Southern California Tracon (SCT)

Settling in at SCT now, been there for one month. I got back on October 14th, the day my daughter Chloe Faith McGuire was born! I just missed it by 1/2 a day, but I am very thankful to have gotten back when I did thanks to my Lead Instructor at the academy Paul Lore who helped me get outta the academy ASAP.

It has been really busy trying to get the apartment all settled but thanks to my mother and mother-in-law we pretty much have everything set now. I already passed the first class at SCT Module 2.0 basically an introduction to SCT and its airspace. I am most the way Module 3.0 Flight Data and will be heading down to the control floor to certify on flight data and my clock at SCT officially starts ticking as I need to complete the program in a set time frame.
Flight Data (Which is routinely combined with clearence delivery) is the position that is responsible for ensuring that both controllers and pilots have the most current information: pertinent weather changes, outages, airport ground delays/ground stops, runway closures etc. Flight Data may inform the pilots using a recorded continuous loop on a specific frequency known as Automated Terminal Information System (ATIS)

JOY Wish me Luck, Hopefully get you some pics soon!

Just 2 photo update

The ACD Lab! Gotta wear sunglasses when leaving 8hrs in the dark.


Lightning Storm Just Barely Missed the Shot by Joe Wurdack

Just wanted to throw in a picture of our radar and ETVS com system, plus 1 photo of one of the lightning storms out here.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

Justin and Ryan @ Pole Position Indoor Karting

13 Class Days Left!!! Most of which are spent entirely in the radar room. Should be a pretty good end to things here.

Enough about school though, this weekend a few of us went go karting at pole position indoor karting here in okc. Later that evening we went to Cattlemens steak house, the restaurant will be featured on the food channel oct 19th on the show who's host is in those TGIF commercials (Guy FiSumthinorotherari).

RTF Here I Come

I just finished ITR (Introduction to Terminal Radar) today we start RTF tomorrow. The academic (book material) in ITR really wasn't all that tough and they prep'd you really well for the tests so I got 100% on both block tests and the final. The difficult portion of ITR came with Radar training. Its high paced, with very strict rules. It is very similar to playing a video game without a controller, instead of the controller you are hooked up to a headset and you have to tell someone else every single move they have to make. Although you do have somewhat of a controller, but its not used for direction its only used to assign identification to aircraft that did not provide one to a Flight Service Station before beginning there flight, or for automated handoffs to other controllers. It gets really intense with some serious phraseology. All through ITR and through the first 10 days of RTF we are the controllers and the pilots, so we work in teams of two taking turns either controlling the planes as an ATC or being the ghost pilot for the controller. Both are pretty fun, but after 10 more days we will then switch to working in teams of 2, both as controllers one controls the north sector of the radar and one controls the south, very similar to the way its done at a real facility. Only difference is every one of us has our own personal instructor who sits beside us and monitors every move we make. Instead of piloting for each other, the FAA actually highers ghost pilots or RPO's who are located elsewhere in the facility, and they take care of all the pilot controls for us. Below are some pictures of airspace and all the material we've covered thus far.


An Instrument Approach Procedure For Run28


A Look at Academy Airspace and the Victor and Jet Routes running through it


The Information We've studied Every Page of Thus Far on the Left and My Note Cards All Filled Out on the Right

The Course Material all spread out

Here Comes ITR

The river running through Bricktown


Justin, Ryan, Matt at Tapwerks

Alright, got my ATC Basics certificate on Friday after completing the 5 week basics course with an average of 95.5 percent or so. Thankfully our class ended on a Friday so we all get a 3 day weekend with the holiday this monday. Tuesday we start Tracon's intro to radar course.

Last weekend was really nice a bunch of us hit up Earl's Rib Palace followed by Tapwerks for some good beer. This weekend also shaping up to be pretty good, hit up bowling yesterday morning with a few classmates then over to some steakhouse which was pretty tasty. It was one of those places where they serve you peanuts as an appetizer and you can toss the shells on the floor. After filling up on steak we hit up Bricktown where we just strolled around for awhile then ended up over at Bricktown Brewery to watch the OU vs BYU game. Apart from that not a lot else going on, no real studying to do although I will probably brush up on my phraseology.

Amazed, Astounded and At A Loss To Understand

My roommate Art in white, classmate Luther in blue and some other En Route Controllers

Our Living Room

The View From My Bedroom

3 BLOCKS Down and 1 block to go left in basics, then its onto radar. Been moved into Isola Bella for about a week and a half now its really nice here. It costs me 7 dollars more a day but I get free breakfast (eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, usually some other options too) plus free dinner which rotates like pasta, tacos, tons of other good foods, free soda fountain free ice cream, salad bar...Its great here in comparison to the other place. Oh also free maid service (fresh linens and things like sweeping and stuff).

The title of this blog is a quote from my teacher that he got from a coworker who worked under Pres. Truman. These teachers are full of great stories, but unfortunately today was not great story day, it was terrible story day! We are covering emergency situations, we listened to a TON of ATC transmissions with pilots experiencing problems where the ATC was the last person that pilot ever spoke to before he/she AND all their passengers plummeted to there deaths. There were some good ones where the ATC could actually help the pilot or person taking over as pilot and they landed ok. Its crazy how good the controllers are at managing everything and focusing on doing everything they can for the pilot in trouble without so much as breaking tone of voice or exiting standard phraseology.

Anyways nothing really new out of the ordinary, its really just been school and studying down here the last couple weeks. So I'll probably post again if anything interesting happens or after the weekend.

BBQ Madness

Getting ready for another week here after a good weekend. Yesterday about 5 of us headed out for a day of fun. We started out going to a restaurant called County Line, I mentioned it before about the Cadillac it was awesome. Pictures will be displayed above. After eating we headed over to a brewery in Bricktown, I think Bricktown Brewery. We had some time to waste so we had a couple beers and played some pool. After pool we went to a local minor league baseball game, the red hawks vs I think it was the Angel's minor league team playing out of Salt Lake, I forget the team name. Tomorrow we move over to Isola Bella Apartments in Oklahoma City, should be pretty nice. Apart from that nothing else really new so I'll post again soon.

Never-ending Blocks of Death

Sorry to those of you who actually read this that I haven't blogged in about a week! As the title suggests its pretty much never ending blocks of information, as soon as we think we understand one thing, we get tested and move on. We took block test number 2 today, the first block test I got a 93.3 percent this block test I got a 96.7 percent. They don't accept slacking off here. You can't get by with a C or a B. 90 percent and up is the only acceptable grade. Which is good I think unless you want B average students separating the 300,000 lb hunk of metal you're flying through the air at 30,000 ft while you travel. The last week has been pretty neat though, we got to watch some air traffic controllers work some radar training pilots. Also we got to go in and actually play with the high tech style radar scopes that we'll actually get to work in the future. A little crazy, but interesting and neat none the less.

Hopefully I will get some pictures this weekend, we'll be heading to a BBQ place called county line out here in OK that the instructor told us about. Supposedly there is a meal choice called the Cadillac, which comes with beverage, dessert and 5 different types of BBQ all you can eat. Then we're going to go catch a minor league baseball game out here. Probably study some on Sunday then back to the grind on Monday. We are done with 2 blocks in the first 2 weeks, but that leaves 2 blocks for the last 3 weeks of basics, and I hear the information is more difficult. Hopefully all goes well, wish me luck!!!

Block Test - Day 7 Weekends over

Above are some pictures from this weekend at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Musuem. We had heard about it from the instructors and some people back home so we thought we would use the weekend to go check it out. All in all it was pretty neat, not necessarily my cup of tea but it was nice to get out of the apartment. Afterwards we went and saw GI JOE which was nice comical relief and although not that good of a movie it was fun to watch. Plus matinee price was only 3.75 so that was really sweet. Afterwards Colton dropped me off and I met up with about 9 of the 13 classmates and we sat back at Louie's bar and grill and had some good dinner while we watched the UFC fights. Anderson "The Spider" Silva is a monster, also the BJ Penn fight was a good watch.

Now the fun part of the weekend is over, I'm taking a short break from my studies to write this blog, but its back to the books for our first block test tomorrow. We will be meeting up at 18:00 central time for study group over at Isola Bella apartments. Wish me luck tomorrow!

Day 5 Just Another Day Of Mind Numbing Pain

August 6th - Day 5, To the left is a picture of one of the radars here at MMAC, I happen to be in the Radar Training Facility (RTF) building although we haven't touched a radar yet. Actually I don't think we get to play with any radar scenarios until week 6. There was nothing really outta the ordinary today woke up at 5:40 headed down to the airport shuttle again and went to class. We had Richard and Truitt teaching us today instead of Burt, although Burt did make an appearance. Apparently Fridays although today is Thursday it was Burt's Friday he always wears a red shirt on Friday (Shelly and Terry thought you'd like that) and his wife has a commitment to always bake cookies for his students on Fridays, those cookies were amazing. Snicker doodles and some peanut butter cookies with something like cinnamon, mmmmmm yummy. Thank goodness for the cooking cause class was rough today. I kid you not we've done over 100 pages of material already in this first week that we're supposed to be able to account for all of it.

Last night was interesting, we had storms again which apparently they do like here in OK, and storms all day today. I thought his was funny, I heard it hailing really good last night sounded like golf balls pelting the roof and walls. Then this afternoon I was watching TV and there was a commercial where they have a bunch of cars on sale at the dealership due to damage from the hail storm. I thought it was hilarious you won't see anything like that in CA. That's about the extent of my day, came home did my laundry set up the web cam and plan on relaxing for the rest of the night only one more day of class this week!!! YAY!!! First Weekend here I come :)

Friends

Dining room


Bedroom



My Roommate Arthur



My Friend Colton

Driving up to my apts


TV Room



Work Badge




Sitting in my bedroom

ATC Day 1-4 (Flight Day Aug 2nd - Aug 5th)

August 2nd was my first paid day with the Federal Aviation Administration. Finally all the waiting came to end, it just so happened to also be my 6th year anniversary with my wife :(. Apart from having to leave on my anniversary it really wasn't that bad of a day. The whole family woke up nice and early so we could make the trek down to John Wayne airport in Orange county at 7:45 Pacific Standard. The flight went smoothly it involved a layover in Denver CO and finally arriving in Oklahoma City, OK at 4:15 Central. From there I shuttled over to my current apartment at Mansions South in Moore OK. Upon arrival I found out the apartment complex put me in the wrong apt, I had a 2 bedroom reserved they put me in a 1 bedroom with a study. So I had to stay the night there and the next day after class I would be able to move it over to the 2 bedroom.

August 3rd day 2, Have to wake up at 5:40 to get dressed and ready to make the bus at 6:10 that shuttles those of us without cars here over to the academy. That whole process is really nerve wracking you do not want to miss the bus you do not want to be late! They have a zero tolerance for it. At any rate I made the bus ok which dropped us off at the security command center at Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center. Its required you have an ID badge on at all times while in the facility. After this we all hop in cars and drive farther into this ridiculously large facility to our classroom for the next 5 weeks. At the classroom we go over all the benefeits and rules and HR nonsense up the ying yang. After that we get sworn in as Federal Government employees. That mostly sums up our first day at the facility. Class technically starts at 7:00 and ends at 3:30 for week one. After getting out of class we shuttle back to the apartments where I get all my junk moved over to my new apartment. Really the move of my junk would be no big deal but it 100 degrees here in OK and like a billion humidity or something like that you get the picture so Im dripping in sweat and mentally exhausted from the stress of day 1 at the academy itself. After hitting walmart with my friend Colton from my class, I head back to my apt and get cleaned up and say hello to the wife and tell her about the day, get into bed around 10:30.

Day 3, this is actually the first day of teaching at the academy, we have awesome instructors for Tracon basic training, Burt Willis (not to be confused with Bruce Willis) is actually rather funny, but very serious about the FAA. Poor Colton didn't quite make it to class on time (dont forget ZERO tolerance, its ok he won't make that mistake again, they made an example out of him unfortuantely and repremanded him and of course his facility has to hear about it. Don't worry Colton still rooting for you over here! We really got into the information about Tracon and other FAA activities on that day. Apart from that not really a lot happened on day 3. Oh wait except my roommate Arthur did arrive he's been a cool addition to the apartment here not quite as boring around here and nice to know you're not sitting in the apartment alone. I almost forgot to tell you guys yesterday morning I got the pleasure of waking up at 3am to thunderstorms, apart form having it wake me up ridiculously early looking outside at the storm was really amazing, don't get to see a lot of that in California.

Day 4 (Today) This is my first day that actually started to write this blog. I went to bed at 9:00 last night, 5(whatever) comes really really fast. The academy was crazy today, they shove information into your head until it can't take anymore then they pick up the pace even more. The only nice thing is they give you a 10 - 15 minute break every hour on the hour. so we basically have like 5 breaks and a 30 minute lunch in our short day, really though that is still not enough. I think they're trying to get us ready for the facility already. It is all really intereting stuff though. Today was what they call Pizza day, I guess they do it once every 5 weeks or so, a bunch of managers and first line supervisors come to the facility and the agency provides us with free pizza and soda while we get the opportunity to meet the supervisors from our potential facility. Unfortunately my facility didn't come. Do I blame them? Where would you rather be CA or OK? Anyways the supervisors were all pretty cool and interesting, hopefully it will be the same at my facility. That pretty much sums up my day at the academy though. After work I came home and made a list of groceries I still needed and Colton picked me up and took me down to walmart! Thanks Buddy! This is where I am now back from walmart with a new camera so I can take some pictures of the area (I will provide as they come I have a few of the apt here) See you all tomorrow after academy!