CATCHING UP: WHERE DO I BEGIN Got a subtle reminder from Joe at FMN Tower that it’s been too long since I posted here. He’s right, I’ve let you down and now must do the honorable thing. But instead of THAT, I’ll just post instead. As I wrote in November, these darn trainee’s are clogging up The Hole. No less than 3 radar trainee’s have been back there lately, puts a cramp on my time there.
TECHNOLOGY UPDATE Last year I wrote about URET, well, it’s here. The Hole will be the last sector to actually get the full benefit of it, but it’s coming. Here’s what it is: no more paper strips – instead a flat panel monitor has every airplane in or coming in to the sector. It also will tell you of possible aircraft or airspace conflictions. It has a ‘conflict probe’ to do this, it looks into the future with the known track and route, and figures in the wind and planned climbs and descents. Based on that it’ll give you a red, yellow, or blue (airspace) alert and show you graphically where the problem is. It also will suggest approved routings to particular airports, so you can get those earlier and maybe save some fuel by not making those drastic changes within 100 miles of your destination. This part is still a work in progress, as some of those routes are in error and will be fixed along the way. They say that this is the biggest change in ATC since flat lying screens and shrimpboats, or was it flags and wheelbarrows, I forget.
REIGN OF TERROR TO END Scotty is really going I guess. He’s counting the days to retirement. The Hole just won’t be the same, I see no suitable replacements in sight. But on the up side, MORE HOLE TIME FOR ME!
FMN CRASH GETS NATIONAL COVERAGE Imagine you’re a student pilot, you lose an engine, at night, and crash into a police station! And live! And for your troubles you get insulted on NBC by the Today Show’s Katie Couric. Well, it happened, and your faithful author gave Ms. Couric a piece of his mind, and then some. Not expecting a reply, was it the line “Read the news or sing a song and I may throw a dime in your cup, otherwise don’t overestimate the importance in the grand scheme of things of what you provide to the public.” ? Nah.