If aviation was music, then pilots would be the musicians as they fly the aircraft. Airspace regulators would be the composers drawing up airspace routes and procedures for the aircraft to use. Lastly, the air traffic controllers would be the conductors, making sure the aircraft are flying where they need to, and that everything fits together smoothly.
Is air traffic control a hard job then? Being an air traffic controller is hard in the sense that you need to know things like separation standards and airspace regulations, air law, aircraft performance characteristics, and sector information like frequencies, routes, and geographical points, only to name a few. However, it’s all subjective and, in the environment of air traffic control, no two hours, let alone two whole days, are the same.
As you see, many factors influence how the job is done, so what are they? Could anyone become an air traffic controller and learn the required skills? Let’s find out!
Table of Contents
What is an air traffic controller: What does an ATC do?
Air traffic control is the safe and expeditious flow of air traffic, and an air traffic controller is the arbiter of a piece of airspace who ensures both the safety and expeditious travel of aircraft flying in it.
Air traffic controllers have a list of priorities, not unlike pilots, that they adhere to. These are:
- Separate. The first priority is to separate the aircraft and ensure their safety. This is done visually, via the use of radar (and other technology like ADS-B!), or the use of aircraft position reports (and time estimates for future points).
- Coordinate. Controllers must also talk to other controllers to ensure aircraft remain separated after leaving one volume of airspace for another. Coordination is not simply relaying relevant aircraft position-related information, but also other important information that concerns the passage of an aircraft (weather, or restricted-use airspace for example).
- Communicate. Like a pilot, communication is the last priority, but it is absolutely essential for a controller to communicate effectively and in a timely manner to ensure separation is maintained, and the flow of traffic continues. Communication also entails the dissemination of essential information like weather, hazards, and relaying information from the aircraft as well.
Communications are done predominantly via VHF radio (though HF is still widely used in oceanic airspace for its far superior range and coverage), but as technology has developed so to have the means by which controllers and pilots can communicate, and tools like CPDLC have helped improve safety and efficiency with more prevalent use.
The different types of Air Traffic Control
There are effectively three different types of air traffic control, and controllers can either specialize in one or be licensed in several, depending on the location, traffic complexity, and country-specific regulations.
1.Tower Control
Tower control can be broken down further into three categories; ground control, local or air control, and clearance delivery (issuing aircraft their onward flight instructions).
Ground control handles the ground-based movements of aircraft at an airport, because tower control is not only responsible for traffic departing or landing on the runways; every pushback from the ramp, every taxiway movement, even other airport vehicles like inspection cars or fire and rescue trucks, shall communicate with tower controllers and obtain clearances for any airfield movements. Tower airspace is generally no more than 10 nautical miles (NM), or approximately 19km, and 5,000FT (approximately 1,500m) around and above the airport.
2.Approach/Terminal Control.
Approach control is the area immediately around and above a tower’s airspace, and deals with the departure and arrival phases of aircraft. Approach controllers at busy airports often have to sequence aircraft in an orderly fashion to ensure enough time between arrivals and to ensure they don’t conflict with departing traffic, while also handling diversions due to weather.
Approach is often considered one of the busiest ATC environments, not that it is always so clear-cut! Typically, an approach environment will handle traffic within a 30NM to 50NM ring around an airport, though again it varies greatly on each specific location.
If there is one thing worth mentioning now, it’s that ATC is not black and white.
3. Enroute/Area Control
Enroute controllers generally control aircraft during the cruise phase of flight. The sectors they work can vary in size greatly, depending on the complexity of the airspace and the volume of traffic. Some oceanic sectors can take several hours for an aircraft to cross, while busy radar sectors in the middle of Europe can take just minutes.
Enroute control can be easily split into two categories; radar and procedural (or non-radar). Radar is exactly what it says on the can; radar information is relayed onto a screen in front of a controller, and the displayed data is used to separate the aircraft.
Procedural airspace relies on the aircraft giving accurate information to controllers called position reports and position estimates. A mental picture can be created to approximate where the aircraft are based on these position updates, made normally via radio transmissions, so they can still be separated without knowing exactly where. Here, much greater separation standards are used to ensure separation.
What makes Air Traffic Control hard?
The amount of knowledge that must be studied during training, and recalled immediately, runs into the thousands upon thousands of pages. Air traffic controllers are required to know ATC procedures, especially separation standards and airspace regulations, air law, aircraft performance characteristics, and sector information like frequencies, routes, and geographical points.
That doesn’t even begin to cover things like their specific workstation, where knowing how to change radio station transmitters and receivers, emergency back-up equipment, and general system interaction must be learnt and mastered.
Air traffic controllers deal with constantly-varying scenarios every single day. While the callsigns might be familiar, or the flow of traffic departing an airport is more or less the same, it only takes a slight delay, or a weather diversion, to add complexity to a situation that the day before might have worked like clockwork. These are just a couple of the hundreds of variables an air traffic controller has to contend with while doing the job.
What special or unique skills Are required to be a good Air Traffic Controller?
There are two essential skills that are essential for an air traffic controller; spatial awareness (an ability and understanding to build a picture of objects and how they move and change positions, especially over time) and, just as importantly, the ability to work well under pressure.
While most people have a level of spatial awareness (for example, when driving a car and determining if a car pulling out does so with enough time to avoid an accident with oncoming traffic), radar air traffic controllers will build a three-dimensional picture in their heads of a traffic scenario from information presented two-dimensionally on their screen. Not only that, but this picture is changing every single second!
Procedural controllers, sometimes only using paper strips to present information on the aircraft flying through the sector, have an even more arduous task to try and visualize the relevant traffic’s position within a sector. Aircraft transmit their actual positions and give an estimate for the next one, allowing the controller to build up the picture of where each aircraft is and how to separate them with others at that time and in the future.
These examples above don’t even begin to consider the busy tower environments with the potential for busy traffic periods, multiple runways, or bad weather like fog or storms, to induce stress and headaches in even the most calm observer if they don’t know how to handle these situations.
Air traffic control doesn’t sound so hard to me… is it though?
Let’s, for example, look at just some of the separation standards an enroute air traffic controller is required to know.
Vertical Separation
Standard vertical separation required between aircraft is 1,000FT most (air traffic control regions still use feet and nautical miles, though a few countries use metres for altitude and kilometres laterally).
However, between Flight Level (FL) 290 and FL410 inclusive, Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) rules apply, so 1,000FT between aircraft can still be used, if the aircraft being separated are equipped with special altimeter and autopilot tools to fly in RVSM airspace.
2,000FT vertical separation shall be used if an aircraft is not RVSM-approved, or aircraft are flying above FL410.
If an aircraft is flying supersonic, 2,000FT or 3,000FT shall be used, depending on the region.
In areas of known severe turbulence, double the minimum vertical separation shall be applied because there’s the risk an aircraft cannot maintain its level. In certain emergency situations, half the applicable vertical separation standard may be applied. Are you still following?
Lateral Separation (Horizontal)
How about lateral separation then, when aircraft are at the same level?
In enroute radar airspace, 5NM (or approximately 9.5km) shall be used to separate aircraft, however if a small aircraft with a light wake turbulence category follows a large aircraft with a large wake turbulence category, 6NM shall be used.
However, in Approach and with the use of Primary Surveillance Radar, 3NM can be used.
Separation Standards
We haven’t even touched on the procedural separation standard some controllers are required to know, like 10 minutes longitudinally, or 15 minutes at the crossing point, 20NM DME or 30NM RNAV, and on it goes.
If you think you can recall all these separation standards, and more, while using them in the heat of the moment when there’s several tasks at hand, then perhaps you do have what it takes to consider a career in air traffic control.
How long does it take to train to become an air traffic controller?
An air traffic controller, after a lengthy selection process, can be trained and licensed in as little time as a year. Yet again, that varies greatly from country to country and depends on the many variables mentioned above; airspace, traffic, and system complexity.
18-24 months is a typical timeframe for a student to complete their academy, simulator, and on-the-job training.
What are air traffic controllers responsible for?
It’s not just the pressure to separate all the aircraft that controllers have to contend with on a daily basis. It is often joked about within the industry that an air traffic controller is responsible for more lives in a single shift than a surgeon is responsible for in an entire career.
While almost every air traffic controller will tell you they don’t look at each aircraft that way (thinking about the number of people on board), the simple fact is that each time a controller plugs in and takes charge of their sector, they take on the moral responsibility of ensuring every single person on every aircraft under their control has safe passage. The well-being of each crew member and passenger is in the hands of the respective air traffic controller.
There have been, unfortunately, a few incredibly-isolated incidents where air traffic controllers have been found to be responsible for causing an accident, though the ramifications for those individuals are massive, with the ultimate penalty being prison.
Air traffic controllers work every shift carrying this mental weight on their shoulders; if not always consciously thinking about it, they are at the very least aware that great power really does come with great responsibility.
Conclusion
In summary, air traffic control is a complex, ever-changing job that requires the individual to be studious, alert, and calm during high-stress situations. Scenarios are ever-changing so controllers must likewise be adaptable and able to work with flexibility to work efficiently, but still within the rules laid out by the airspace regulator.
It can be considered hard when looking from the outside, but from within it is just another profession whereby the workers manage literally thousands of aircraft movements each and every day, and then go home after a shift, often without giving it a second thought.
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