GQ does an article about my job.

[TangoJuliet]

A couple months ago we had a reporter from GQ come to the tower (LGA) to write an article. It is in this month's issue.

Text

Not sure how many of you get your job published in a magazine but I feel special

Check it out!

Edit

Here is the first page for those who want a quick sample of the article

to get to the air-traffic-control tower at New York?s LaGuardia Airport, you have to walk through Concourse D in the Central Terminal, past the shiny shops and fat pretzels and premium brews, into and back out of streams of travelers yammering wirelessly at wives, lovers, brokers. You come to a thick steel battleship-gray door, shove it open with your hip. Step inside. You are now in?Leningrad? Bucharest? Cinder-block walls washed in dingy fluorescent light, a cramped elevator, slow and rickety, up to the tenth floor?Sorry it?s so cold, but this thermostat hasn?t worked for shit in years?through another gray door, up a knee-creaking set of concrete stairs: Welcome to the LaGuardia tower cab. Would you like a doughnut? Check out the view! The skyline demands all of you first, Manhattan spreading unobstructed like a mural written on the bottom of the sky. Airplanes everywhere, white, silver crawling. Rikers Island sits alone on the upwind leg of runway 31. Shea Stadium, on the opposite end, is mere skeleton and guts, just now on a crisp fall morning coming undone. You don?t see a view like this every day. Never mind the furniture, the duct-taped Archie Bunker couches in the break room, the ragged fold-up tables and the ancient, empty vending machine advertising Mike and Ike for twenty-five cents. Never mind the missing ceiling tiles, the warped paneling, the chipped Formica, the spectacular curls of peeling paint. Taped to the handset of a red phone is a sign reading black phone. Some of the computer equipment brings to mind the days of Tandy and Heathkit. Some sections of the control console bring to mind the golden age of telephone operators wearing pointy bras. For a long time the roof here leaked so badly they had giant diapers hanging, tarps tacked from here to there to catch the water; a garden hose took the water down a flight of stairs to a janitor?s sink. Sometimes the bathroom plumbing goes, and when it goes it really goes; some controllers keep an extra shirt in their lockers in case of explosion. (Others have learned to flush with their foot and duck.) But check out the view! people here say with pride intent or not intent on masking the obvious. Yeah, this place is a dump. This is the center of the universe, a tower serving 23 million passengers a year as they fly in and out of the most congested airspace in the world, and yeah, this tower, built in 1962, one of the oldest in America, is a dump.

 

[BoomerD]

PATCO!

(fuck Ronnie Rayguns forever)

 

[Tobolo]

I was reading it until I realized there was 17 pages!

 

[skyking]

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLGA

I did my best to stay away from that place when I was back east, but I may have spoken to you as I skirted around the North on the way to DXR.

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KDXR

 

[invidia]

My job has its own TV series.

 

[sonambulo]

Originally posted by: invidia
My job has its own TV series.

Mini Sex Cops: Miami

 

[lsd]

You guys at LGA tower are mean lol. To this day I'm still not run/taxi qual on any aircraft. I still have voices in my head of ground yelling at us to expedite across 22L.

 

[erub]

This article is awesome. I just read the whole thing. Thanks for the link!

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: invidia
My job has its own TV series.

Fluff Girls, now on Fox.

 

[dmw16]

I design airplanes for a living. So does that mean my job is on TV when airplane shows are on Discovery?

Also, 17 pages...sorry but need cliffs

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Tobolo
I was reading it until I realized there was 17 pages!

Yeah, its pretty long. Its only about 4-5 pages in the actual magazine.

Originally posted by: skyking
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLGA

I did my best to stay away from that place when I was back east, but I may have spoken to you as I skirted around the North on the way to DXR.

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KDXR

You may have.....what type of acft and what was the callsign?

Originally posted by: lsd
You guys at LGA tower are mean lol. To this day I'm still not run/taxi qual on any aircraft. I still have voices in my head of ground yelling at us to expedite across 22L.

Well, we don't have a 22L.....unless you want to consider the Grand Central 22L.
We run things tight day in and day out....you gotta be quick!

 

[deftron]

How do you get that job ?

 

[SonnyDaze]

Originally posted by: invidia
My job has its own TV series.

G4TV?

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: deftron
How do you get that job ?

I went to college for it. However, you can apply right now with no experience, college or whatever. Like the article says the FAA is hiring people that work at McDonald's, Piercing Pagoda and circus rejects. Check out www.faa.gov/jobs if you are interested.

 

[Finalnight]

Originally posted by: invidia
My job has its own TV series.

My job/employer has 3 tv series.

 

[skyking]

My experience with the NY/NJ Mega-Terminal region was a bit funny:
I was trying to stay VFR for most of the trip so we could do as we wished, circle an area, divert to check out something. I called and got a class B clearance, fully intending to skirt the edges of the area.
Oh no, the approach controller kept vectoring me in tighter to Teterboro and all the busy airspace I intended to avoid. He wanted to use me as vector practice it seems

 

[EGGO]

Originally posted by: Finalnight

Originally posted by: invidia
My job has its own TV series.

My job/employer has 3 tv series.

My job is shown during each of your tv series, in magazines, and even on billboards.

 

[Scouzer]

I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Scouzer
I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

No seriously the place is a dump. We find rats in the tower all the time, there are asbestos warning signs in certain places, etc. The new tower will be finished this summer and we move into it next fall.

Its going to be great because as it is now we are unable to see the east side of the airport because the tower is not high enough and is blocked by the terminal(s). The new tower is 70 feet higher and we will be able to see the entire airport.

You have no idea how much brain power goes into working traffic that you cannot see and have to envision in your head....especially at night and when its super busy.

 

[Scouzer]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer
I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

No seriously the place is a dump. We find rats in the tower all the time, there are asbestos warning signs in certain places, etc. The new tower will be finished this summer and we move into it next fall.

Its going to be great because as it is now we are unable to see the east side of the airport because the tower is not high enough and is blocked by the terminal(s). The new tower is 70 feet higher and we will be able to see the entire airport.

You have no idea how much brain power goes into working traffic that you cannot see and have to envision in your head....especially at night and when its super busy.

Oh, I have an idea. Nothing on the scale of KLGA though! We have many buildings in Canada at smaller airports that simply have windows on the side of the terminal. The cabs aren't towers at all, just a few windows on one side of the terminal... pretty horrendous visibility. Some places I know of can only see a threshold of one of their runways, none of the others. Many have less than 100 degrees of total visibility.

But again, these only exist at 30,000 - 60,000 movement airports! Not some of the busiest airports in the US. Pretty damn piss poor facility you have!

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer
I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

No seriously the place is a dump. We find rats in the tower all the time, there are asbestos warning signs in certain places, etc. The new tower will be finished this summer and we move into it next fall.

Its going to be great because as it is now we are unable to see the east side of the airport because the tower is not high enough and is blocked by the terminal(s). The new tower is 70 feet higher and we will be able to see the entire airport.

You have no idea how much brain power goes into working traffic that you cannot see and have to envision in your head....especially at night and when its super busy.

Oh, I have an idea. Nothing on the scale of KLGA though! We have many buildings in Canada at smaller airports that simply have windows on the side of the terminal. The cabs aren't towers at all, just a few windows on one side of the terminal... pretty horrendous visibility. Some places I know of can only see a threshold of one of their runways, none of the others.

But again, these only exist at 30,000 - 60,000 movement airports! Not some of the busiest airports in the US. Pretty damn piss poor facility you have!

The craziest thing is we are rated a level 10 facility (out of 12). There are only a few level 12 towers out there with DFW, ORD and ATL being just a few. The thing is though at a place like ATL they have 2 towers so the workload is split up between controllers.

We average 1400 operations (takeoffs/landings) a day and that includes Saturdays and Sunday morning where the airport is dead as well as off peak times such as after 10pm-5am where the airport is closed but we still handle over the field traffic and class b traffic.

If we werent a 24/7 tower then I'm sure those numbers would be a lot higher - probably something like 2000 operations a day.

Edit: oh, I forgot to mention that our equipment sucks - nothing ever is working 100%. The stuff is so old and antiquated. None of the lights work on the airport so at night the place is pitch black (and they wonder why there are so many pilot devs).

 

[compuwiz1]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: deftron
How do you get that job ?

I went to college for it. However, you can apply right now with no experience, college or whatever. Like the article says the FAA is hiring people that work at McDonald's, Piercing Pagoda and circus rejects. Check out www.faa.gov/jobs if you are interested.

I'm too old. (49) so much for age discrimination.

 

[Scouzer]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer
I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

No seriously the place is a dump. We find rats in the tower all the time, there are asbestos warning signs in certain places, etc. The new tower will be finished this summer and we move into it next fall.

Its going to be great because as it is now we are unable to see the east side of the airport because the tower is not high enough and is blocked by the terminal(s). The new tower is 70 feet higher and we will be able to see the entire airport.

You have no idea how much brain power goes into working traffic that you cannot see and have to envision in your head....especially at night and when its super busy.

Oh, I have an idea. Nothing on the scale of KLGA though! We have many buildings in Canada at smaller airports that simply have windows on the side of the terminal. The cabs aren't towers at all, just a few windows on one side of the terminal... pretty horrendous visibility. Some places I know of can only see a threshold of one of their runways, none of the others.

But again, these only exist at 30,000 - 60,000 movement airports! Not some of the busiest airports in the US. Pretty damn piss poor facility you have!

The craziest thing is we are rated a level 10 facility (out of 12). There are only a few level 12 towers out there with DFW, ORD and ATL being just a few. The thing is though at a place like ATL they have 2 towers so the workload is split up between controllers.

We average 1400 operations (takeoffs/landings) a day and that includes Saturdays and Sunday morning where the airport is dead as well as off peak times such as after 10pm-5am where the airport is closed but we still handle over the field traffic and class b traffic.

If we werent a 24/7 tower then I'm sure those numbers would be a lot higher - probably something like 2000 operations a day.

Edit: oh, I forgot to mention that our equipment sucks - nothing ever is working 100%. The stuff is so old and antiquated. None of the lights work on the airport so at night the place is pitch black (and they wonder why there are so many pilot devs).

Wow. You guys hate to hear it, but you need to privatize. I work at one of the most backwater slow airports in the system and at least all of our stuff works, always. If it breaks, our techs are out fixing it the next day. I can't even fathom broken equipment like that... if an NDB breaks in who-the-fuck-cares ville, our company techs are out there within 3 days to fix it. Broken runway lights don't exist at municipal airports serving towns of 3000 people...that's unheard of.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Scouzer
I'm glad we have nicer cabs here in Canada!

Not a knock, but that place sounds like a shit hole of a workplace. Wow. I guarantee here in Canada the controllers working there would do an OSH refusal to work and the company would have to set up a temporary tower while it's fixed.

How many errors did you note in the article? I find reporters trying to write about aviation is a perpetual fuck up. It's impossible for them not to make errors out of everything!

One so far I've noticed:

Over the Grand Canyon they met, at 21,000 feet, inside a cumulus cloud.

You don't get cumulus @ 21,000 feet. CC yes, but that's not cumulus as it were.

No seriously the place is a dump. We find rats in the tower all the time, there are asbestos warning signs in certain places, etc. The new tower will be finished this summer and we move into it next fall.

Its going to be great because as it is now we are unable to see the east side of the airport because the tower is not high enough and is blocked by the terminal(s). The new tower is 70 feet higher and we will be able to see the entire airport.

You have no idea how much brain power goes into working traffic that you cannot see and have to envision in your head....especially at night and when its super busy.

Oh, I have an idea. Nothing on the scale of KLGA though! We have many buildings in Canada at smaller airports that simply have windows on the side of the terminal. The cabs aren't towers at all, just a few windows on one side of the terminal... pretty horrendous visibility. Some places I know of can only see a threshold of one of their runways, none of the others.

But again, these only exist at 30,000 - 60,000 movement airports! Not some of the busiest airports in the US. Pretty damn piss poor facility you have!

The craziest thing is we are rated a level 10 facility (out of 12). There are only a few level 12 towers out there with DFW, ORD and ATL being just a few. The thing is though at a place like ATL they have 2 towers so the workload is split up between controllers.

We average 1400 operations (takeoffs/landings) a day and that includes Saturdays and Sunday morning where the airport is dead as well as off peak times such as after 10pm-5am where the airport is closed but we still handle over the field traffic and class b traffic.

If we werent a 24/7 tower then I'm sure those numbers would be a lot higher - probably something like 2000 operations a day.

Edit: oh, I forgot to mention that our equipment sucks - nothing ever is working 100%. The stuff is so old and antiquated. None of the lights work on the airport so at night the place is pitch black (and they wonder why there are so many pilot devs).

Wow. You guys hate to hear it, but you need to privatize. I work at one of the most backwater slow airports in the system and at least all of our stuff works, always. If it breaks, our techs are out fixing it the next day. I can't even fathom broken equipment like that... if an NDB breaks in who-the-fuck-cares ville, our company techs are out there within 3 days to fix it. Broken runway lights don't exist at municipal airports serving towns of 3000 people...that's unheard of.

I dont want to hear about privatization no matter how much a company can offer. I worked for a private company that was contracted out by the FAA and I swore I would never work in the private sector again.

Even though the equipment sucks and the tower is a dump we are moving into a $150 million dollar new tower next year with state of the art equipment....so I only have to put up with it for a little longer.