An Air Traffic Controller Tells All: Overtime Rules, Flight Delays, and the Beijing Skyscraper Crash

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Tom (0:30): Engine spooled. Checklist complete. Welcome to the Black Box Aviation podcast, where the stories behind the headlines get unpacked by the people who actually fly the damn plane. Hosted by Tom, a former military pilot turned airline and cargo. And Mike, a lifelong civilian flyer now flying left seat as an airline captain.

Tom (0:50): It's aviation news, insider insight, and real pilot perspective. Strap in.

Unknown Speaker (0:57): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Black Box Aviation podcast. I'm one of your co hosts, Tom. I'm joined by mum mum Mike. Mike, what's happening, sir?

Unknown Speaker (1:07): What's up, Tom? How are doing, man?

Mike (1:08): Hey, dude. We are super pumped and psyched to welcome back Ian. How are you doing, Ian? You are our resident air traffic controller. So how are you, sir?

Unknown Speaker (1:18): Good. Tom, Mike, thanks for having me back on. Appreciate

Unknown Speaker (1:20): you, Happy

Unknown Speaker (1:21): to have you.

Mike (1:22): Yeah. Your last appearance was September 2025. Do you remember back that far?

Unknown Speaker (1:28): I do. Yeah, it's been a while. But yeah,

Mike (1:30): I don't. I don't remember anything that happened back then. Actually, I read to this guy at the training center, and he retired. And now he's working for, the company as like a sim instructor contractor. It's crazy what he's doing.

Mike (1:44): But I was like, what are you doing here? And he's like, remember when we flew last August? I was like, nope, don't remember that at all. I kinda remember you, but August, that's a whole different world. No.

Mike (1:55): We are super happy that you came back. It is a bit of a struggle between the three of us trying to get a time to figure out, you know, when we could all get together and make it happen. But we did that. And we talked about actually, we're supposed to have you on a couple weeks ago, and it just didn't work out. And I'm still in training, as you can see by the crash pad.

Mike (2:15): There's Wilson. Wilson's hanging out with us. And like we talked about earlier, it is always possible that someone could join us as a bonus guest. So Ian, you could be not the only guest today. You never know.

Unknown Speaker (2:28): Alright.

Mike (2:28): But anyway, so let's just do a quick recap of your background, kind of how you get into air traffic trolling. We've done this before in the September show, so you can go back and list. But like real quick, just take us back and how you started getting involved in in aviation. And and we have a connection as well. So you can you can mention that too if you want to, Ian.

Unknown Speaker (2:46): Yeah. So I started in the Air Force as a flight engineer on c fives. Did that for, like, ten years, and the goal was to be a commercial pilot. But then talking to the guys, it was kinda during the time where they weren't really hiring a lot of pilots, and so you worked for, like, a regional. Life wasn't great, so some of the guys mentioned air traffic control, and there happened to be a college near where I lived that had air traffic control as a college program.

Unknown Speaker (3:13): So I joined that, did that for almost four years, and then got hired by the FAA as a controller.

Mike (3:18): That's pretty cool that you were able to kind of just stay in the aviation field because at least you knew that. You always knew you wanted to be in aviation to some degree. Would you agree with that?

Unknown Speaker (3:26): Yeah, think so. It always was interesting, just kinda, you know, something that looked interesting to me that I kinda wanted to do when I got older. So

Unknown Speaker (3:35): That's good. Did you grow up did you grow up near an airport or anything like that?

Unknown Speaker (3:39): When I was younger, my parents would take us to Logan in Boston and kinda watch the airplanes take off and land. I just So go to kind of start at night.

Mike (3:46): That's cool. You just go go and play plane watch. My brother does that with my nephew and I grew up in, Windsor Lock, Connecticut, which is right on the approach zone from Hartford, Bradley. Like I literally would stand out there, sit in the backyard with like a tell I had we had this old crappy telescope that my uncle gave us and I would look through that to like spot the planes like tails and stuff. So I know what that's like, that's kind of totally how you get into like, you know, aviation and how it builds and what it is.

Mike (4:14): So this is I wanna ask you about this. So you were supposed to come on the show a couple weeks ago, and you got called out for overtime. Now how does that work? Like, how do you get called out for overtime? Is, like, is it all the time?

Unknown Speaker (4:28): So that day, they actually do they asked me to stay longer. So my shift is eight hours, and they asked me to stay for two hours longer to cover the overtime. But they typically will call you on your days off and so you can then cover a shift, or they'll schedule you ahead of time. So what one of your days off, you'll be scheduled.

Unknown Speaker (4:44): I mean, do you look forward to that? Is it, like, good to pick up overtime and things like that, or you don't want anything to do with that?

Unknown Speaker (4:50): For me, no. My wife also works full time, so we're kinda dual income. So but money isn't that much of a motivating factor for me. It's nice, but I'd like having my days off. But there are some guys that

Unknown Speaker (5:02): I can see that. I mean, that's a pilot thing. It's like everybody's going for the money grab. That's that's like what we do. Can't get it out

Unknown Speaker (5:08): the pilots, man.

Unknown Speaker (5:09): That's totally a fact. Yeah. Hey, today's the first day of our new contract, the twenty ninth. So I don't know what I'm doing here. I should go out and pick out some overtime, man.

Unknown Speaker (5:17): We can make some money.

Unknown Speaker (5:18): You go buy

Unknown Speaker (5:18): a new BMW.

Mike (5:20): Heck, yeah. That's what I gotta do. I got three drivers now or four drivers in the house. I gotta get another car. How many hours could you work in a week?

Mike (5:30): Are you capped at a certain amount before they say, hey. You you're done, man.

Unknown Speaker (5:34): Yeah. So you can only work ten hours per day, the max, and then you can only work six days in a row. So you need to have one day off every week. It used to be they could schedule you nonvoluntary overtime every week. So you'd be working six day weeks just on end.

Unknown Speaker (5:49): But they changed the rules like a year ago, and now they can only schedule you three in a row. So you have to have one week where you have two days off per month. So some of the shorter staff facilities like, started my career on the West Coast, and our staffing was pretty bad, and you'd be scheduled in overtime every week. So six day work weeks is tough.

Mike (6:08): Yeah. I don't know if you saw this, but Ed Bashan, he's the CEO of Delta Airlines. He was talking about how their balance sheet is like a fortress balance sheet. That's what he said. Now, look.

Mike (6:18): And I've I sat in Ed's birthday scenario. Welcome aboard. Get your Delta propaganda day when I got hired there and they told us, you know, Ed would save the day and no one here had to worry. This was two days before COVID ended the world. So I take everything that Ed says with a grain of salt and I think, but he probably should in the aviation industry at the same time as well.

Mike (6:41): But Ed said that the biggest reason for airline tickets minus the fuel is really a lot of the air traffic control shortages and delays. What do you think about him putting that on you guys? Does that make you upset when you hear, like, you know, a major CEO talking like that?

Unknown Speaker (7:01): Well, I think we've had staffing challenges for, I don't know, the past twenty, twenty five years. I think they've made some strides to try to fix it, but it really hasn't had a big impact. It's been kind of the same thing year in, year out, where our staffing's just not great. So I think kind of bringing attention to the issue is helpful, so, yeah, that's kinda like, if hire

Ian (7:24): if someone was to get hired today, how long until they actually go through training and get into the system? So, I mean, it takes a while for any kind of new, you know, implementation to to take take take root, I guess. Right?

Unknown Speaker (7:36): Yeah. Takes a long time. So even the hiring process itself, once you get offered a job, there's, like, you have to go through your medical background or background check and your medical check. It takes a long time. Then they have to schedule you for the academy.

Unknown Speaker (7:49): Then the academy's anywhere from a month and a half to three months, depending on which track you go, if you go tower or en route. And then once you get to your facility, it's anywhere from a year for, like, a smaller tower to three to four years if you go to a center.

Unknown Speaker (8:04): So Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (8:05): You're looking at two years to five years to get someone certified.

Ian (8:09): Yeah. So anything anything they're trying to implement now is gonna be five years down the road before we really see it, and that's if nobody else is retiring.

Unknown Speaker (8:17): Right. And then you gotta factor in the guys that get hired, make it, you know, halfway through the process, and then fall out. They kinda took a spot for somebody that could have maybe got through.

Unknown Speaker (8:25): That's what Gunny would always tell us. There's somebody else take your place. Get up. Get up here down. Do do what I told you.

Mike (8:30): I was like, you're right, Gunny. Someone will take my place. Mike, I don't know if you what you think, but, I mean, I remember in 2223, when you fly like through the Florida corridors, it would be a lot of bottleneck there. And there'd be a lot of you could hear the stress and the controllers voices like jack center. Have a

Unknown Speaker (8:50): lot of that is the weather and then they have the military's airspace there off the coast that that even though when it's not being used, it's still active, you know, if they would just open that up when it's not being used, it'd probably give these guys some relief.

Unknown Speaker (9:03): Stupid military.

Unknown Speaker (9:05): The same.

Mike (9:05): What what do you might have you seen it got easing up a bit through there? What's what's your anecdotal experience? Same.

Unknown Speaker (9:13): I mean, it's almost sometimes I feel like

Unknown Speaker (9:15): it's

Ian (9:15): gotten I don't know. Some days it's worse, but I think it's all the Florida weather. Once it starts bottlenecking, you know, then you start getting spacing all the way up, you know, New York, you know, you're getting spacing for Orlando. You know, it's kinda which seems crazy, but, you know, they're trying to balance it out with Washington and everything else. And then you may get the Jacks, and they'll have a reroute or something.

Ian (9:34): But the Florida and the weather in Florida, so it changes by the hour, you know, so it's hard to probably for these guys to come up with a plan.

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Unknown Speaker (10:21): Mike, let's jump off the grill and Ian here off the door. And we're gonna come back to you and we're gonna we're gonna

Unknown Speaker (10:27): set you

Mike (10:27): up again for some more, some more doozy. But let's talk about stories from the road here. I'm down here in training, and I'm still rocking the schoolhouse. I had a checkride last week with the maneuvers validation. You have are do you do validations?

Unknown Speaker (10:43): Or you what do you qualify for? Because you

Unknown Speaker (10:46): teach I just teach everything. I don't do any of the valuation stuff.

Mike (10:49): Do you feel weird like, with your students that are coming up to, like, the MB checkride? Are you, like, oh, man. I hope they I don't know if these guys are ready. I gotta send them. Like, what's your thought process on that when you send guys?

Unknown Speaker (11:01): I mean, I've for the

Ian (11:03): five years I've been in the schoolhouse, I've only had, like, one or two that I was, about. Most of them are pretty solid by the time, you know, they get to us. So What do you

Mike (11:12): think too in the maneuvers validation? Like, because there's other aspects to it. Like, we had to do a VFR pattern. We had to do, like, a reject. Like, what's the I I to me, I think that I'm gonna at first, I'll ask you.

Mike (11:25): What do you think is the biggest focus point on the maneuvers validation as far as Yeah.

Ian (11:31): Engine failures, engine fire type stuff, and then single engine approaches, things like that.

Unknown Speaker (11:37): I have to agree.

Unknown Speaker (11:38): Single engine ILS down to minimums,

Unknown Speaker (11:39): you know, right. That and that's what you're gonna do, right? Like, you're gonna have to do that a thousand percent.

Unknown Speaker (11:44): I mean, if you may have to do in real life. So I mean, you gotta be able do it.

Mike (11:48): You gotta prove that you can do that in the simulator. That's the biggest thing. So, like, I I I don't know in my training here that they they seem to hire upon, like, things that were just totally, like, VFR pattern. We can fly a VFR pattern in a triple seven. Like, is that gonna happen?

Unknown Speaker (12:05): Hey, a midfield looks call the gear. Give me a left base. Like, no. It's not gonna happen. But I bet there's

Unknown Speaker (12:10): a lot of one twenty one pilots that can't do that anymore because we're so used to being, like, having someone like Ian give us a vector and a speed that when we have to do it on our own, we're clueless.

Mike (12:21): Ian, this is company twenty four needle needle left traffic to anyways. Hey. Well, actually, you know what was really good is is Ian, you probably did this in the c five is is we were both in the same squadron at Westover on C fives. I would fly like maybe like once once a week. Or if you wanted to, you could fly twice a week in the in the local, you could fly the local flight and we fly I hand fly that that jet for if I if it was only me and the other guy fly for two hours, I'd hand fly the airplane and you just get good like it is a skill like I've said it before here flying is a skill and you can lose it.

Mike (12:56): You fly a triple seven for fifteen years and you don't take the autopilot off for I mean, maybe fly like a minute with the autopilot off, like you could struggle. Like, that's a really

Ian (13:07): flight instructor flight instructor in, like, general aviation had us, like, I think it was, a Northwest seven forty seven captain come in. He just wanted to get, like, a lesson. He hadn't flown general aviation. He was terrible. Like, we went out to do steep turns.

Unknown Speaker (13:18): He couldn't keep it within like 300 feet. We're just terrible. Now I can't, you know, I'm not making fun of him. If I went and did it today, I'd probably be just as bad, you know.

Unknown Speaker (13:26): And what's crazy too, Mike, is if you did steep turn, I used to laugh in the Airbus. Like I wasn't unify that long. But you do a steep turn in the Airbus. Once you set the angle of bank in the pitch You can

Unknown Speaker (13:36): do it with two fingers and just Yeah. Hold it right there.

Unknown Speaker (13:39): The jets like, okay, this is what you want. This is what we're gonna do. It's fly by wire. There's no there's nothing there like

Unknown Speaker (13:45): Like trim wheel. What's that? You know? Yeah. Well, you get

Mike (13:48): a handful of c five and the hydraulic system's like,

Unknown Speaker (13:50): we're losing pressure. So,

Mike (13:57): actually, I was talking about to Jovan. Jovan's going through seven five captain school right now, and his sim partner is another seven five guy going to upgrade. He was a c five engineer and pilot, I think at Dover. This is a while ago. He's an older guy.

Mike (14:11): But and I was talking to him in about how because Jay was talking about something with systems and the guy's got a story for everything. I was like, Oh, yeah, he does. Like, he's got a story for everything. He's telling them to like how the c five engineers are just brutal to one another, especially in the upgrade process. Like, that's no fun, man.

Mike (14:28): If you were like, Hey, man, you can go back to survival in prison camp school or go to c five school. I was like, I'll take the prison camp.

Unknown Speaker (14:36): Yeah, yeah, it's lot of awful, man.

Mike (14:38): Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, there's a lot of what do you call it with Anyways, but back in the schoolhouse, I'm starting to be done with with this man. I've had enough of these guys telling me, like, what I'm doing wrong and how I I'm like, I I can't take it anymore. But did

Ian (14:55): you have instructors, like, every day? So you do something one way, and then the next day, another guy tells you it's wrong or something?

Mike (15:00): It's kinda been like that. I'd say we haven't had the best continuity. So, yeah, there's been a lot of that. Then Tough. Like I say, I was telling you the other day, we had a lot of, like, instructors under training.

Unknown Speaker (15:11): So there's another guy watching that guy. And then now you get two opinions. And I'm like And even though even though,

Ian (15:16): you know, he's watching the instructor, not you. It's still like this. Yeah, I know.

Unknown Speaker (15:22): Yeah. He's watching you. And he's telling you always, while you're doing like this, I'm like, great. Another thing to do. Ian, do you ever feel that way at ATC school?

Unknown Speaker (15:29): Mean, you've had guys looking over your shoulder, like, you were you're like, I've had enough of this training environment.

Unknown Speaker (15:33): Yeah. A 100%. I think our training process is it's definitely the worst part of the career field. You have usually between two and three different instructors that'll teach you when you're going through your OJT training, and it's two, two and a half years long. So for two and a half years, you just have somebody over your shoulder saying, I would've done it this way.

Unknown Speaker (15:53): You did this wrong. And they really sometimes nitpick on the small stuff, which is important, but, you know, two years of that, you're like, oh, come on, man. I knew that the phraseology was off a little bit, but the pilot understood type thing. So it's definitely a grueling process.

Unknown Speaker (16:06): God, could you imagine if we had to use proper phraseology? I mean, I know we're supposed to, but if they, like, grilled us in training about it, it'd be brutal.

Unknown Speaker (16:12): They just were talking about it. Like, I was seeing ground spoilers the other day, and the guy's like, it's spoilers deployed. I'm like, everybody got the message. They you knew it was ground spoilers. And then they I mean, are there

Unknown Speaker (16:22): are things that we have to say that are like, has to be a 100% this verbiage, but they've lacked they've gotten a little lax on that the last couple years. Like, they've shortened that list, if that makes sense. So Yeah. And then

Mike (16:33): they were talking about an international school. We're starting to go into that. We're like, the Chinese controllers understand, like, about 25 or 30 English words. Like, if you say something like, they were starting down right now, like, they don't get that. Like, he'd be like, what happened?

Mike (16:50): I don't I don't understand. Like, you have to be very specific, especially with the the Chinese control. I diverted one time. We were going from Osaka to Beijing, and this is during COVID. We had an engine throw a a FADEC fault at us.

Mike (17:03): And I was like, dude, if we go to Beijing, and they don't have that part, and we're hard down, I'm like, we're not leaving. Like, it's gonna be a big problem. We're gonna go to like Beijing COVID prison camp. And we don't want that. I'm like, we need to divert back somewhere.

Unknown Speaker (17:17): That's not China. And he he didn't get it. He was like, No, he's like, I

Unknown Speaker (17:21): think they

Mike (17:21): can fix it. I'm like, get on the cell phone and call maintenance. We need to figure this out. And we started talking to him. And then maintenance was like, Oh, yeah, that's bad.

Mike (17:30): Then he started going down the road be like, Well, maybe I'm like, No, maybe he's like, you are in at your desk in wherever you're at in operations, and I am over mainly in China right now. You, we're not doing this. We're going back. So we diverted back to Osaka. But talking to the Chinese controllers about something, they didn't understand why we stopped the progression to Beijing.

Mike (17:50): Like, Why? Why are you stopping? Like, what is the problem? And they're like, are you emergency? And then you don't want to declare an emergency either.

Mike (17:56): That's bad, bad news over there unless you got a real problem. You you you hold that card as long as you can. So and they don't get, like, priority handling. They just don't understand that language, so you have to be real careful what you say to them, very specific of where you wanna go, what you wanna do. So a totally different world.

Mike (18:13): Mike, you let's jump into yours. We're just talking about stories of road from from this segment of the show, which I'm stumbling all over. Mike, you got called out on reserve. You've been sitting reserve. It's not not having the best of times.

Mike (18:25): But Yeah.

Ian (18:26): It wasn't bad. Was just a punta kind of turn, but it's a 04:30AM call, you know, for a 7AM show. So you're you're getting woken up earlier than you wanted to. I mean, it's just the reserve lifestyle, but it wasn't bad. I was home by 02:00, you know, so it's not it's not the end of the world.

Unknown Speaker (18:40): But I usually don't sleep good on those nights. Some guys, doesn't bother. But if I know I'm on call, like, at an early time, I have a hard time sleeping. You know?

Mike (18:49): I would agree. Like, sometimes you'd be, like, on edge, especially if you look at open time, you're like, I'm gonna get that trip. And that's the thing that laying

Unknown Speaker (18:55): in bed constantly looking at open time. Is there a trip? Okay. I can go to sleep. Is there a trip?

Unknown Speaker (18:59): Okay. And once once you look at it and you see it, you're like, oh, my God. Now I'm done. Yep. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (19:04): And that's kind of how this went down.

Mike (19:08): Oh, I know I was gonna say too is like, I'm bummed out because I've been here in the crash pad for two days. I didn't go home because of the nonsense I had last week, my jump seats trying to go back and forth commuting. So if you didn't hear that show, go back to listen to last week. But it was it was crazy. The airports were crazy last week.

Mike (19:23): I didn't even try it because I was looking at flights coming back today, and it was like, why even try? Ian, have you been traveling at all? Are you have you been part of the traveling public fun?

Unknown Speaker (19:33): No. I haven't. My wife actually she did a big trip out to Nepal. She had a little bit of difficulties getting back because of the airspace closures out there. So that's kind of the only experience I've witnessed firsthand with traveling recently.

Mike (19:47): I was hoping you had some good story. Mean, that's a huge trip going to Nepal. That's not an easy Chicago to Hartford leg. So but Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (19:57): And that's that area is totally mixed up right now, and they're trying to figure out of you know, because all Iranian airspace is shut down. You still have Ukraine and Crimea shut down. Like, there's some serious bottlenecks over there, And it's not there's no easy way to sort that out. Do you ever notice, like, I I mean, for us Monday, like, it seems like that's, like, the hot day right now as far as travelers go. Wouldn't that make sense?

Mike (20:21): Like, people are going where they gotta go. Do you ever see, like, when you're controlling, like, is there a certain day or time where you're like, ugh, this is gonna be, like, con super congestion? Do you ever notice that?

Unknown Speaker (20:33): Usually, Sunday nights for us gets pretty busy. It just slowly ramps up and then by the you know, 07:00 at night, it's just really busy. That's kind of the most common one for us.

Mike (20:44): Do you get, like, a sheet that, like, before you check-in at work that says, like, hey. This is the volume you expect today. Like, these these are the flights that probably go through your sector. Is it more like you just start taking taking it and doing what you gotta do?

Unknown Speaker (20:55): We have, like, a big flat screen TV up on the wall, and I think it projects out two hours, two and a half hours of, like, the projected traffic through the sector. So then we also have, like, a TMU, a traffic management unit. It's, like, kind of a their own separate unit in the building that looks at traffic and kinda monitors flow time and units. So they try to manage the flow going out the sector, but sometimes it just, you know, weather pops up and people are all rerouted and it's been overloaded.

Mike (21:20): That's pretty interesting. I was, like, trying to see how, like I think you always look at, like, who's gonna who's got the rush hour or, like, whatever. But I was like, you know, we get on the highway and stuff like that. Kinda figured this much. But Sunday night, I guess that makes sense too.

Mike (21:33): Because that's kind of like the end of the week where everybody's going where they got to go. Although you think the airlines would try to meter that because you they have a schedule like that's not like it changed last night or something like that, you know. So that's interesting. I was have you ever been, like, in traveling as a passenger and, like, you see a delay come up and you're like, are you kidding me right now? Like, like, you like, how are they not sorting this out?

Unknown Speaker (21:58): No. Not recently.

Unknown Speaker (21:59): No. I kind of expected

Unknown Speaker (22:01): you know, I kind of see kind of how the system works in the background. So whenever there's, a delay, I'm like, that'll be you know, something going on.

Unknown Speaker (22:07): Can you do, like, log in to it, like, a app? Or you're like, as we look at ATC delays, like, I look at that all the time. Do you just kinda use the same stuff that we do, like, as a traveler?

Unknown Speaker (22:16): Yeah. I mean, usually, when I'm traveling, I kinda just keep it low key. So I just look at what the airline tells me and just kinda go based on that. I don't get too too into it. But if there's, like, a big delay, come out of the facility, I know people that work there.

Unknown Speaker (22:28): I'll maybe text somebody and say, hey. What's going on today type thing?

Unknown Speaker (22:31): Alright. I mean, that makes sense because I I, like, I talk to Delta buddies and stuff like that. Like, I'll I'll talk to Mike and

Unknown Speaker (22:35): be like, what's going on

Mike (22:36): with this or that today? Just to see what's going on. So it makes sense that you'd reach out to people to see what, you know, what's happening out there. Let's jump into the the meat and potato stuff that I got cooking over here. The big thing that I wanted to talk to you about, and I I think this incident had happened because the DCA crash over the Potomac, that happened in 2015.

Unknown Speaker (23:03): I think it was February. Is that right? February or March?

Unknown Speaker (23:05): You're talking

Unknown Speaker (23:05): about 2025. 2025. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (23:07): Yeah. So we had talked about that. You missed it by a decade there.

Unknown Speaker (23:11): What did I say? 2015? Sorry about that. I mean, I I don't I don't even know.

Unknown Speaker (23:16): But it had happened. When we talked to Ian last time.

Unknown Speaker (23:18): Is that

Mike (23:19): what I said? Yeah. And I don't think we got into it too much, but, you know, all the NTSB kind of stuff came out of this, and it pretty much came there. And there's multiple factors. We talked about this on the show as well where there was altimeter altimeter issues, radar altimeters with the pad two five and the helicopter.

Mike (23:34): And then I think when it and then TCAS inhibited and stuff like that on the American flight as well. But a big thing that's kind of come through this and and and this is kind of like an interesting thing that I've learned too is that the NTSB and the FAA, while they're both government organizations, they're not exactly like a 100% in sync with each other now. And then I've talked about this as well too in government, like there's different buckets of funding. So if the NTSB says, hey, we need this new equipment, it's not like the FAA is like, yeah, of course, now let's just do it like this. There's a whole bureau bureau bureaucratic process that has to happen, you know, for those things to line up.

Mike (24:12): Now the NTSB out of this did recommend what's called ADS B in. So you guys have ADS B out on all your pictures. And I don't if you want to kind of talk about what that means, Ian, as far as what you see on your scope when you see a flight. Some people think, you know, back to space balls with the guys going. See like the the little dot on your green scope.

Mike (24:36): But this tell us what you see on your scope as far as, like, data points and where people are going and, like, I don't know, whatever you can paint a picture.

Unknown Speaker (24:46): So, like, on the radar scope, you'll have the target, which is, the radar return from the airplane. If they have ADS B, then that is also the same return that you get from the radar. If it has a flight plan attached to it, you'll have a call sign that's called a data block. It'll have a call sign, the altitude, their destination, their speed, and they'll have, like, a three digit computer ID number that you use to hook, like, inputs in the computer. If it's just a target out there flying around that's not paired with a flight plan, you'll just see, a target out there that has no information with it, just kinda moving across the scope.

Unknown Speaker (25:24): So that's kinda what we see. With the ADS B, we're able to use three miles of separation below 23,000 or 23,000 feet and below, which is helpful for us because it's a little more accurate of where the airplane is. So that's kind of a big difference we see with the ADS B stuff. So that's typically what we see on the radar scope. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (25:43): It's a data block in the beacon target.

Unknown Speaker (25:45): And you can see all the flight numbers and all that stuff too, right? All that data?

Unknown Speaker (25:49): Yeah. So we have another separate computer screen kinda next to the radar scope that has the full flight plan, you know, type aircraft equipment that they have and all that information is kind of next to you.

Mike (26:02): Yeah. Because you got to know, hey, this guy can only go this high or this fast. Not that you have to know all those specs, but you kind of know some of the differences of what you probably see the same airplanes every day anyways. But what's the CNS filing codes? Right?

Ian (26:16): That's kind of what you're getting at with the different equipment and things like that. Like, do they

Unknown Speaker (26:20): have to do

Unknown Speaker (26:21): they have CPDLC? Do they have or they, you know, whatever, All the different stuff.

Unknown Speaker (26:27): Yep. And then when it gets really busy, we actually we have someone that'll staff that position. It's a radar associate position. We call it a d side. They sit next to the radar controller, and they kinda manage, make sure everyone's on the correct flight flight plan for the airport they're going into and kinda does some of the coordination stuff with the surrounding sectors.

Mike (26:45): And see, the the other side of that is, like, inside the airplane, like, we can't see that. So all we see is our TCAS stuff, And I can see other airplanes, but it's because their equipment is telling our airplane something and our airplane is telling something back to them. So I can see it. Now if you go on to like your flight, what is it? What are those apps called?

Unknown Speaker (27:06): Flight info?

Unknown Speaker (27:07): Flight radar.

Mike (27:08): Yeah. That's like a pretty much is that like a repeater of, like, what you see on your your data scope, Ian?

Unknown Speaker (27:16): They I think they pull all the ADS B data from the airplanes that have ADS B, and so they have that information. I think they build a a delay into it or why, but they have a delay built into it. But, yeah, it's pretty accurate to what we see with the aircraft that have ADS B.

Mike (27:33): So Yeah. I and I think that, you know, people are definitely that are into aviation aviation nerds and things like that. They look at look at it like I hear a jet go over the house. I pull it right up on FlightAware, and I'm like, oh, what's that?

Unknown Speaker (27:45): A hell if there's, like, helicopters circling, I'll pull it up to see if it's, the sheriff helicopter or something. Don't understand though.

Mike (27:51): Something bad's going on. And I'm just curious. I'm like, I'm like, that sounds like this. I wonder if it's that. And then, you know, I nerd out and be like, oh, it's a 07:37.

Mike (28:00): Where's he going? But yeah. So what what ADS B would do and ADS is automatic dependent surveillance broadcast. So it's literally like the exact data that the airplane is doing, and it talks to air traffic control that ADS B out. So you can actually get ADS B in where each airplane would talk to each other and I could see exactly who was there, their whether their call sign was, what kind of airplane it was, and you get a much better situational picture of what's happening in your airplane compared to others now.

Mike (28:36): For as groundbreaking as that is, and the NTSB actually made this recommendation in the DCA Potomac crash that if those aircraft had that it would have added another piece of information, would possibly have made the accident, you know, less probable. No one can say for sure what would happen, but this equipment, anytime you talk about adding equipment things like that to a system, there's gonna be a cost associated with it. And that's always a tricky part of stuff. However, I have seen stuff that says most aircraft, modern jet airliner aircraft can get an upgrade that it didn't seem like it was that costly. I forget the exact number now.

Mike (29:13): I think it might be like if it was 15,000 or 50,000. I forget what the number was, but it wasn't like millions of dollars. What do you think, Ian, if if other airplanes had the ADS BN of, like, seeing each other? Do you think that the pilots would take too much responsibility for what's going on and negate what the controllers were saying, or do you think that would be more of a bigger situational awareness picture for everybody to have as far as what's going on out there.

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Unknown Speaker (30:12): Yeah. I mean, I think it can kinda go both ways. I think the more situational awareness of the pilots is definitely always a good thing, but we needed the situations like I just had yesterday. I had to vector an aircraft because he was kind of underneath a flow of airplanes that I was descending, And I, you know, referenced the traffic to him that I was trying to miss with the vector. He's like, oh, we got that aircraft in sight.

Unknown Speaker (30:32): Can we go back on course? And I was like, no, not yet. I still have, you know, three more airplanes behind him that I have to, you know, get you around. So the pilot's kinda trying to use the data they have, but not the full picture of what I'm trying to do, and asking, Can we go back on course or can we do this based on what they see? I can see that becoming kind of an annoyance, maybe.

Unknown Speaker (30:52): There's definitely guys out there that would be annoying. Yeah. It wouldn't be me, but, like, I a 100% there would be.

Unknown Speaker (30:59): Yeah. It's definitely the opposite.

Unknown Speaker (31:00): Pilots all know it alls.

Unknown Speaker (31:02): Yeah. We've had I've had situations where the pilots, you know, they'll ask me about traffic that I'm turning them for, like, hey. Are you watching this guy that's out in front of us? And I'm like, yeah. That's kinda why I have you turned out there.

Unknown Speaker (31:14): But it's fine that they, you they asked us to double check, but I think the more information they have, I could see a situation where you have guys just asking all the time, Are you watching this situation? Are you doing this? I think there'd a happy medium we'd have to find.

Mike (31:28): Well, Mike, one of the biggest things that we see in training is when we do our maneuver training, validating the airplane is the TCAS systems will talk to each other. And if there's too close of a point of approach, the two systems will give a resolution to deconflict and you have to follow that. So one thing that we get a lot of times is that, you know, you get a resolution advisory and it shows you where to fly and all these horns go off in the airplane and you put the airplane in a position that tells you you need to climb and do this or descend. It doesn't tell you to turn left or right, but it'll give you a climb and descend. And you have to weigh that against what the controller is telling you, especially in a congested environment.

Mike (32:08): And that's Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (32:09): But I

Unknown Speaker (32:09): think mean, in Ian, you can back me up. But, like, if we tell you we're responding to an RA, you kinda just let us do our thing. Right?

Unknown Speaker (32:15): Yeah. We're mandated to. Yeah. Yeah. Anytime you say we're responding to an RA, if we're hands off, we let you guys And the way

Unknown Speaker (32:20): we and the

Ian (32:21): way we teach it is to to climb or descend per the RA, like you just said, Tom, and then take a heading per ATC. So if they assign you a heading, you can turn, but definitely do the climb or descend via the via the what the airplane's telling you.

Unknown Speaker (32:34): And that's more like hammered into

Unknown Speaker (32:36): us to Yeah. Not Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (32:38): Because the airplanes are talking to each other. You're left out of the picture. You don't really know what the airplanes are saying to each other. Just like we don't. I mean, like, telling me to climb, it should be telling him to descend, you know?

Ian (32:47): So, you know, yeah.

Mike (32:48): I think it depends on the environment too, probably in the, you know, the terminal environment, especially in, you know, the tower sector. It's way different than what you look at as far as the traffic because you can you have a really fluid situation of which no one's gonna magically appear in your sector unless they're from another world. So, but yeah, it does. I don't know

Ian (33:12): if I've ever gotten a resolution advisory at altitude that like at high altitude. I

Unknown Speaker (33:18): got it. And we sorry. I was gonna say we we usually see it at high altitude when we descend somebody with a steep descent rate. It's a thousand feet above somebody else. We'll get sometimes that.

Unknown Speaker (33:28): Yeah. I'll get, like, the the traffic, like, kinda, like, look out, but it's not an RA yet, just the TA. So I'll get a traffic advisory sometimes if someone's climbing really fast, but I've never gotten an I mean, I definitely have gotten the RA in the terminal areas, you know, especially in Florida, you get the GA guys that aren't talking to anybody. But, yeah, I can't think of one out. They teach

Unknown Speaker (33:50): us I was gonna say we have to report it.

Unknown Speaker (33:51): Yeah. Yeah. We gotta do paperwork for them too. That's why I don't like them either. Yeah.

Mike (33:55): I I think that's becoming more ingrained in the syllabus stuff too is to limit your descends to, like, thousand feet per minute, especially above two eight o, which is, you know, in the class a airspace where you get into RVSM and things like that where you guys have the reduced vertical separation minimum. Well, especially if

Unknown Speaker (34:14): you look on your TCAS and you see an airplane, I'll I'll change the rate just so it doesn't do that give you the traffic advisory, but not everybody does Totally

Mike (34:22): more of a courtesy thing. So, I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen with this implementation of the ADS BN, but it definitely is out there. It's something that the NTSB has recommended. Whether the FAA adopts it or not, I don't know. I've Andy, can you think of anything that in your job where the NTSB made a recommendation and then the FAA adopted it where that relationship, like, worked well?

Mike (34:44): Is there anything you can think of that comes up to mind?

Unknown Speaker (34:48): Not I mean, not that I can think of. Nothing recent, really. I know that they're trying to do a lot with making sure that we have enough staffing, so I think that can be helpful. But there's really nothing that I can think of that they've implemented in the areas that I work that I've seen.

Mike (35:09): Okay. I know I know that that, like, NTSB recommended increased staffing at the LaGuardia incident as well. So I mean, that kinda plays into that. So I I think that's pretty valid. What okay.

Mike (35:22): So we we talked about this a little bit in the pre show. So we're gonna move on away from the ADS BN discussion. We did a show a couple weeks ago about the Southwest incident in Chicago Midway where the jet went off the end of the runway, and that was due to a snowstorm in Midway. Again, it was an airplane issue, not an air traffic control issue. But how aware of you of certain airports in your sector that are having problems with weather?

Mike (35:44): And, you know, like, how do you handle that? Or play maybe airfield is closing and you you know about that, whereas other, you know, flights are entering your sector and, like, they don't how do you build their awareness, like, what's going on? And how much do you say no to them or just say, okay. Go ahead, man.

Unknown Speaker (36:01): Yeah. So it kinda ripples, like, through the system. So, the bigger airports, when the weather starts moving in, the sectors that are closer to it, they're like, Hey, you know, you guys can expect maybe holding for the, this airport. And that kind of gets passed back down the line and we'll tell the pilots, Hey, you know, you can expect holding into Boston or into Newark and, you know, speeds your discretion, start slowing people back. But, yeah, we're really aware of the weather.

Unknown Speaker (36:22): We have a a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in our building. I think all of the centers have them. We get weather products from them a few times a day. We get, like, a weather briefing when we first get into work. So, weather is a big emphasis item for us when we're working.

Mike (36:39): What can you see on your scope? Can you actually see radar overlays, like what's going on? I've always wondered about that.

Unknown Speaker (36:45): So we only see precipitation. We see moderate, heavy, and extreme precipitations, different colors on the scope. That's all we see. In their radar room, we have a radar display of what the weather is doing in the general Northeast area, so you can take a look from your time up there to kinda see what the storms are doing.

Mike (37:05): Okay. I was like, yeah. I know they always told it would tell us in flight school, be like, oh, you don't follow like, traffic control can't provide you, like, a deconfliction with weather and things like that. So that makes sense. And you guys do call that.

Mike (37:15): You got got moderate precipitation, you know, at whatever. So that's good. What happens if like, how do you talk to other guys, like other people in your sector or something like that? Is there like, do you guys have like a chat group? Or like, how does how do you talk to other sectors?

Unknown Speaker (37:31): Like, I mean, I mean, maybe there's a chat. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (37:33): So, like, you have usually, you have radar scopes next to you on either side of you. So if you're talking to those sectors, you can just kinda lean over and talk to them if you need to. But we also have a screen in front of us below the radar scope that has a bunch of buttons that you can configure. So you can dial into the other sectors that are not right around you or for the surrounding facilities that you talk to. So it's just a they call it a shout line.

Unknown Speaker (37:57): You hit the button. You are live in their headset. You can start talking to them.

Mike (38:02): That's pretty good. Do you like, what happens if you need to, like, talk to somebody, like, further down the line? Do you have, like, a a a, like, a phone you pick up to call them? Or, like, how does that work? Like, if something's going on in another part?

Unknown Speaker (38:15): Yeah. So you would if it's, like, outside of the areas that you generally talk to, you could call, like, the sector that they abut and say, hey. Can you talk to this sector about whatever you need to or whatever question you have, and ask them, and then they'll kind of relay it back to you. But the supervisor also has a phone at their desk, so if they need to call wherever they need to call, they can call somebody.

Unknown Speaker (38:37): Do they kind of manage that for you, or they kind of anticipate what's happening to kind of help you out with that?

Unknown Speaker (38:42): Yeah. Some are better than others, but they try to. It really depends on what we need. They're pretty good about, you know, if we don't get a downtime from an airplane that landed at an airport, call an airfield manager, stuff like that, they'll take care of that stuff.

Mike (38:54): Yeah. What do you do if, like, say you got a Southwest flight holding and they wanna go into Midway and it's snowing like you can't believe, and then they're like, no. We're going, dude. Like, how do you handle that? Do you just, alright.

Mike (39:04): Good luck.

Unknown Speaker (39:05): Yeah. Mean, we especially with the commercial guys, we kinda trust that they know the capabilities of the airplane and what the airfield has. You know, you give them all the information for the weather that you have and just, you know, hope they make a decision that it's safe for them based on the information you gave them.

Mike (39:20): Right. That's all I can do. That's our professionalism on the line right there. Right. Alright.

Mike (39:26): Enough grilling, Ian, on this stuff. Let's I wanna ask you. This came in from the email. Some some people were on the end, and they knew you're gonna come on the show again soon. So this this question came in from James in Massachusetts.

Mike (39:41): Is this a he asks, are there times where you see a private pilot doing something slightly legal but maybe unsafe? And what do you do about it?

Unknown Speaker (39:49): Slightly legal. I'd say the biggest thing. Maybe

Unknown Speaker (39:55): you see them going down a road where you're like, what's going on over there? Maybe you don't want to go that way.

Unknown Speaker (40:00): I mean, talking about weather, you'll just have like a huge line of thunderstorms and you'll have somebody at a King Air take off direct to their destination right through a wall of thunderstorms and you're like, You're just hoping that you take off and I'm just going to be able to find your route around this. You guys didn't flight plan at all and see this huge line of weather. That's kind of a dangerous thing that we see sometimes where, like, it seems like the pilot doesn't put much effort into doing the, you know, preflight information and kinda put the on us on us, but, you know, it's gonna be okay. Long.

Ian (40:30): What about the guys that, like, you're not, you know, you're not accepting IFR traffic or IFR traffic's not allowed. There's, like, a, you know, an, you know, edict or something for IFR traffic, so they depart VFR and then ask you to pick up an IFR flight plan once they get in there.

Unknown Speaker (40:43): Yeah. It happens a lot, and it's It's hard for us because we have to call the traffic management unit I talked about and say, Hey, this guy just took off the EFR. He's looking to pick up an IFR. Can we give it to him? I just recently, like a week ago, had it where they were like, No, we can't fit him in, so they had to go turn around and land again.

Unknown Speaker (40:59): But we were talking about the Florida traffic. When it gets crazy down there, they'll have edicts anytime you fly above 18 in class A airspace, anytime above 19 or something, 18, and guys will file 17,000 takeoff and then ask for a climb down the road to beat the edicts, it's like you're just hammering these guys in the South in Florida that are, you know, overloaded with traffic thinking you're gonna beat the system.

Unknown Speaker (41:21): So Yeah. I I have to be like, yeah, that's messed up because I'm talking to you, but I I would do that. I'm like, that's I'm gonna roll the bones and see what happens down the road.

Unknown Speaker (41:31): But there's no guarantees you're gonna get it either.

Unknown Speaker (41:33): No. It was such a

Unknown Speaker (41:34): Fuel fuel planning can become a major issue there.

Unknown Speaker (41:37): It's such a problem for us that they even way up on, like, the East Coast, they put on, like, our display of information, do not climb pilots that are filing low going to be here for because it's such a problem.

Unknown Speaker (41:48): It's like putting people's pictures up on the wall. Don't don't have checks from this guy.

Ian (41:53): It almost makes you wonder, like, if there's, like, a flight number or, like, a tail number out there that constantly is known in your system for doing this kind of stuff. Like, like a no fly list for pilots, you know, like, not flying with that guy. You get a tail number that comes through. Here he is again, you know?

Mike (42:10): They must know because remember, I've seen things like Arnold Palmer, he would fly his jet. And I think his call sign was like Alpha Papa one.

Unknown Speaker (42:17): Do you

Unknown Speaker (42:17): remember that Mike? You ever seen

Ian (42:18): that? I don't remember what's call sign was, but I'm sure you start to connect those dots.

Mike (42:23): You feel like, oh, that's so and so's jet. Ian's in the Boston sector. Don't if we talked about it, but he just has a blob of nonsense coming ahead of nonstop. So he he probably doesn't get to remember who's who going through sector, except for certain airlines call signs to 2 for you. JetBlue two for you.

Mike (42:42): Hey, want to bring this up real quick for you, Rob, to show up. This is an in the news thing. I don't know if you guys saw this, but a small plane crashed into the largest skyscraper in Beijing. Now, anytime you hear of a plane crashing into a tall building or skyscraper, to me, immediately, I think a 09:11. I don't know about you guys, but

Unknown Speaker (43:02): Well, definitely has to cross your mind. Right? I mean, how would it not?

Mike (43:06): Yeah. And I the initial reports from 09:11 were like, oh, a small plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I'm like, no, that's not true. And it was a crystal clear day. Well, the same thing in Beijing that this was a crystal clear day and this airplane punched into the the windows.

Mike (43:24): And a bunch of people got hurt. I think the the pilot and the passengers of I don't know who's on the plane, but again, this is everybody from China. Some people got hurt that were on the floors. It wasn't a large plane. It was a small general aviation plane, which I've heard people say was a serious, but I can't be sure about that.

Mike (43:41): What's interesting about China is that well, first off, essentially, about this crash, it was five miles from the seat of the Chinese Communist Party. Now, you don't wanna be fooling around with that over there, but China controls its airspace very strictly. And you you can't fly drones. You can't fly ready for this. But Ian, get your pen out.

Mike (44:04): Write this down. Racing pigeons. What? That's a no no. No racing pigeons.

Mike (44:11): I don't if you have a problem with that in your sector, Ian, with the racing pigeons. I

Unknown Speaker (44:16): haven't seen any. No.

Unknown Speaker (44:17): Okay. Well, and can you bet and can

Unknown Speaker (44:19): you make bets on that?

Mike (44:21): Maybe a DraftKings. Yeah, you can do that. You can't fly kites, like certain things during events. So this crash again occurred in sunny, calm weather far from any airport. So there's not there's not general aviation in in China.

Mike (44:43): So this this pretty looks looks pretty much intentional on why, you know, this guy took off from probably unauthorized and he flew into this building on purpose. We don't know why or what, but don't I you can you kinda talk about the differences? Like, in The United States, who can fly in the air traffic control system?

Unknown Speaker (45:00): I mean, I think pretty much anyone that has the, you know, the money to rent a plane or a flight instructor, they can go and fly.

Mike (45:08): Yeah. So is anybody. And what that makes your job interesting because the reality is, like, you could be talking to anyone. You could be talking to the the 40 year July guy that Mike flew in, you know, back in the day, or you could be talking to, you know, Billy on his third flight and somehow he got into RV RVSM airspace. I mean, that's pretty interesting in in this world.

Mike (45:30): And look, that's kinda how we train too. Like, you bring people into these environments so that they get the experience. And like Mike said a million times in the show, talking to aircraft traffic control can be intimidating, then that's, you know, cool that we have you on the show. Ian people say like, he's just a regular dude, like, I'm not gonna be scared of him. Unless you're talking tech checking in with Boston Center, then you better better have your your act together.

Mike (45:53): But yeah. Like, so you you talked to I mean, how easy is it for you to to kinda pick out whether you got somebody that's experienced, not experienced? Can you kinda hear that in their voices?

Unknown Speaker (46:04): Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously, the commercial guys, we expect them to be professional pilots, but anytime we have general aviation guys flying through the airspace, you kind of give a little bit more attention to them to make sure you know, they're going where they're supposed to go and, you know, they don't need anything. We really train our new aircraft controllers. You you can get used to talking to professional pilots all day, and then you're gonna have somebody that doesn't do this for a living. So you're gonna have to talk a little slower with them, make sure they get the correct readback, and really monitor what they're doing to make sure they're following what you asked them to do.

Unknown Speaker (46:38): So it's a pretty big emphasis item. Yeah.

Mike (46:40): That's good that they they keep you aware of that. I mean, I guess human nature would just kinda make you be like, hey. We got a guy that's not not too confident up here. So, I mean, at least from my perspective too, I'd be like, he doesn't sound too confident. I hope he's gonna follow the directions that I give him, you know, and make sure that everything's going alright up here as well because it's your show as much it is, you know, everything else as as well.

Unknown Speaker (46:59): So I don't know. That's pretty cool. I just wanted to bring that up as far as the the China incident. I don't know, man. And what do you want to add, Mike?

Unknown Speaker (47:06): You got anything else you want to ask Ian about? I don't want to press him too hard because I want him to come back on the show again. We got him again. I mean, what what was it? I don't know.

Mike (47:15): It's been nine months since we had you had you on the show. So hopefully, we can make that shorter. You know who's just started flying was Jovan's son. He just started flying.

Unknown Speaker (47:26): Really?

Mike (47:27): Yeah. So we we probably ask him questions about stuff. And then, I mean, hopefully, he watched the show. He's not intimidated by email. So I think he's in high school, maybe, like, junior or senior.

Mike (47:37): He's gotta be a senior. Ian, have you been listening to our show or you you put it on the shelf?

Unknown Speaker (47:43): It's anytime I can. Yeah. I mean, which is work. It's been busy. I have a three year old at home, so it's it's tough to get time to sit down and listen, but I'll try to listen to it in the in the car ride back and forth to work.

Unknown Speaker (47:54): Please don't. No. I'm just kidding.

Unknown Speaker (47:56): Sometimes it's I like just gotta take a break from aviation for a little bit, so I'll drive home in silence after a long day.

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Mike (48:34): I I would agree with that. Especially, listen. I mean, your job is all about listening. Like, your ears are your are your work, you know, as much as us, like, watching stuff with our eyes. Like, yeah, you need to take a break from listening to people, and and you're gonna come home and hear a three year old talk

Unknown Speaker (48:46): to you.

Mike (48:47): So, I mean, that's a whole tall order on its own. Right? So, hey, I'm super pumped that we made this happen. And we got together and sat down. I hope that people are out there right now listening and they want to ask a bunch of questions.

Mike (48:59): So send those into the blackbox01@yahoo.com or send us a text message (203) 699-6792 as well on the text stream. We'll get those questions to Ian. We'll ask him in the post show too. Can shoot you an email or get back on the show or save him up. As a matter of fact, I've got a tab in my Google Docs running questions for Ian in the future.

Mike (49:22): Mike and I have said it so many times in the show, like,

Unknown Speaker (49:24): this is a question for Ian. So, yeah, I We just literally have stuff that comes up, you know, just, I don't know, in conversation. And

Mike (49:32): that's the best part about this show is it kinda writes itself the curiosity of aviation and the things that happen nonstop. Are you going to work today, Ian?

Unknown Speaker (49:41): I am. Yep. 01:00.

Unknown Speaker (49:42): Click it. So Click that. He's what time? Sorry. I didn't drive for you there.

Unknown Speaker (49:46): Yeah. Just said 01:00, so I'm heading that way soon.

Unknown Speaker (49:49): 01:00. We gotta let him go. He's gotta get he's gotta get shined up and ready to go. Do you do do any, like, voice vocal warm ups, you know?

Unknown Speaker (49:58): Like, singing his

Unknown Speaker (49:59): car on the way?

Unknown Speaker (50:00): Yeah. Ozzy Osbourne had a tape, and he'd like, what's

Unknown Speaker (50:04): the dress code for you guys?

Unknown Speaker (50:06): We don't have one. There's a show up flip flops. It happens a lot. Yeah, people.

Unknown Speaker (50:11): Okay, we had a guy

Unknown Speaker (50:12): that show up in flip flops and call them shower shoes for a while. Tank

Unknown Speaker (50:17): tops, shower shoes. What an operation. I picture everybody, but I'm flying through the center. Everybody's got a tie Yeah. Like Brooks Brothers finest.

Unknown Speaker (50:26): That's what I picture. I guess that's right out the window now.

Unknown Speaker (50:30): Yeah. You want people to relax, right? You want people to feel comfortable?

Unknown Speaker (50:33): Oh, I don't have a problem with it. I just think I just never really thought about it until you started talking about getting ready for work. And I like, so what the heck is the dress code?

Mike (50:40): I went to visit a TRACON when I was a student at Pensacola in in the Navy training. And think it was a Friday. All the guys were wearing Hawaiian shirts. But I remember they were all outside smoking. How many guys smoke cigarettes at your job?

Unknown Speaker (50:54): A lot less. Very few now. It used to be a lot more because people were stressed out drinking a lot of coffee all day, so they would smoke, but it's kinda gone away.

Unknown Speaker (51:03): I'd have to say that too, Mike. You don't see a lot of pilots smoking. It's it's one easiest.

Ian (51:07): I remember when I was at Calm Air, a lot of the guys did, you know, because they were older. They'd been around, you know, but I don't see it nearly as much anymore. I remember when I told this story before, I was like, Calmer, the guy would go on a catering truck every time and smoke because you weren't allowed to smoke in the airport, you know, and he couldn't didn't have the time to go all the way outside security. So he just like sneak onto the catering truck when it pulled up to the plane and smoke. I'm like,

Mike (51:30): this is nuts. That's he. Has smoke. Ian, you probably saw it flying to C5. A lot of guys smoke, especially in military.

Unknown Speaker (51:40): I I got actually a funny story. I I when I was in the military, I smoked, and I was in Hawaii standing out in front of the airplane having a cigarette before we left and hanging out watching the airplane. I looked to my left, and there's a three star standing next to me, asked me how I'm doing. I was like, I didn't I was like, so taken aback by the guy. I was like, I'm I'm doing good.

Unknown Speaker (52:03): How are you doing, sir? And like, put my cigarette out, kinda shuffled away. But, yeah, it was kinda funny.

Unknown Speaker (52:09): Yes. It never takes smoking. Right? Yep. Yep.

Unknown Speaker (52:11): You should be in designated smoke pit area only. Hide your stripes and run away.

Unknown Speaker (52:18): Yeah.

Mike (52:18): Alright. Let's put a wrap on this show. Thank you guys for being here. And again, we'll see on another episode of Black Box Aviation podcast. See you guys.

Mike (52:25): Thanks, Ian. See you guys.

Tom (52:26): You've been listening to the Black Box Aviation podcast. Real pilots, real stories, and aviation news the way it's actually talked about in the cockpit. If you like what you heard, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep the blue sign up, and we'll see you

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Unknown Speaker (53:15): The dude.