Is ATC a boring job?
 

Whilst I appreciate that a great deal of training and knowledge is involved just to get started, does the job live up to expectations?

Listening to my local airport it seems to be a very repetitious, same old same old, routine every day with little variation. Something akin to the traffic policeman on point duty.

Is it really like that?

Yea, you wouldn't like it. Just read some of the threads on here to see how boring and unchanging it is.

:rolleyes:

Where is your local airport?

for i think will be boring .....

is not boring for people who loves their job

Nooooo! Don't feed it!

Oh, go on General.....let me ask frostbite what he does for a living.

He's from Essex. Probably a window licker at EGSS:=

Without PPrune it would be boring! :E

Go to a busy GA training airfield. Students (and even their Instructors) tend to liven things up from time to time!

As an Instructor, I always liked to keep ATC guessing! :ok:

Fair enough!



Wanna guess how long the extended downwind leg is going to be? :(

Ah, I did wonder why the scenic tours took place! Now I know! :}

Seriously, a busy GA Training field on a nice Spring day leads to mayhem as everyone shakes off the Winter cobwebs. Certainly keeps ATC busy! It’s best when in the VCP itself – you get to hear the non-Tx’d comments. Priceless! Quite how ATC keep their sanity is anyone’s guess (and I do use that term loosely!!). :p

Sitting there watching one of your own students doing Solo Circuits can be a great leveller tho. “H ‘n’ H, did you specifically train Bloggs to try and fly under the powerlines when on Finals or is he just trying to wind me up?!” :ugh:

Quite how someone gets to 949 posts without doing anything more than listening to an airband radio, I don't know... However:

Repetition exists in just about every job. In our case, the use of repetitious phraseology is designed to prevent misunderstandings, especially when English may be a 2nd or 3rd language for pilots and, outside the UK and former colonies, controllers as well.
Obviously enough, there is further repetition in the sense that aircraft have to take off and land (the latter being mandatory). However, no two days are the same. There as many methods of achieving one's aim as there are controllers, for any given situation. What worked yesterday, or even 10 minutes ago, may not work now. We don't have the luxury of allowing such a state to continue. Indeed, one of the signs of a trainee nearing readiness to work solo is that he/she can make a complete balls up and then work through the situation and recover from the balls up without a loss of separation, or to put it in simpler terms, dig a deep hole and still be able to dog him/herself out of it. The job offers ample opportunities for the digging of such holes.
For 99% of those of try to become controllers, the job is either interesting or beyond their capabilities. The remaining 1% are those who can do the job well but who would rather be in the air.

Since I have time to type, here's an example of different controllers doing different things in the same situation.
The required gap between aircraft on final approach is x miles. Aircraft A is at 8 mile final. Aircraft B is 2x miles behind A, offset from final approach by 3 or 4 miles for a shallow intercept of the ILS, aiming for the 10 mile fix, but is still 50kts faster than A. Aircraft C is on the downwind, abeam A by 5 miles, about 30kts faster than A. B and C are both at a suitable altitude to become number 2 to A.
Controller D will ask B to keep the speed up to close the gap with A, leaving C on the downwind a while longer. Controller E will turn C in as number 2 and give B a sufficient turn to add an extra mile or two while B slows down. Controller F will do either, depending on how many other aircraft are on frequency. Either way, it doesn't bore me!

Shame you started your post with a silly presumptive remark.

The rest of it was interesting.

Frostbite....to answer your original question.......no.

"silly presumptive remark" Oh come on frostbite, there are going to be a hell of a lot of people on this forum who reckon you've done just that!
As a controller you can be presented with exactly the same traffic on two consecutive days (and if you're listening to the R/T you'll thus hear the same callsigns and a lot of the same, standard phraseology) but the actual traffic situation won't ever be the same. I can only think of a handful of 'dull' days out of my whole ATC career.
When you're driving along an empty stretch of road, do you switch off mentally or are you constantly thinking "...what if a tyre blows now....what if a tractor pulls out of that field..." etc? Sod's Law states that the one time you don't have a get-out plan will be the time you really need one. That alone is enough to keep my interest levels up at work, as it still goes wrong on a regular basis!!!!!

oh it is...its awful....and theres me thinking it maybe fun...dont know why i carry on....nobody listens to me....nothing ever gets done....bugger...hate it when i get home life mixed up with work....:ok::}

At times when it is less busy, yes, it can become boring and repetitive. This is when there is a danger of mistakes happening.

FB. It's as dull as s**t.

You'd probably love it.

Traffic presents itself differently every day. Nearly 20 years under my belt and I have to say no two days are the same. If it was the same every day it would not take so long to train. By listening to an airband radio you only get a small part of the story.
Where I work , at Heathrow, yes you get the same aircraft day in and day out, but the traffic patterns are different. Factors like weather, lack of stands due outbound delays, airfield imposed restrictions like WIP , unsheduled closures, emergencies etc etc keep this job interesting. There are moments of relative quiet and there are moments when you are holding on by your proverbial finger nails. It is a brilliant job.

Having spent some time in the distant past working at a GA airport with 9 runways and between 500 and 800 movements per day, I'd have to say definitely not boring. :rolleyes:

On the beach

On The Beach
 

Okay . . . I'll bite . . .
I've re-read your post a few times. I've gone and washed my eyes out. I even put on my new reading glasses. And it still says "9 runways". I worked at 5 different airports before I could say I had controlled 9 runways . . .

Huh?

Problem I had whilst working at Heathrow was I kept falling asleep. Luckily, they employ ATSAs to wake controllers in time for the next flying machine..

With a stiff drink and a bacon sarnie to keep us going.... now thats TRM :ok:

Beach,
What's in the Frecosse plonk these days.
My brain hurts at 4 with all those helis.That isn't boring at all.:ok:

No,it*s not!:=

Come on frostbite, tell us what you do. Maybe it might entice us toward a career change....

Frostbite
What I always find very satisfying, as an Instructor, is working “with” the Controllers to orchestrate the smooth operation in and around my local airfield, particularly when it is a busy day. After a while Controllers get to know you and you get to know the Controllers – and then the CRM really starts to work a treat – both ways!

It cuts down on lots of unnecessary calls as you adjust your flying slightly to fit in with what you know ATC are trying to achieve – shade a few kts off here, widen out very slightly there. They also get to know that they can rely on you to follow often non-standard instructions in a crisis! When it’s working well – it’s most satisfying. And it means they can spend more time concentrating on some of the other idiots out there knowing that you are working “with” them, not against. Teamwork!

So, the RT may sound the same, repetitive routine “transactions” – but a good ATCO/Pilot team makes for a pleasant and relaxed circuit detail even if the rest of the world seems to have entered “Kamikaze Mode”! Stress levels way down low!!!! Suits me – and the ATCO as well! :ok:

Every job is repetitious....
 

...but that does not mean to say it is boring. An F1 race is very repetitious (cars driving on the same racing line round a circuit 70-80 times) but that does not mean it is boring (though some would argue otherwise!).

Every day is repetitive, we get up we have our breakfast etc etc. All I know is that I would rather be repetetivly up in a tower directing traffic than being eg an accountant tapping numbers in excel all day.

Frostbite
An analogy would be to Chess. :8 You always use a standard board for the game but no two games are the same.
Foxy's right in that pprune relieves the tedium.:bored:
HD, top comment. (true on some occasions tho!):ok:

Good one Verci - like your analogy, has never been boring for me except during low traffic.As someone with a low boredom threshold I say it beats many jobs by far!:ok:

Of course I would rather be racing cars and getting paid for it or jetsetting round the world in a G4 blowing my family fortune, but I can`t really think of a job that I would rather do than ATC.
However it has as much to do with the people that I work with as the job itself.
Come on Frostbite, take a break from Jet Blast and let us know how much you enjoy your job?

I remember long ago being told that ATC is 90% boredom, 10% terror!! :E

Angrel
 

Re your comment above . . .

As controllers know, those stats don't depend as much on the traffic situation as they do on who's working it . . . :)

Grizz

Boring?
 

Well, there was that day when I rolled into work for another boring day on Area to be confronted with 49 aircraft on frequency. This included a B747 who wanted 2 things on arrival in Brisbane. First a member of the Guinness Book of Records to record the fact that he had 673 passengers on board and thought it might be a new world record. Second he wanted as many cleaners as could be mustered to clean the plane on arrival due to the fact that the passengers were all women and babies and nobody had any nappies. At the same time I had an F27 with 29 pregnant ladies on board also inbound. "Er, ATC can you increase our POB to 30 we've just had our third birth on this flight". Then a Gulfstream taxies with urgent medical supplies wanting to be the only aircraft going the other way. So, I says to the tower, well the only level available is FL470 - and he took it.

Oh, did I mention this was due to Darwin being evacuated after Cyclone Tracy had wiped out most of the town?

Boring - er, NO!! :=

On the beach, taking the medicine

Grizzled

It was a little aerodrome called Archerfield which is the General Aviation airfield for Brisbane (or the secondary airport, as they used to call it). 9 runways reduced to 4 only now, you just can't get the staff these days. Used to be 09/27 L/C/R, 13/31 L/C/R and 04/22 L/C/R. And we used to do crosswind circuits on 13/31 one with the normal circuit traffic on 04/22 or 09/27. Contra-rotating, split level circuits. And no Fidos either just an ADC and an SMC (when he'd got back from his hour long runway inspection). Ah, those were the days!! Bit boring after 6pm though, when it got dark!!!

On the beach :cool:

Dicey
 

Frecosse plonk is made up of French gnats p*ss and Ecosse single malt. The two don't really mix, which is why I tend to go for the colonial plonk from Down Under and a nice Caol Ila. They mix quite well, in moderation!!
Not far from the Ice Station at the mo' but tied up with ankle-biters. Will be back up in May/June and maybe come up and see you.

On the beach :ok:

<<I remember long ago being told that ATC is 90% boredom, 10% terror!! >>

Nah.... it's the other way round!

Especially when you have to work with LATCC:p

Nothing to do
 

Ironically, one of the most stressful times in my long (some would say far too long) ATC career was the time I had absolutely nothing to do for an hour . . .
because I had locked myself out of the tower.

This was early on in my ATC days, when I was King of The World at a small regional airport in pleasant climes, and I was the ony one on duty. I finally got hold of the guy who was supposed to come in for evening shift and asked him to please come as soon as possible (okay, I pleaded like a dying man). A C-130, and a couple of C-172's were pretty understanding. A 737, and the ACC, were not.

Grizz

Lon, Is that why Maastricht like to hang on to traffic as long as possible then?:p Cos you thinks it's safer with you than us?