Lon Mil Capacity

[alpha control]

It appears that Lon Mil are having a few capacity problems. During a recent exercise they were unable to handle a large amount of traffic to and from the ACMI. Is this a manning shortfall? Or are they unable to cope with large formations and require other more capable units/controllers to do the job for them!!!

[eyeinthesky]

Given the pasting you got (including some from your own unit) last time you posted on here suggesting that other ATCOs were less capable than you, I think you are either very brave or very stupid to start your latest campaign!!

[Nogbad the Bad]

I'll go for stupid.......

[Avoiding Action]

Don't encourage him.....

[2 six 4]

Or are they unable to cope with large formations and require other more capable units/controllers to do the job for them!!!

That lets your unit out Alpha. I'd rather be worked by the FIR than your lot.

[BDiONU]

eyeinthesky

Alpha 'control' isn't an ATCO, but an Air Defence person. Vast difference.

[niknak]

Well said Air Vent.

Perhaps letting air defence bods out into the sunshine is a policy that needs to be reviewed.....

[Co ordination unaffected]

Oldie but Goodie

What's the difference between a scopie and a computer?

You only have to punch a computer once to get the information out.

[Avoiding Action]

Good to see all the old stereotypes being revisited - it's so long since they've been posted here

Oh, well, back to the hole in the ground

[BDiONU]

Stereotypes

We like them! Saves you having to think about the persons you're talking about, just simply pigeonhole them!
A golden oldie:

(To the tune of Disney's Snow White & the 7 dwarfs)

Hi ho, hi ho, I am an ASO,
I watch my scope, I am a dope,
Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho, hi ho!

Etc.

Or

If I could choose a place to die it would be Buchan, because the transition from life to death would be unnoticable!

[Hippy]

Good to see the banter is still going strong, but we better get round to some facts :

In short - yes, it's a manning shortfall. The size of the formation is not relevant. Lon Mil consoles are normally restricted to working 3 (yes 3!) tracks. May not sound like a big number, but 3 tracks can often generate enough workload to mean that accepting further traffic can jeopardise safety. OTOH, 3 mundane tracks may allow extra capacity and authorisation to take more traffic may be given on an individual basis. The work required for different types of traffic varies immensely. Large formations are one speaking unit and one track, so I re-iterate, not relevant.

Turning to the manpower, the shortfall is in support controllers, not ATCOs. Each console must be manned by one of each. The disparity between establishment (don't have the exact figure, but about 58) and those available for rostering - 34 (taking this week as a typical example) can be explained thus:

Under training for first validation: 5
On det (Former Yugoslavia/Afghanistan/Middle East/South Atlantic): 6
On JATCC course & still on strength: 6
Guarding RAF Uxbridge: 1
Resettlement/Terminal leave: 1
Establishment shortfall: about 5
Total: 24 unavailable for rostering, without considering leave/sickness/etc.

True, a dispensation to use ATCOs as Support Controllers is held. They are not trained to do the job, it is not an ideal solution but it can often mean the ability to open an extra 2 or 3 consoles.

So, all that traffic and a limited number of lots available. Service is provided on a priority basis, with about 8 categories. Aircraft in emergency is top, traffic general handling in the middle air (such as Mil exercise traffic) is bottom.

So there it is, on with the banter...if you have a console open with the capacity to ringing me up enquiring whether my 6152 sqk 2 miles off the runway at Coningsby is the pair of F3s that you are going to work when they start fighting over the North Sea, why the hell can't you take them through TAFKABO (the airway formerly known as blue one) yourself & free up a slot to reduce our refusal stats by one?

Rgds,
Hippy.

[Avoiding Action]

Hippy,

Thanks for the constructive reply. Speaking personally, I'm usually only too happy to take jets off you at the stage you descibe - banter on - especially if it means I get them to a position where I want them, as opposed to where I usually get them when ATCCs do the transit - banter off.

However, one of the major reasons why this doesn't routinely happen is supervisory constraints. Our allocator (equivilient to Mil Sup) may be monitoring a 6v6 east of Leuchars at the same time as my 1v1 north of silva. This "split" puts the sorties at the limits of his supervision on the scope anyway, without me deciding to pick up a transit from as far south as Cgy. But you're right, most of the time it's because - banter on - I find transits so mundane and prefer to spend those last few minutes psyching myself up for the warry-tactics type stuff that I'm about to do - banter off.

More communication required at all levels, perhaps?

[Hippy]

AA, touché

<banter>
Only two reasons why they're not where you want them:
1. Most transits are 'own nav', so you/they didn't brief properly.
2. The Luffty into Manch had a say in the matter and won

either way, like I said, if you want to position them....

</banter>

Your explanaition about radar split & the need to keep fresh for battle accepted.

Rgds,
Hippy

[MCME]

Oh god, He's out of his box again!!!!!

Alpha, will you ever learn? If you had spent as much time at the MASOR as I have, you would appreciate the manning difficulties the Mil ATC have. Its not just us 'poor mushrooms' who have manning problems.

As for the transits you talked about, I was the FA who sup'd the 2 WCs who did the transits for 3 days. Not an easy job for the WCs, and one I am more than thankful our bretheren ATCOs are more than willing to take on. We had the flex and they were over taksed, so we did our bit, which would appear to be more than you seem capable of! Having discussed your posts with the rest of the AD community from within our bunkers, not all of us are convinced you are actually a controller! Rise to the bait, show your hand and let us educate you in the niceties of being polite, cooperative, grown up etc. Need I go on?.

To the rest of the thread, appologies once again, we are still looking and when we find him/her or it rest assured.....?

[Bullseye Bandit]

The 'Hunt' for Alpha Control continues......there are suggestions of who it may be, however concrete proof is still lacking. I reckon his wit and tact definately have him marked for high rank ....maybe even reach FL Lt soon....

I agree with Avoiding action, I will always attempt to take over my a/c direct from CY unless the Allocator has briefed me not to because of his area of supervision. I prefer to take the aircraft myself so that all the sortie admin has been completed before they get to the play area, this in turn gives more time on task, also when they get to the area they are ready to turn in straight away......however there are exceptions at all units

All AD controllers are usually manned ready for the sortie 30 mins before the a/c get airborne so that they are briefed and happy with the traffic flow for their area...... I get the feeling that Mil think we let them transit because we want another '5' in the crewroom that is simply not the case.

All student FC's visit Scot/Lon Mil as part of the course dont see many student ATCO's visit the AD world.

[Marconi Boy]

I was one of the grateful controllers who had to deal with the mass launch from A to B and back again and I would like to say I enjoyed the whole damn lot of it.

At last I could test my JSP's to the MAX!

I remember the quote of the WA SATCO, "Just point them at point B and hand them over" reply "OK" Bring on silent handovers!! or more landlines please.

Thanx London, I await the next exciting episode.

[canberra]

the scope dopes

as an ex raf flight ops cpl let me have a dig at alpha control and all the scopies. if your going to come on here having at go the raf atc branch be prepared to get it back with both barrels. i had 3 tours at leuchars between 85 an last year, my feelings towrds the whole scope dope empire are that you feel you are something special in reality you are in my opinion incompetent. i'll give you a few examples. starex ex priory 1986, i had to pass the entire leuchars orbat to 5 different people in 5 minutes. on various exercises and even on qra i found that the allocator wasnt talking to the fighter marshal, the idro wasnt talking to the maritime marshal and the mc wasnt talking to anyone! although i must say that the female mc at buchan 2 years ago did seem to know what was going on, perhaps she was an ex atco! and what really put the tin hat on it was one saturday morning, one of the q crews doing the daily telebrief checks from the cockpit. he calls me up"loud and clear stand by for neatishead" i ring neatishead to tell them the aircraft is on telebrief and ready for check and sitrep"oh the controllers not in the bunker, hes gone to move his car and wont be back for ten minutes" with great delight i told the airvraft this, the nav just happened to be my boss! the phone line to neat was red hot! oh and finally here a brilliant one from neat on a morning brief" all radars to the north are serviceable except for buchan saxa vord and benbecula" and in closing my i say alpha control that i never did a tour at area radar depite 23 years in tg9.

[Marconi Boy]

Canberra,

You look to have been having a little trouble with the old finger while completing your assassination of the Scope Dopes as you so nicely put it. I wonder if this is why TG12 were detached to update the RDET’s at certain Military ATC airfields.

I await your next personal reply with my dictionary!

[Bullseye Bandit]

He He Canberra, not bad I say if thats all in 23 years. I take it you were eternally poisoned by the fact that when you were a Cpl Scope Dopes were more highly prized and rewarded with a whole payband above what the TG9 ATC branch was. It was amazing how many times that TG9 wanted to merge with TG12 (scopies) because you all thought that they were basically doing the same job.....Oh how the tune has changed eh Basically someone thought that scopies were worth more than AATC's, this is also borne out by the fact that scopies were

1) Not offered redundancy with the drawdowns.

2) Civvies are not allowed to do their job.

After Sep 11th it is quite amazing how high profile the AD world has become with the masters up on the hill.

And as ex TG12 I could recall many times the lack of communication between the Tower, Wg ops and the Ops desk at Squadrons...." is c/s a/b" Wg Ops "No"........Phone Squadron to check delay "He's a/b".........phone Wg ops "squadron say he is a/b" Wg ops "standby...(phones squadron)... he's a/b" Sod it phone Tower and ask if he has got a/b somebody has got to know!!! Tower "phone Wg Ops"....chasing my tail.

And Canberra if you had to tell the FM then the FA and then the MC then something was wrong with your info as that is the command chain working fine...the one above thinks the one below has got something wrong and so quite rightly checks it....now if the info was wrong in the first place??????

[BDiONU]

Canberra

As an ex-AATC (Flight Ops, wots that then??) and ATC, having worked at Saxa (ShetRad) and ADNC West Drayton I could top some of your stories, but whats the point of it all? Zero really.

The hunt is on for Alpha 'Control' but its surely fairly simple. Just look for someone who's over-confident and immature!! Oh dear, that covers all the officer corps!!