Easiest facilities for every dollar/ hardest facilities for every dollar

Come to C90! CIP, $27k move money and OT!! People making close to $300k to work at a country club!!

DonnyDarcycle said:

Come to C90! CIP, $27k move money and OT!! People making close to $300k to work at a country club!!

Come to Chicago for the CIP, stay because you were murdered!

jdatc said:

Unless you have to ride the train into the terminal to work after parking. That shit should be disqualifying.

Ride the tram!? I walk my ass in through the terminal…. Lord knows I need it…. since I sit and face my scope all day with no 360° view scanning.

rhombus said:

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but hear me out. If you consider the actual labor you are doing, VFR tower work is much more demanding than radar, with IFR towers somewhere in between.

VFR Tower: When it's busy you're usually standing and moving around. Your scan is a full 360 degrees. You have to deal with the sun and glare. You have to use binoculars and be able to correlate what's out the window with your scope and constantly move your strips. You act as your own approach controller and departure controller while also working the runways and a pattern. The quality of pilot is typically less in a VFR environment as opposed to IFR. The maximum amount of traffic you can work at once is based on your ability and people regularly hit their breaking point.

Radar: You're always sitting, your scan is essentially directly in front of you and whatever strips you are using. Everything is automated. You pretty much know exactly what you're getting and there are built in limits to how much traffic you can work at one time.

Obviously that's an oversimplification but your brain and body are engaged in more ways working at a VFR tower. If you buy that premise it's hard to argue that there is a worse pay/brain cell used than pre-COVID DVT. They were doing more operations/hour than almost every other tower in the country while dealing with mostly student, mostly foreign ESL pilots with zero of the perks of a core-30 airport. You can probably currently say the same about the busiest patterns now (FFZ, PRC, MYF, etc).

Does this mean that DAB is one of the harder facilities then?

rhombus said:

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but hear me out. If you consider the actual labor you are doing, VFR tower work is much more demanding than radar, with IFR towers somewhere in between.

VFR Tower: When it's busy you're usually standing and moving around. Your scan is a full 360 degrees. You have to deal with the sun and glare. You have to use binoculars and be able to correlate what's out the window with your scope and constantly move your strips. You act as your own approach controller and departure controller while also working the runways and a pattern. The quality of pilot is typically less in a VFR environment as opposed to IFR. The maximum amount of traffic you can work at once is based on your ability and people regularly hit their breaking point.

Radar: You're always sitting, your scan is essentially directly in front of you and whatever strips you are using. Everything is automated. You pretty much know exactly what you're getting and there are built in limits to how much traffic you can work at one time.

Obviously that's an oversimplification but your brain and body are engaged in more ways working at a VFR tower. If you buy that premise it's hard to argue that there is a worse pay/brain cell used than pre-COVID DVT. They were doing more operations/hour than almost every other tower in the country while dealing with mostly student, mostly foreign ESL pilots with zero of the perks of a core-30 airport. You can probably currently say the same about the busiest patterns now (FFZ, PRC, MYF, etc).

Tell me you’ve never worked busy radar without telling me you’ve never worked busy radar

DankVectorz said:

Tell me you’ve never worked busy radar without telling me you’ve never worked busy radar

That's true. But you'd still be hard pressed to say that you work twice as hard as someone at a place like DVT, given that you make twice as much

I wouldn’t say worked twice as hard, maybe more like the skill set is at least twice as rare. Anyone can go out in the back hit a baseball but only a select few can hit a major league fastball. Similarly only a select few can work a busy radar sector safely and efficiently.

rhombus said:

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but hear me out. If you consider the actual labor you are doing, VFR tower work is much more demanding than radar, with IFR towers somewhere in between.

VFR Tower: When it's busy you're usually standing and moving around. Your scan is a full 360 degrees. You have to deal with the sun and glare. You have to use binoculars and be able to correlate what's out the window with your scope and constantly move your strips. You act as your own approach controller and departure controller while also working the runways and a pattern. The quality of pilot is typically less in a VFR environment as opposed to IFR. The maximum amount of traffic you can work at once is based on your ability and people regularly hit their breaking point.

Radar: You're always sitting, your scan is essentially directly in front of you and whatever strips you are using. Everything is automated. You pretty much know exactly what you're getting and there are built in limits to how much traffic you can work at one time.

Obviously that's an oversimplification but your brain and body are engaged in more ways working at a VFR tower. If you buy that premise it's hard to argue that there is a worse pay/brain cell used than pre-COVID DVT. They were doing more operations/hour than almost every other tower in the country while dealing with mostly student, mostly foreign ESL pilots with zero of the perks of a core-30 airport. You can probably currently say the same about the busiest patterns now (FFZ, PRC, MYF, etc).

Y’all don’t have shades in your tower to be dealing with sun and glare??

Petergraham1 said:

because then he would lose CIP pay. ZMA gets it and MIA doesn't. #systemisbroken

FACTS!

rhombus said:

That's true. But you'd still be hard pressed to say that you work twice as hard as someone at a place like DVT, given that you make twice as much

The difference between level 9 and 12 in Phoenix is 27%. I’m sure most would agree that level 12 deserves 27%+ more than level 9. Twice as much is based off overtime purgatory.

Dialoutmfer said:

I wouldn’t say worked twice as hard, maybe more like the skill set is at least twice as rare. Anyone can go out in the back hit a baseball but only a select few can hit a major league fastball. Similarly only a select few can work a busy radar sector safely and efficiently.

I wasn't saying anything on the quality of controller at either place. In general I'm sure radar controllers are more knowledgeable and better trained and deserve to make more for the specialized training they go through. That being said there's no reason to think that a controller at a saturated VFR tower goes home any less exhausted than a controller at a saturated radar facility. Assuming I had the ability to certify anywhere, if I'm going to get my ass kicked all day I'm going to choose the place where I make the most money. Better value that way.

Sorry if I offended any of you radar folks. You are all special and I love you and I hope you are taking your vitamin D supplements.

Dousand24 said:

Y’all don’t have shades in your tower to be dealing with sun and glare??

rhombus said:

Sorry if I offended any of you radar folks. You are all special and I love you and I hope you are taking your vitamin D supplements.

No offense taken I can afford a ton of supplements

What about these places that are working almost double the amount of ops for the same pay and less staffing

Dousand24 said:

Y’all don’t have shades in your tower to be dealing with sun and glare??

I have double shades at the current gig and it's great. Single shades are hit or miss depending on how scratched up they are

Thank you for shining a spotlight on my country club facility so that more people want to transfer here and I can get out. I’m not really sure what the argument is here, I thought the goal was to work the least amount of planes for the most money possible?

Rico said:

Come to Chicago for the CIP, stay because you were murdered!

Whoa, C90 is in the suburbs man. Murder rate is way down out here.

Billybob said:

I thought the goal was to work the least amount of planes for the most money possible?

ZNY takes the cake for that, hands down

woodfinx said:

Also by TOP (time on position) the facilities rank as follows...data from the Staffing Snapshot Tableau (12 month rolling period, average per shift per CPC)

MOST T.O.P

Tower Only 1. OGG - 5.2hr 2. PSC - 5.1hr 3. MCO - 5.1hr 4. PAE - 5hr 5. SEA - 5hr

Tower/Radar 1. BGR - 5.2hr 2. EUG - 5.2hr 3. ROC - 5.2hr 4. RST - 5.1hr 5. AVP - 5.1hr

TRACON 1. U90 - 5.1hr 2. S46 - 4.8hr 3. NCT - 4.5hr 4. P80 - 4.4hr 5. F11 - 4.4hr

Enroute 1. ZLC - 4.4hr 2. ZUA - 4.3hr 3. ZAB - 4hr 4. ZME - 4hr 5. ZSE - 4hr

LEAST T.O.P

Tower Only 1. ARB - 3.2hr 2. LAF - 3.4hr 3. MFD - 3.5hr 4. FPR - 3.5hr 5. SFB - 3.5hr

Tower/Radar 1. BHM - 3.7hr 2. PHL - 3.8hr 3. CLE - 3.8hr 4. MYR - 3.8hr 5. MGM - 3.9hr

TRACON 1. M98 - 3.3hr 2. D21 - 3.4hr 3. N90 - 3.7hr 4. P31 - 3.7hr 5. SCT - 3.8hr

Enroute 1. ZDC - 3.2hr 2. ZMP - 3.4hr 3. ZNY - 3.4hr 4. ZDV - 3.5hr 5. ZOB - 3.5hr

Holy CRAP, N90 is on 60-hour workweeks and they can't even break 4hrs TOP? What in the hell is that? Or is the ISP area working 1 on, 3 off and skewing the averages?

Why are you guys so mad about some place working less than you? Shouldn’t that be the goal

Termine said:

Holy CRAP, N90 is on 60-hour workweeks and they can't even break 4hrs TOP? What in the hell is that? Or is the ISP area working 1 on, 3 off and skewing the averages?

The hardest facilities have the lowest top to recoup from the stress