Saltysalmon
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Hey all, just trying to see how the transition from an enroute controller to a tracon controller is. Thinking about switching and wondering what the good and bad are.
Enroute to approach
- Thread starter Saltysalmon
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HenryTheAce
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I made the switch from level 11 center to level 11 TRACON. Center and Tracon are both their own different beasts. The biggest thing that will be of struggle and is baffling is the equipment. Say goodbye to the nice technology. All entries to the NAS are done in FDIO. You rely on strips heavily to see where planes are going. There is no fourth line data. You cannot click on the data block to see where they’re going and you don’t have a FDIO computer by you, so you have to ask data to bring you the strip if they haven’t yet or full route them. It’s wild to me. You’ll have to ask planes “what’s your on course heading” or “are you direct now” because there is no route button to see.
There are aspects that I miss in the center but overall I enjoy approach more. Working final is a lot of fun. Approach is tight airspace and you do not have a lot of room so you really have to vector to make things work.
There are aspects that I miss in the center but overall I enjoy approach more. Working final is a lot of fun. Approach is tight airspace and you do not have a lot of room so you really have to vector to make things work.
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- N90 New York Tracon
*T is your friend if your automation department is good
jdatc
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It’s fine. Some places give you lots of training. Like maybe even send you to OKC and stuff. Mine didn’t. I went to an 11 tracon after 15 years at a couple centers.
I got a CBI on the equipment and 3 weeks of classroom and 3 weeks of labs. Then I started training. It’s fine, they checked me out at pretty much minimums. I didn’t know much but I didn’t put planes together.
If you can vector and separate traffic, it’s all about the same. If you struggle with that at a center or work at a center where all you worked was something like high altitude, high and bye, you will struggle more.
The equipment is different but since you don’t have to make lots of inputs it’s less important. You miss some functionality from center, it it is what it is. But hey, fast radar updates.
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HenryTheAce
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*T only works for more “popular” airports and such. Doesn’t work for a lot of things here
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AB19
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You don’t have a nids with headings? To get a rough idea, although there’s places that aren’t in there for us
GulfBravoPapa
⭐SuperStar
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He's got a IDS4 and it'll tell him the airport name but not headings/distancea
jamisjockey
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It’s a database. We have hundreds of fixes and airports loaded. Your support staff needs to upload more shit.
AB19
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Is that an older version?
Mike Kilo
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Yup. No touch screen. Only have access to what your local people decide to put in it. Same with the *T in Stars. Some facilities have a bunch, some don’t have many.
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I made that
ManBearPig
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And last I checked there is a finite amount of entries you can program for *T. I think that amount goes way up with STARS Elite, but I don't know the numbers. The high sector center people to tower is where the real fun is. First day training is Aircraft Recognition 100 for Dumbies.
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- 2,145
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- N90 New York Tracon
yeah that’s why I said if your automations guy is good. Ours is mostly stuff just immediately outside our airspace, but at my Air Force base he had put in just about every airport in the US.
redko0laid
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Made the jump from a center to lvl 12 tracon. You won’t want to go back… fusion feels like everything is moving in slow motion it’s so nice to see everything update by the second, divergence is amazing, 3 miles, 2.5 miles, wake recat depending where you’re at, you don’t need to do too much on stars anyway, you’ll get used to the shitty keyboard. Yeah not being able to do amendments and fix just about anything right at your keyboard kinda sucks but it’s not that big of a deal
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Did you get paid a lot to make it? Because I love it
I tried to tell the stars guy(tech ops) about adding more fixes, and I got “there’s not enough memory in the system” I looked at him like he was the biggest fkn idiot.
HenryTheAce
Forum Sage
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That’s what they tell us there’s not enough memory in the system. I know nothing about computers or anything but they all complain and say words that mean nothing to me. I know we are on IDS4 and using DOS whatever that means.
