D Controller

[Bring back Tridents]

A few years before I started as a cadet on 39 Course, a system was in operation where the area procedural controller sat miles away from the radar controller. An example of this would be at Scottish Centre where the procedural controller was at Redbrae and the Radar controller at Gailes. I think the same was in use at Preston. The procedural controller was always known as the D controller. Can anyone tell me why and what the D stood for?

Thanks

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

A controllers were Assistants, whilst D controllers were..... well, I was told a hundred years ago it meant "Decision" as they were the executive controllers. So why didn't they call them E men? Dunno... standby for an elderly genius.

[India 99]

Dunno . . . Dangerous . . . Do it your way then ! :rolleyes:

Eventually they came around to our way and realised the benefit of moving around those blobby things behind the glass :8

Happy days with happy guys except one whose aim with those metal Flight Progress Strip Holders was legendary . . . oooch did they bruise.



And on a different occasion at LATCC when Flow (FMP) was in the centre of the room (now we all had blue/yellow plastic FPS holders) a certain Clacton Sector controller visited that hallowed if mysterious area of the Ops room (*FMP) . . . . carrying the fruit of his toils of the last hour . . ie an overflowing toy box thingy now piled very high with empty FPS holders . . and with the words " if this is your idea of flow control then ******* f " whilst proceeding to tip the lot over Flow's desk :ugh:

I believe they then moved to LL Twr and then to Brussels to get as far as possible from the said Clacton Sector guys ( and others )


Only an alleged story from long ago . . and apologies to all who serve etc . . I can't imagine how the guys would cope without ATM etc nowadays.

99:cool:
With PPE firmly on.

[Loki]

Hmmm,

Me chiefing on Clacton....strip printers going mental for about ten minutes with the display on both sides absolutely jammed with strips.

Flow "manager" appears at my side...."It's going to get busy in a few minutes"

Me: "what do you intend doing about it then?"

Flow "I just thought you'd like to know"

Aaaargh!

[ZOOKER]

A long time ago, in a guest house far, far away, - well Westby Road, Boscombe actually...Another member of that fine course pondered the origin of the phrase 'Roger-D', often heard at the time. Was it linked to 'D' Men in any way?

[2 sheds]

Nah - almost certainly from "Roger, dodger" - pathetic!

2 s

[Dunregulatin]

"D" stood for Director - the lord of all he surveyed, an ATCO2 when that meant something! (like when I had to do a promotion board to get to be an ATCA2)

The D had overall control of his sector and the rest did his bidding - radar (an ATCO3) only separated what he was told to do and A (ATCO4) produced, by hand, all the strips and passed the estimates etc.

Best exchange: - "Radar, can you drop ABC through XYZ for me?"
"Sorry D not right now there's only 2 miles between
them"
"OK - I'll do it, I've got 5 minutes between them on the times!"

[Lon More]

The D also took the initial call, giving routing, etc. One busy morning, loads coming in off the Atlantic, me, trainee D, "Blah blah blah". Voice from Ulster in my ear,(Roy Evans?) "D, shut the :mad: up."

[Jay Doubleyou]

I can't claim to be a genius but certainly elderly!
Just to (re)clarify HD's previous post "A" Controllers were not assistants in the ATCO/ATCA sense, they were "Assisting" Controllers (ATCOs) and could carry out "executive" control both on their own initiative, say a co-ordinated clime at the handover point, or as directed by the "D" controller.

[Atcham Tower]

To confuse the issue a little, some ATCAs at Preston Centre were trained up in 1967 (ish) to do the "A" side. I know because I was one of them but didn't do the job for very long because I got an ATCO cadetship and was posted out. The dismissive attitude of the time that ATCAs "had no responsibility" certainly didn't apply here. We had to use our initiative at times even though we weren't supposed to! I am not sure whether this was an experiment which was later abandoned or it continued till PATCC closed.

[Bring back Tridents]

Thank you one and all. It was a question posed by another 39 Course refugee who posted some pictures of the 'Ops Room' at Barton Hall on his social networking page (doesn't seem to want to say Facebook) and wondered what the D stood for. I thought "Don't know, but I know somewhere that they're bound to!" :D