Someone asked me about my 'college' so here it is..

[Mike CHS]

The majority of my career was on carriers where it often seems they have to write up X number of awards and they often award the mundane. I got my share but the only one that really means a lot to me was when I was TDY with the FAA after the President fired a bunch of Air Traffic Controllers. I had a "deal" with several flights of solo student pilots who found themselves in near instrument conditions and unable to find some place to land. I broke about every rule in the book getting those students on the ground and the FAA watch supervisor had no choice but to right me up with about 3 pages of flight violations. The Navy in turn awarded me the Navy Commendation Medal for the same thing set of events.

 

[greybeard]

They do seem at times, to do things in the strangest of ways Mike, tho it sounds like you way more than earned the Navy Commendation with getting the students down safely.
One thing we all know, is with alphabet federal agencies, it only takes one oh poop! to offset a dozen attaboys.

I remember when Reagan fired the ATCs over a threat to strike and replaced them for awhile with new people and military controllers.
I watch/listened to quite a few of Kennedy Steve ATC youtubes (he's ground control). He is/was a hoot to listen to...I think he's now retired.

That's a job I could not do under any circumstances.
How difficult was it to step in and replace the FAA controllers?

If you have any more sea stories, anecdotes or military things to add here, please feel free to do so. Once I click 'submit' on anything (thread or post) it belongs to the community to lead where ever it goes.

 

[Mike CHS]

T

That's a job I could not do under any circumstances.
How difficult was it to step in and replace the FAA controllers?

That TDY time was actually the easiest two years I had in my career. I don't remember the personnel numbers but there were 8 military controllers sent to Pensacola TRACON to augment the loss of over half of their personnel (around 40 people). While we were training, they used really extended separation standards but we were working within a couple of weeks and all but one of us qualified in less than two months. The average training time for FAA controllers at that facility was well over a year for basic quals. All of the military controllers had a lot of sea time and we were all attached to flight training commands so the pace of the enroute sectors were slow compared to what we were used to. The airspace at Pensacola is huge and included all of the enroute traffic between Atlanta and Houston Centers at the time but since we all came from Navy training commands within Pensacola's sector, we already knew the airspace.

 

[greybeard]

Was the equipment at least similar to what you were used to?
Anything like a DASC/ASRT?

 

[Mike CHS]

We all had the same equipment. It was ARTS III back then but we still had NTDS on the ships. That is one of the few smart things the government has done. They have a joint program where all of the entities that does ATC military/civilian are all tied together as far as procurement (that is called NASMOD or National Airspace Modernization). The government agency that I retired as a contractor from was the cog for that.

 

[greybeard]

We all had the same equipment. It was ARTS III back then but we still had NTDS on the ships.

The USMC version...MTDS was on Monkey Mtn up above Danang, but out on a peninsula. I remember listening in on the intercom to Danang DASC and the ASRT that kept track of everyone. There was another DASC down at Chu Lai and several ASRTs. One was on a hill not far from our base, one was at FSB Vandergrift (LZ Stud) and others scattered around the major valleys.

I've heard the comms between the fixed wing and Vandy call 'Mark Mark' but wasn't at that time, sure what they were referring to. We resupplied the ASRT locations frequently.
There was another communication network that was called 'clear skies' or 'safe skies' that kept us from unknowingly flying into an in-progress artillery fire mission. I know of 2 instances during earlier part of the war, where aircraft had the pure bad luck of being hit by 105mm rounds as they arced across the Ashau valley.

 

[Bruce]

That's a job I could not do under any circumstances.

Me either!

Thanks for the posts guys.