[rudebwoy]

VP - a flight attendant makes $23/hr to start working for Air Canada, I went to the open house in Toronto a few years back.

I say go for it, a friend of a friend ended up working in the Middle east for one of the airlines and earns a fortune.

[w00t]

You should read "Catch me if you can" from Frank Abagnale!

[foreman123]

(10-16-2012 07:28 PM)Checkmat Wrote:  

Since this thread is titled AVIATION/Becoming a Pilot, I'd just like to throw out there that a great alternative to being a pilot is being an air traffic controller. The pay is in the six-figures and beyond, you never work more than 8 hours per day, don't spend days/weeks away from home in hotels like pilots do and the job is rewarding as hell. You also do not need any college education at all to be a controller and I believe it's the highest paying job in the country you can get with no college. If anyone has any questions about ATC let me know.

This used to be true as of probably last year. I just graduated school to become an air traffic controller and the FAA has changed the rules that anybody wanting to apply has to attend a cti school and go that route. you also have to pass a competency test called the at-sat and if you dont get a well qualified which is above 85% your most likely not going to get hired.

Unfortunately as of now the system is a little bit over loaded. The FAA just sent me a letter 2 days ago saying that they werent going to hire anybody this panel (there is only 2 panels a year) because they have an excess amount of graduates and all the controllers ready to retire arent leaving as fast as they anticipated.

With all that aside atc is one of the best professions to get into. Before I started school they were saying that the hiring would be really high till at least about 2015 which still maybe true just to a lesser extent that was originally thought. once you are a controller you get an a 45min/1 hour break for every hour you work roughly so that your mind can be sharp and focused and if you work at a level 7 or above you will be making about 100k in less than 5 years.

Only other bad thing about atc is that getting the job requires you to go through many different obstacles and if you dont pass your out and pretty much wasted the last 2 years of college or whatever trying. If you dont pass the at-sat you get one more try the next year then your out. if you make it to the FAA academy you have to take two personally evaluations and if you dont make those your out too. and then if you make it too your facility you have a certain time period where they train you in and then evaluate you as you work traffic by yourself which you can also fail.

But yea being an air traffic controller is a great career if your not a dumbass and a generally smart person who is observant and can multi task

[RichieP]

foreman, awesome info!

Could you talk a little bit about what the ATC work is actually like? What are you actually physically doing, say you've got a few planes that want to land or something - what's your task? Are you in direct communication with all of them, or are you giving them directions electronically from a computer screen, etc? What sort of problems /challenges are you solving?

Would love to hear abit about what specifically you do on the job, and kinda "how it feels" if you catch my drift.

[foreman123]

well basically there are 3 different types of air traffic control places.

First you have the tower which is what you see at the airport next to the runway.

You are up in the tower and you have a headset on and a radar screen in front of you with a map of the runways and few miles out. Aircraft are separated in a way that they arrive to an airport in increments. you can see this if you watch planes coming into land they are normally a few minutes behind each other. when your in the tower you are talking to each aircraft and giving them direction to slow down, speed up, descend or climb to a certain altitude to maintain the proper separation. Most of the time as a tower controller the planes are already separated and all you do is give them a clearance to land. You are also at the same time giving other pilots a clearance to take off. In the tower there are 3-4 different positions that you rotate in and out of after each break. The Local controller works landings and departures, The ground controller directs aircraft from the gate to the runway and then hands the aircraft off to the local controller, and the other two are clearance delivery and sometimes local assist.

The second type of air traffic control you can work is the approach control or some places have what they call Tracon.

this is at the bottom of the control tower and if basically handles traffic that is say 30 miles out from the airport. so they get aircraft handed off from the enroute/center and then give them directions to maintain proper separation as they get closer to the airport. then they hand them off to the tower controller who proceeds to land them. they also take aircraft from the tower controller and separate them until the fly out of their airspace probably around 30miles from the airport then hand them off to the enroute/center controller. these people sit in a dark room and just monitor a radar scope while talking to the aircraft.

The last type is the enroute/center.

They handle aircraft while they are in between airports. Its much like the approach control or Tracon but they handle a much wider distance. The atmosphere is pretty much the same as they are sitting in a dark room monitoring a radar scope and talking to aircraft and you cannot see any aircraft.

I myself prefer the tower because you have a great view. The centers are darker and working traffic is much like a weird version of Tetris. You constantly have planes coming in and you need to make sure they get to the airport/runway with proper separation. Certain periods become very busy which is where controllers make their money because they need to be focused and on point. This is why you get such long and frequent breaks. Another downside to the center is that there are far fewer centers as they generally cover 3 to 4 states so your choices of where you want to work are reduced greatly.

So to answer you questions more directly you are giving commands to pilots verbally while monitoring a radar screen or visually looking at the plane on the ground. The problems you are solving is how to get planes in and out of the airport in the most efficient way while maintaining the proper separation and safety.

[Technics]

foreman123,

That was a hell of an informative post. I don't have any interest in traffic-control, but I found what you wrote fascinating just for general knowledge/curiosity's sake.

[RichieP]

Thanks alot foreman. Really interesting to hear about. Amazing what kinds of jobs are out there!

[w00t]

There is some homepages that let you play this flight simulator that the controllers work aswell.
Google it if youre interested.

My ex-gfs brother was training to become a flight control guy but he gave up eventually. The pay was very high but it was too stressfull for him.

[Checkmat]

They also still take DOD and military controllers. That's how I got picked up last year on the VRA bid. Headed to the academy in a few weeks.

For a young, single guy, I would put the Air Force ATC up as a GREAT opportunity. There were times in ATC tech school that I thought to myself, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this." Not only will they pay you and train you to become a controller, but once you do your first enlistment you can bounce away to the FAA with six-figures like foreman said or re-up with the military for a fat $50,000 re-enlistment bonus. I turned the bonus down (it was closer to $90k when I separated) in favor getting with the FAA. Stuckmic.com is a great web resource for more info on getting hired as a controller.

[foreman123]

Thanks guys.. yea if you want to know more just ask me or check up on stuckmic.com that place is amazing for information. Like wOOT said playing those games is really fun too to and they are mentally challenging sometimes. I know my iphone has one called flight control that is really fun.

[elabayarde]

yeah the shitpay, and terrible conditions is only an American Phenomena. Flying other countries pays well and the pilots havent been whored out by business interest.

[lush1]

I know its heinously expensive without sponsorship to get the required flying hours needed to be an airline pilot. Bloke I work with got his license all paid for by his dad, however his dads business went tits up and now he cant afford to get enough hours to get a job, I really feel sorry for him.

My landlord is the most interesting bloke I know; he used to be a pilot for British Airways and now has own private jet that he uses to fly celebrities around on tour. He says Ali G is a top bloke and Justin Timberlake is an absolute cock, for what its worth. He also flies russian gangsters around and gets paid silly amounts of money. Its quite literally danger money though because a lot of them have prices on their head and a well aimed SAM would be an effective way of doping the job on them.

I'm 32 now and its my ambition to get my license by the time I'm 40. I will do it in Nevada where you can do it in an intensive course relatively cheaply. I just want to do it for fun but my dream is to one day fly for a living, absolutely anything would do.

From as young as I can remember I used to pretend I was flying a plane whilst sat on the shitter. embarrassingly I still do it now sometimes...