the real football

Well, this site is really about the world’s greatest game, but from time to time I might just feel the need to add something about my job as an air traffic controller. Some may find it interesting, some may not; I’ll leave that up to you. I am not sure I can call it the world’s greatest job, but it has been enjoyable spending the last 18 years of my life as one.

In the air traffic control world, there are towers (ATCT), approach controls (TRACON), and centers (ARTCC). I work at an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC in the acronym laden world that is federal government) in Farmington, MN. Farmington is a suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

An air traffic control tower is what most think of when ATC is mentioned. These are the tall buildings from which controllers work aircraft on the ground and in the air, at low altitudes within just a few of miles of an airport. After an aircraft departs an airport, they leave the control of the tower, and are in the airspace controlled by the TRACON. Usually, this is approximately a radius of 30 miles or so, and extends from the ground up to 10,000 feet of altitude or so, depending upon the location.

Once an aircraft is outside TRACON’s airspace, they are in the ARTCC’s airspace. This is where I work. If the tower is like car traffic on city streets, and the TRACON is like an urban/suburban highway system, then the center’s airspace is like our national highway system. Just like on the road, some places are busier than others.

The airspace I work is in the western half of Iowa and the eastern half of Nebraska. We do also have a bit of Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Our facility covers airspace from the upper peninsula of Michigan, west through North and South Dakota, and south to about a hundred miles south of Omaha. Inside the facility are six areas of specialty; each area works a portion of that airspace.

What’s it like? Well, it is generally not like anything you have seen in movies or television shows at all. Funny, though, there is plenty of drama, comedy, and tragedy in a typical air traffic control facility that Hollywood should be able to pretty much just copy what we do, and it would entertaining on some level. I can tell you that it has definitely provided some quality entertainment for me over the years!