Training hold

[PushingTin]

That is a CNN quality source, run it.

"#BREAKING: FAA Academy @ MMAC going back to PASS/PASS in order to expedite surge of new ATCers into field to augment COVID casualties"

 

[ClearanceClarence]

That dude said his source was an instructor. Instructors in OKC know about as much as the lady running the snack bar. My instructors had a lot of ‘information’ on stuff that was going to happen at the Academy that never happened. Just to make the top 3: 1 - “We’ve heard non radar will definitely be phased out by the end of 2019.” 2 - “They told us they’re tossing out Jackson Low and reverting back to the old Aero Center map any day now” 3 - “They didn’t hire enough people, so they’re gonna furlough us all and basically just down the Academy until the next wave of new hires is ready.”

The gossip game is strong in Academy instructor world.

 

[yup]

Some guy in the new hire thread says academy is reopening second week of June. Big if true.

I’ve seen a blurry screen grab of a “virtual classroom training schedule” (i.e. blackboard) for a class that runs from 5/13 to 6/23. Supposedly that class is for JUST the academics portion of initial tower training, the class you take after Basics.

But the class number in the screen grab isn’t listed on the academy catalog of training, so who knows anything.

 

[PushingTin]

The gossip game is strong in Academy instructor world.

Ahhhhhh, Academy memories. Some of those guys are real beauties. My lead instructor had the deepest Tx/OK accent in history. Every day was like multiple episodes of King of the Hill.

"Ya'll dont forgit bout tha Byerrrrly departure. Same fer yer Red double-ya's. Now youz could clear them to the Sigh-dun VORTAC fer a minute, we call that a paper stawp, used to do 'er in Fort Werth when Daggon Thunderboomers popped up er even fer non radar ya could. Anywayz, when all else fails always remember yer favorite word in ATC.... UNABLE!"

 

[FightingIrish2012]

Ahhhhhh, Academy memories. Some of those guys are real beauties. My lead instructor had the deepest Tx/OK accent in history. Every day was like multiple episodes of King of the Hill.

"Ya'll dont forgit bout tha Byerrrrly departure. Same fer yer Red double-ya's. Now youz could clear them to the Sigh-dun VORTAC fer a minute, we call that a paper stawp, used to do 'er in Fort Werth when Daggon Thunderboomers popped up er even fer non radar ya could. Anywayz, when all else fails always remember yer favorite word in ATC.... UNABLE!"

Oh man, OKC memories, iconic. Do you think it would be fun to work there as a contract instructor after you retire? If you really loved the career and didn't have kids or family to worry about that could be a never ending paradise until you die. Go there and work hour on 20 minutes off as a lead instructor, or basically hour on hour off as a simulation instructor. Make 75K or so on top of the retirement in a low cost of living area. Get treated like a professor at a real college, some of the guys at the academy even grow out their hair and put patches on the elbows of their jackets like 70's-80's style college instructors. No accountability. If you get there in your 50's you are still kind of young enough you can hit on the students and try to impress them with your knowledge and "money". Maybe it only works out once a year for you, and maybe you eventually get a complaint filed on you are get fired by Hunter Biden the 2045 Academy Administrator but who cares? It was all gravy on top of your career, you already worked the best job in the world. You know it will be exactly the same 20 years from now as it is now too.

 

[GulfBravoPapa]

Oh man, OKC memories, iconic. Do you think it would be fun to work there as a contract instructor after you retire? If you really loved the career and didn't have kids or family to worry about that could be a never ending paradise until you die. Go there and work hour on 20 minutes off as a lead instructor, or basically hour on hour off as a simulation instructor. Make 75K or so on top of the retirement in a low cost of living area. Get treated like a professor at a real college, some of the guys at the academy even grow out their hair and put patches on the elbows of their jackets like 70's-80's style college instructors. No accountability. If you get there in your 50's you are still kind of young enough you can hit on the students and try to impress them with your knowledge and "money". Maybe it only works out once a year for you, and maybe you eventually get a complaint filed on you are get fired by Hunter Biden the 2045 Academy Administrator but who cares? It was all gravy on top of your career, you already worked the best job in the world. You know it will be exactly the same 20 years from now as it is now too.

I realize aviation is a male dominated profession but this is disgusting. To suggest 50-60 year old former controllers should work at the Academy with the hopes of hooking up with 20-30 year old trainees is wrong on SO MANY levels. And I'm sure you'll say it was just a joke... But jokes like this are what causes so many females to shy away from make dominated industries. I know multiple female CPCs that have had to file complaints against co-workers for lewd comments or actions. Don't be that skeezy co-worker. Be better than that.

 

[Bandit117]

not to mention that somewhere along the way the societal bar shifted from "flatten the curve" (that has happened) , to.... I don't even know... "people are still getting the virus". Like you said, people are going to keep getting it, that is an inevitable guarantee. It seems like its more likely that some form of herd immunity happens before a Vaccine is widely available (if ever). There are also theories that 25-50% of people who get it are asymptomatic, and that outside of nursing homes and severely compromised people there is a very small chance of dying. We are going to find out one way or another... because there is only so long people can stay hyper vigilant and not visit their grand kids or do lifestuff. before they put a gun in their mouth or have severe anxiety attacks and other issues. There will be a natural mission creep.

Without a vaccine, even if you flatten the curve the area under the curve remains the same, the same number of deaths will occur. That’s according to the governor of Minnesota. And he’s right. You flatten the curve to buy time to make a vaccine and keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. But it won’t keep people from dying.

 

[corn4ahead]

Ahhhhhh, Academy memories. Some of those guys are real beauties. My lead instructor had the deepest Tx/OK accent in history. Every day was like multiple episodes of King of the Hill.

"Ya'll dont forgit bout tha Byerrrrly departure. Same fer yer Red double-ya's. Now youz could clear them to the Sigh-dun VORTAC fer a minute, we call that a paper stawp, used to do 'er in Fort Werth when Daggon Thunderboomers popped up er even fer non radar ya could. Anywayz, when all else fails always remember yer favorite word in ATC.... UNABLE!"

Sounds like Hammer.

 

[ClearanceClarence]

Without a vaccine, even if you flatten the curve the area under the curve remains the same, the same number of deaths will occur. That’s according to the governor of Minnesota. And he’s right. You flatten the curve to buy time to make a vaccine and keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. But it won’t keep people from dying.

Exactly. I think the dilemma right now though is nobody is really sure how to handle this buffer period between the initial lockdowns/surges, and the point where a vaccine becomes readily available, which is why all the states are all taking drastically different approaches. Obviously you can’t go back to pre-COVID normalcy right away and pretend everything’s fine. At the same time though, we can’t continue on with having everything locked down for the year+ it’s going to take for a vaccine. Society would collapse by then.

Also, I think I’m almost at the point where I’d say the hospitals being overrun is almost a mute argument. Even during the peak in NYC, the hospitals were never truly overrun. Everyone who needed an ICU bed and a ventilator got one. And the Navy’s Comfort and the Army field hospital they built went virtually unused. And this was in the highest population density area in the country with the virus completely out of control. There has yet to be anywhere in the nation where hospitals have been overrun. I get that can support the “mitigation is working” argument, but I think if there was truly a widespread threat of this happening we would have seen more evidence to support that fact by now.

 

[32andBelow]

Exactly. I think the dilemma right now though is nobody is really sure how to handle this buffer period between the initial lockdowns/surges, and the point where a vaccine becomes readily available, which is why all the states are all taking drastically different approaches. Obviously you can’t go back to pre-COVID normalcy right away and pretend everything’s fine. At the same time though, we can’t continue on with having everything locked down for the year+ it’s going to take for a vaccine. Society would collapse by then.

Also, I think I’m almost at the point where I’d say the hospitals being overrun is almost a mute argument. Even during the peak in NYC, the hospitals were never truly overrun. Everyone who needed an ICU bed and a ventilator got one. And the Navy’s Comfort and the Army field hospital they built went virtually unused. And this was in the highest population density area in the country with the virus completely out of control. There has yet to be anywhere in the nation where hospitals have been overrun. I get that can support the “mitigation is working” argument, but I think if there was truly a widespread threat of this happening we would have seen more evidence to support that fact by now.

The counter is obviously New York locked down and we’ll never turkey know if it would have gotten worse or not. I don’t think we had as many stories of doctors choosing who get a a ventilator but it certainly happened in Italy and Spain.

 

[ATCJoe85]

Exactly. I think the dilemma right now though is nobody is really sure how to handle this buffer period between the initial lockdowns/surges, and the point where a vaccine becomes readily available, which is why all the states are all taking drastically different approaches. Obviously you can’t go back to pre-COVID normalcy right away and pretend everything’s fine. At the same time though, we can’t continue on with having everything locked down for the year+ it’s going to take for a vaccine. Society would collapse by then.

Also, I think I’m almost at the point where I’d say the hospitals being overrun is almost a mute argument. Even during the peak in NYC, the hospitals were never truly overrun. Everyone who needed an ICU bed and a ventilator got one. And the Navy’s Comfort and the Army field hospital they built went virtually unused. And this was in the highest population density area in the country with the virus completely out of control. There has yet to be anywhere in the nation where hospitals have been overrun. I get that can support the “mitigation is working” argument, but I think if there was truly a widespread threat of this happening we would have seen more evidence to support that fact by now.

Common sense of the year award right here.

 

[Termine]

Also, I think I’m almost at the point where I’d say the hospitals being overrun is almost a mute argument. Even during the peak in NYC, the hospitals were never truly overrun. Everyone who needed an ICU bed and a ventilator got one.

This is... exactly the point of social distancing and lockdowns. So that hospitals won't be overrun. I know you acknowledge the point later in your post, but I want to make sure everyone (*cough cough PushingTin cough*) is clear: We aren't at a worse place right now because people stayed inside. That's the problem with a social distancing program like this—if it works, it looks like you overreacted.

Maybe you can loosen restrictions bit-by-bit and gradually let some amount of normalcy resume, making sure you can stomp on the brakes if it does look like the hospitals are getting close to capacity again. The problems with that are 1) Americans are stupid and will want to go back to normal all at once, 2) Americans are stupid and won't want to go back to quarantine if necessary (especially with the summer coming), and 3) there's a 3-to-14 day lag between enacting a policy and seeing if it works, which makes quick adjustments all but impossible.

 

[ClearanceClarence]

The counter is obviously New York locked down and we’ll never turkey know if it would have gotten worse or not. I don’t think we had as many stories of doctors choosing who get a a ventilator but it certainly happened in Italy and Spain.

I definitely get that, there’s no way to have known for sure. At the same time though, I think the fact that these hospital ships and field hospitals that were built all over the country and never used shows that there was some significant miscalculations as to how bad things were going to get. Most of those extra hospitals were built after lockdowns had been put into place and were based on the “full mitigation” numbers that were coming from the models. It’s a good thing they were never needed, but they were never needed.

On the same token, there was some pretty harsh and widespread criticism of Georgia’s decision to reopen a few weeks back. They basically threw the floodgates open and had restaurants, gyms, nail salons, and even bowling alleys open on the 1st. All the experts said this was going to lead to a massive surge for GA, but 2 weeks later, their numbers have actually been trending down. It’ll probably take another week or two to know for sure, but so far, the numbers coming out of Georgia are exactly opposite of what they were predicting.

 

[Bandit117]

This is... exactly the point of social distancing and lockdowns. So that hospitals won't be overrun. I know you acknowledge the point later in your post, but I want to make sure everyone (*cough cough PushingTin cough*) is clear: We aren't at a worse place right now because people stayed inside. That's the problem with a social distancing program like this—if it works, it looks like you overreacted.

Maybe you can loosen restrictions bit-by-bit and gradually let some amount of normalcy resume, making sure you can stomp on the brakes if it does look like the hospitals are getting close to capacity again. The problems with that are 1) Americans are stupid and will want to go back to normal all at once, 2) Americans are stupid and won't want to go back to quarantine if necessary (especially with the summer coming), and 3) there's a 3-to-14 day lag between enacting a policy and seeing if it works, which makes quick adjustments all but impossible.

But the number of deaths will be the same long term, the area under the curve, tall or flat is the same. Staying away from people isn’t a cure, it’s prevention. The virus won’t disappear by magic. After a while ancillary deaths kick in like abuse victims who can’t get away from their abuser, alcoholics who can’t get to AA meetings, people missing out on preventative medical care and screenings because they were deemed nonessential. Crisis center calls are up all over the place, in Los Angeles crisis center calls are up 8900%. 1/5 of callers are suicidal, economic despair is the primary reason. If we stay in a total lockdown overall we will crash the economy and then what will you use to fund fighting the virus?

That being said, as long as there is still risk of infection out there, and as long as the traffic is down, there is no need to go back to normal with air traffic operations. one sickness will result in the unplanned shut down and closure of a facility for cleaning, not to mention the exposure risk from actual side by side training. It isn’t worth risking this just so people can train on 30% (or less) of the usual traffic.

 

[FightingIrish2012]

I realize aviation is a male dominated profession but this is disgusting. To suggest 50-60 year old former controllers should work at the Academy with the hopes of hooking up with 20-30 year old trainees is wrong on SO MANY levels. And I'm sure you'll say it was just a joke... But jokes like this are what causes so many females to shy away from make dominated industries. I know multiple female CPCs that have had to file complaints against co-workers for lewd comments or actions. Don't be that skeezy co-worker. Be better than that.

GBP, you prejudice, judgement and wokeness is what is wrong on SO MANY LEVELS. Your intolerance and inability to reflect what is happing in realty is hindering progress. Go ahead as you are if it makes you feel better but you will one day regret not being on the right side of history.

 

[PushingTin]

I realize aviation is a male dominated profession but this is disgusting. To suggest 50-60 year old former controllers should work at the Academy with the hopes of hooking up with 20-30 year old trainees is wrong on SO MANY levels. And I'm sure you'll say it was just a joke... But jokes like this are what causes so many females to shy away from make dominated industries. I know multiple female CPCs that have had to file complaints against co-workers for lewd comments or actions. Don't be that skeezy co-worker. Be better than that.

Lol chill, he didnt even specify a gender, nor did he advocate for sexual assault. Lighten up Francis! Lest you deny and suppress how the world is and substitute it with how youd like it be by various virtue signals. I dont think you should paint w such a broad brush over a whole gender. I know many males and females who enjoy the banter that probably makes some clutch their Pearl's. It's not up to you to project blanket offense onto them until the entire world is sterile and dumbed down. Different strokes for different folks! I also know many male controllers who get triggered over any little micro aggression, so what. Do you think the trainees who sleep w their trainers (an old ATC tradition) are doing so under duress?? Lol or only when the breakup comes and then your friends file their papers and end up in the country club of their choice, or fired. Get woke, go broke!

Next it will be that Pornhub is corrupting relationships and should be abstained from because not everyone would do porn without it making them feel dead inside (RIP August Ames).

 

[FightingIrish2012]

Lol chill, he didnt even specify a gender, nor did he advocate for sexual assault. Lighten up Francis! Lest you deny and suppress how the world is and substitute it with how youd like it be by various virtue signals. I dont think you should paint w such a broad brush over a whole gender. I know many males and females who enjoy the banter that probably makes some clutch their Pearl's. It's not up to you to project blanket offense onto them until the entire world is sterile and dumbed down. Different strokes for different folks! I also know many male controllers who get triggered over any little micro aggression, so what. Do you think the trainees who sleep w their trainers (an old ATC tradition) are doing so under duress?? Lol or only when the breakup comes and then your friends file their papers and end up in the country club of their choice, or fired. Get woke, go broke!

Next it will be that Pornhub is corrupting relationships and should be abstained from because not everyone would do porn without it making them feel dead inside (RIP August Ames).

That is true GBP, why do you have to assume I only meant that a 50 year old man would hit on a 25 year old women? Have you never seen the opposite? There are a lot of strong willed and passionate women in this field, I guess that is the only way they could survive right? Are you too closed minded to think there could same sex consensual relationships at the academy too? Does the rainbow NATCA logo offend you? You are free to act and think what you want, do doubt, and your microaggression don't offend me, I'm just saying some people might be more sensitive.

 

[Termine]

All the experts said this was going to lead to a massive surge for GA, but 2 weeks later, their numbers have actually been trending down.

Careful now, their percentages may be trending down (quick video with some background) and their case numbers may or may not—but you can't look at reported/tested cases or even reported deaths to make your comparisons. Plenty of people are dying without ever testing positive, and it's up to local authorities how they report those. What you really want to do is compare weekly deaths for this year vs past year averages, that's the only thing that tells you what the true effect of the disease is. Bandit117, if you do a comparison like this everything will come out in the wash: direct disease deaths, deaths from people who couldn't get care when they had a heart attack, deaths from people who couldn't leave abusive homes, etc, etc.

But the number of deaths will be the same long term, the area under the curve, tall or flat is the same.

No, the number of cases will be the same long-term. The number of deaths will go down, compared to an "all open" scenario where the hospitals do get overwhelmed.

 

[Maintainvfr]

Careful now, their percentages may be trending down (quick video with some background) and their case numbers may or may not—but you can't look at reported/tested cases or even reported deaths to make your comparisons. Plenty of people are dying without ever testing positive, and it's up to local authorities how they report those. What you really want to do is compare weekly deaths for this year vs past year averages, that's the only thing that tells you what the true effect of the disease is. Bandit117, if you do a comparison like this everything will come out in the wash: direct disease deaths, deaths from people who couldn't get care when they had a heart attack, deaths from people who couldn't leave abusive homes, etc, etc.


No, the number of cases will be the same long-term. The number of deaths will go down, compared to an "all open" scenario where the hospitals do get overwhelmed.

That article is really interesting

 

[PushingTin]

BTW, training has been suspended nationally until June 15. Wooooo! Another month to order instacart and Netflix n chill and sometimes post gems on P65 when the trolls dont bring me down