I've just had time to catch up with this thread and I see the discussion has turned to whether LPL will provide radar for DTV or not. Following talks with various people "in the know" - I'm led to believe that such a decision has
not been made and probably won't be for some time. It has been suggested and it is being discussed at board level, but there are lots of factors as has already been mentioned. My concerns which I have already made known to those in charge are:
- The current Radar contingent at DTV have become "specialists" in dealing with the military...they have seen a lot of situations over the years and there is no substitute for that level of experience;
- If radar were to be moved to LPL there is the issue of training LPL controllers to do "our" job...If DTV's OJTIs knew they would be training people that would eventually make them redundant I doubt they'd do it (that applies to any job, not just ATC);
- There would be little or no current Radar valid controllers at DTV prepared to move southwest;
- Those left would be downgraded to Tower only which would result in a huge pay cut. This would result in a huge number of staff leaving the airport either to persue other career interests (there are qualified electricians and plumbers, etc working in ATC who would probably go into their secondary career rather than move onto a lower wage);
- This would result in inexperienced Tower only controllers who would most likely only use the airport as a starting stone in ATC...this would result in the overall service to the customers being degraded.
These are just my personal views and are based on a "worst-case" scenario. That said, I reiterate that it is only in the discussion stage at the moment to see if the move is possible - and no decisions have been made, despite what anyone else may think.
Sorry for any grammatical errors/brain f**ts, I still feel half dead after doing the met exam this morning!!!
-HD-