ATC, because there is no pool of spare ATCs. It would be like drafting air defense operators - there is no pool of them outside military.
I'm pretty sure some of the air traffic controllers for military airfields in WWII were draftees, just like many air defense operators were draftees before the military became an all-volunteer force in 1973.
If the recent news about moving lots of soldiers from EU Nato installations back home is true, they'll have a ton of trained active military ATC's available to use in the US soon.
A lot of times as a citizen I think you feel that something is "off" with different Government jobs but can’t put what exactly.
And then you watch one of those reports and be like "holy duck, how can it be this bad and what are they doing to my people and with my taxes?"
Different country, but a lot of times when dealing with the government I think why are the people working there always grumpy, and then one gave me the "tour" of what they have to deal with that is hidden from the public eye.
Working toilets? Nah, they had to go outside around the building into Porta Potty’s.
He showed me like fifty places in the building with mold. Not the fun white one you get on cheese. I am talking about black fungus out of stranger things eating half the wall. Some offices had signs saying working in a different office today with the date printed to 1998. Inside water was dripping from the ceiling.
He is like that’s why we are grumpy. Ever since I bring a piece of cake and some hot coffee when I have to deal with government employees and thank them for their service. They are allowed to be grumpy working under conditions I would expect from a third world country.
Is there any kind of interest on this delay? Otherwise it's an involuntary zero-percent loan to the government, so, given inflation and fees for borrowing money, it's a net loss either way.
Absolutely negligible. Please stop with the propaganda. Everyone is fine with a 2-week delay for payroll, but wait a couple more weeks and it's suddenly you "stop being paid" and give a "loan to the government". There are plenty of downsides to being ATC but this one is not a genuine framing.
> Everyone is fine with a 2-week delay for payroll
I don't know where this assumption comes from. I'm not. With the increasing number of people living paycheck to paycheck, your "couple more weeks" means a growing risk of homelessness among other things.
I know this is culture-war stuff, but on the balance I think it's true that the FAA deprioritised applicants from the AT/CTI programmes, that is training courses speficically to become ATCs.
My main source is https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa..., and I'm assuming in particular that the screenshot of the letter in footnote 1 is genuine. In the section ended by footnote 16, there is a claim than in 2014 the FAA sent out just short of 3k job offer letters whereas in 2019 that had dropped to below 1k.
That sounds like cutting off your own recruitment pipeline.
It's also evidence that the FAA did not drop the standards for qualification and certification, which is reassuring.
What video game on Steam allows me to practice air traffic control? How can I determine if I have a skill at the logistics of managing planes on a radar screen? Where can I join a multiplayer lobby where at game start we're assigned to either give radio commands to planes, or interpret radio commands and respond on behalf of planes, with at least two players for each? How does anti-griefing work in that environment?
It does, and it's called VATSIM[0]. VATSIM Radar[3] will show you what's going on right now.
As a pilot, you connect using either Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane. Your flight simulator will include graphics (hopefully up-to-date) for your chosen area. Pick a starting airport, spawn at a ramp location (a gate, cargo area, etc.), connect to the network, file a flight plan (or go VFR), call up (or announce intentions), and go.
As a controller, VATSIM organizes ATC by region of the world, then in to 6-8 divisions within the region, then in to individual ARTCCs, ACCs, or FIRs[2]. You'll typically register with a division, then make your home in a particular ARTCC/FIR. For example, I was registered with VATUSA and made my home in the Indianapolis ARTCC.
There is software[1] for both pilots (connecting your flight sim to the network) and controllers (providing a radar display). Each "radio frequency" has an associated text chat and voice chat for communication. ATC are trained to support both text and voice simultaneously, following pilot's preference.
For controllers, your chosen ARTCC/ACC/FIR handles your training. They provide the "sectorfiles" that give you a graphical view of your airspace and your airports. (Think of it like a modern version of an old-style vector display.) They also help you through training, both book learning and sim training. You start controlling things on the ground, and work your way up to controlling things in the air.
[2]: Air Route Traffic Information Center / Area Control Center / Flight Information Region. Different countries use different terms, but mean the same thing: It's a large three-dimensional volume of airspace.
Another useful tip: don't immediately register with the division local to you in the 'real world', but instead take a look at a variety to see how different divisions conduct themselves. Some divisions have very long waiting lists, and standards of service do differ between ARTCCs/FIRs. It's also worth just checking to see whether the software a given division uses is actually compatible with your computer, because they don't all use the same programs.
I've spent many hours in VATSIM and loved it, so don't be discouraged from diving in, but as a warning: I encountered a pervasive issue with pretentiousness across the VATSIM community, with some divisions setting largely arbitrary rules and procedures which don't exist in real world ATC.
MS Flight Simulator w/ VATSIM [1] l has this, in the sense thar you can participate as a pilot or a controller, although you are not assigned these roles at game start.
Anti-griefing works by keeping the barriers to entry very high, so chances are you won't try VATSIM, even though MSFS is technically available on Steam.
Probably not on Steam, but maybe still somewhere on the net. There used to be an open source game for unix-like systems simply called "atc" that gave you a text-mode view of a radar screen. You gave directions to pilots using the keyboard through some abbreviated text instructions. I know because it was pretty popular among some friends of mine back in the day.
I made a patch that made it a multiplayer networked game where each player controlled the space of one airport. When I was doing that I remember being surprised how the entire game was written as a parser in lex (or maybe yacc? not sure anymore) not straight C.
Honestly, it feels like RTS players might qualify considering how much multitasking is required in a game like Starcraft. Maybe they should add a StarCraft 2 competitive rank qualification.
Ten years ago the FAA was disqualifying candidates because the didn't say their worst subject in high school was science and today they're struggling with recruitment. Seems like a catastrophe of their own making.
> The Xbox one logo appears at the start of the video before dissolving into a montage that cuts between images of men playing various online computer games and people, including women, in air traffic control towers looking at their own computers.
> "You've been training for this," the ad says.
Wow looks like Microsoft were not kidding with their 'this is also an xbox' ad campaign. Also really console gamers is who you target for this role? USG is becoming a joke
AI should be able to handle the bulk of this work. "14,663 active controllers" is too much when you could have a single gamer + AI combo running it for multiple airports.
57 comments
> The ad also highlights the salary on offer to controllers, saying it is $155,000 (£115,000) after three years of work.
Unless the US government shuts down again, at which point you stop being paid, you are required to keep working, you have no right to strike[0], and the competences you've built across this job are largely hard to directly make use of elsewhere so the incentive to job-hop is low.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr...
If you're a government, you can; it's called a draft. The US seems to be preparing for it.
Some are clear rejects, some are good for getting up early and walking perimeters, others would suit the motor pool. An occasional few will gel for traffic control, signal intell, etc.
The trick then, for a state, is to incentivize with carrots, sticks, patriotic abstractions like duty, etc. the ones they want for the jobs they have.
Now its time for levelling up training.
Doctors need to pass a lot of exams.
We know from the PATCO strike there is a pool of spare ATCs, including "military controllers, and retired personnel who temporarily returned to service". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...
Thus, retired civilian personnel is a possible draft pool for a skilled job like ATC which require passing a lot of exams.
That pool is small, certainly, but it was enough to break PATCO.
Jump to minute 18 for a discussion on floppy disks or, appropriately, to minute 25 for an "honest recruitment ad".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YeABJbvcJ_k&t=1539
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g
A lot of times as a citizen I think you feel that something is "off" with different Government jobs but can’t put what exactly.
And then you watch one of those reports and be like "holy duck, how can it be this bad and what are they doing to my people and with my taxes?"
Different country, but a lot of times when dealing with the government I think why are the people working there always grumpy, and then one gave me the "tour" of what they have to deal with that is hidden from the public eye.
Working toilets? Nah, they had to go outside around the building into Porta Potty’s.
He showed me like fifty places in the building with mold. Not the fun white one you get on cheese. I am talking about black fungus out of stranger things eating half the wall. Some offices had signs saying working in a different office today with the date printed to 1998. Inside water was dripping from the ceiling.
He is like that’s why we are grumpy. Ever since I bring a piece of cake and some hot coffee when I have to deal with government employees and thank them for their service. They are allowed to be grumpy working under conditions I would expect from a third world country.
b) It’s not a bad salary for an individual, but supporting a family of 3-5 on $155k does not leave a lot of room for error
I don't know where this assumption comes from. I'm not. With the increasing number of people living paycheck to paycheck, your "couple more weeks" means a growing risk of homelessness among other things.
My main source is https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa..., and I'm assuming in particular that the screenshot of the letter in footnote 1 is genuine. In the section ended by footnote 16, there is a claim than in 2014 the FAA sent out just short of 3k job offer letters whereas in 2019 that had dropped to below 1k.
That sounds like cutting off your own recruitment pipeline.
It's also evidence that the FAA did not drop the standards for qualification and certification, which is reassuring.
If that game existed, I would try it.
Does it?
As a pilot, you connect using either Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane. Your flight simulator will include graphics (hopefully up-to-date) for your chosen area. Pick a starting airport, spawn at a ramp location (a gate, cargo area, etc.), connect to the network, file a flight plan (or go VFR), call up (or announce intentions), and go.
As a controller, VATSIM organizes ATC by region of the world, then in to 6-8 divisions within the region, then in to individual ARTCCs, ACCs, or FIRs[2]. You'll typically register with a division, then make your home in a particular ARTCC/FIR. For example, I was registered with VATUSA and made my home in the Indianapolis ARTCC.
There is software[1] for both pilots (connecting your flight sim to the network) and controllers (providing a radar display). Each "radio frequency" has an associated text chat and voice chat for communication. ATC are trained to support both text and voice simultaneously, following pilot's preference.
For controllers, your chosen ARTCC/ACC/FIR handles your training. They provide the "sectorfiles" that give you a graphical view of your airspace and your airports. (Think of it like a modern version of an old-style vector display.) They also help you through training, both book learning and sim training. You start controlling things on the ground, and work your way up to controlling things in the air.
[0]: https://vatsim.net/
[1]: https://vatsim.net/docs/policy/approved-software
[2]: Air Route Traffic Information Center / Area Control Center / Flight Information Region. Different countries use different terms, but mean the same thing: It's a large three-dimensional volume of airspace.
[3]: https://vatsim-radar.com/
I've spent many hours in VATSIM and loved it, so don't be discouraged from diving in, but as a warning: I encountered a pervasive issue with pretentiousness across the VATSIM community, with some divisions setting largely arbitrary rules and procedures which don't exist in real world ATC.
Anti-griefing works by keeping the barriers to entry very high, so chances are you won't try VATSIM, even though MSFS is technically available on Steam.
[1] https://vatsim.net/docs/basics/becoming-a-controller
I made a patch that made it a multiplayer networked game where each player controlled the space of one airport. When I was doing that I remember being surprised how the entire game was written as a parser in lex (or maybe yacc? not sure anymore) not straight C.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1348390/I_am_an_Air_Traff...
(only on Switch) https://www.sonicpowered.co.jp/bokukan/nsw/rjgg_allstars/
https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/trumps-transportation-secretary...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9MczWfLpBcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeABJbvcJ_k
> The Xbox one logo appears at the start of the video before dissolving into a montage that cuts between images of men playing various online computer games and people, including women, in air traffic control towers looking at their own computers.
> "You've been training for this," the ad says.
Wow looks like Microsoft were not kidding with their 'this is also an xbox' ad campaign. Also really console gamers is who you target for this role? USG is becoming a joke
THEME TRAFFIC CONTROLLER
>
The ad also highlights the salary on offer to controllers, saying it is $155,000 (£115,000) after three years of work.IIRC they are understaffed and must do like 60hs per week, so it's like $103K in a sane work position.