Captain’s Column
For obvious reasons, the best view of the flightline is from the control tower, where a group of professionals, called air traffic control specialists, work. These dedicated professionals ensure the safe, orderly and expeditious departure and arrival of aircraft from Truax Field, Naval Outlying Field Cabaniss, and NOLF Waldron.
Staffing the Air Traffic Control Facility, to include the Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) unit, and Flight Planning are 56 military and nine Department of Defense Federal Aviation Administration certified air traffic control specialists. These specialists provide the instructions to aircrew on the ground and in the air to ensure a safe training environment is available to train the world’s finest military aviators.
Trained at Naval Air Technical Training Center located in Pensacola, Florida, Sailors are subjected to 16-weeks of intense instruction covering basic ATC principles, control tower, and radar concepts culminating in an examination governed by the FAA. Successfully completing the examination, Sailors obtain apprentice credential, issued by the FAA, which permits them to provide air traffic control services; however, the training does not stop there.
Upon assignment to their first duty station, controllers are assigned personnel qualification standards, which must be completed within allotted NATOPS time frames, or the controller faces the revocation of their FAA credential. Of the 56 controllers assigned to NASCC, 27 of them (approximately 48 percent) are first-tour Sailors straight out of school. Normally, it takes first-tour Sailors assigned to NASCC 18-months of training to complete their minimum training requirements.
Providing that training is a small cadre of journeymen and expert air traffic control specialist instructors, which includes our essential DoD employees. These instructors spend numerous hours breaking down critical control instructions into easily understood terms and concepts to developmental controllers. Averaging 900 hours of on-the-job instruction per month, which includes simulator and classroom instruction, it is safe to assume that training never stops!
The rigorous training requirements, coupled with a dynamic pilot training environment, and typical South Texas ever-changing weather patterns, makes air traffic control difficult; however, the controllers would not have it any other way. The energy and passion they have to provide the very best service possible is felt in each and every transmission they make. Billed as the Navy’s premier pilot training command, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi ATC has executed close to 1,000,000 operations, spanning three control towers, over the last five years. Averaging 400-500 operations per day, the “nice” weather enjoyed in South Texas for the majority of the year eases the stress of ATC; however, the fall and winter months come with low ceilings and visibility, along with high winds. On those days the GCA unit takes over providing precise control instructions to aircrew, guiding them to a landing point only 60-feet wide all while using radars that have been in service more than 20 years beyond its estimated product life cycle. Averaging 10,000 radar approaches per year, NASCC ATC is the busiest in the Navy.
The air traffic control profession began almost 100 years ago and has evolved significantly over the years to keep up with the commercial and military requirements. Within this edition of the Wingspan, beginning on page 8, a history of the inception of air traffic control has been provided.
If you have the opportunity to visit the control tower, please do so, so you too can witness how much work it takes to integrate our military training aircraft into and out of the National Airspace System.