Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1975-10-30

              t 1 I i iZ 0 l- l hi i ff t i ii a i s a ar r J l i t Z i Air traffic controllers from left Ken Manning and Dave Stock consult their charts as Harold Cornine Carnine gives to an airplane approaching the Air traffic controllers a life of ups tips Jn and downs By Laura Learn Long Missourian staff writer A A- A quiet autumn day at Columbia Regional Airport was melting into a quiet evening when suddenly at pin pm the sky and the control tower became flurries of activity Two Ozark Airline flights and two small private craft were approaching the airport rt and requesting permission to land while a third rd small plane was wason wason wason on the taxiway ready to take off The air traffic controllers on duty Dave Stock Ken Manning and Harold Cornine jumped to their positions as the tower radios crackled with names numbers and instructions Soon the controllers had all of the planes in sight and began instructing the pilots on at their landing order Columbia Regional Airport Airports Missourian photo by Irish Fish Robb Cessna youre you're number two follow the Ozark approaching on your left The planes circled around the airport and began lining up above the north norm end of the runways As the planes touched down safely one by one the controllers sighed in relief Then with hindsight they sat back and discussed how they handled the situation just moments before when split-second split decisions had to be made They come in bunches like that Manning says Youre sipping coffee one minute and biting your nails the next But its it's all in a days day's work for the nine air traffic controllers who work at atthe atthe atthe the airport rt The controllers' controllers responsibilities are heavy they are in fact traffic cops for the sky as they guide planes landing taking off and just passing over so there are no collisions or ac ac- ac- ac There are three positions in the tower and three men work each shift unless it is a particularly busy day when an extra man is on duty The approach controller guides planes airport when wh i they th yare are about 40 kilometers 25 miles away He also provides approach control for planes flying by instruments and landing at the Cotton Woods Memorial Airport or the tIE Jefferson City airport neither of which has approach control The flight data controller answers the telephone and coordinates the activity with the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Kansas City which wl ch plots flight patterns for this s area Missouri Kansas Nebraska and Iowa The local and ground controller guides ap approaching ap- ap approaching planes when they are about 8 kilometers 5 miles away and in in- instructs instructs planes landing and taking off Although Columbia Regional Airport is classified by the Federal Aviation Administration FAA as a low activity airport there are some days when the controllers have all the business they can handle An example is any ny Saturday there is a University football home game Tiger football fans and many of the opposing teams team's fans fly to Columbia in small aircraft Stock says that two years ago when the tIE University played Oklahoma about planes carrying football fans landed am a.m. and noon On a normal nonna day the con con- controllers controllers controllers work only about 20 aircraft per hour Bad weather also creates headaches for controllers When visibility vis is low pilots are required to fly by their in in- instruments in- in instruments rather than their sight and with literally blind trust they depend anthe on en the tower to guide them safely to the ground and back into the air Commercial planes are required by their companies to fly fry by instruments at all times for safety reasons private planes have an option on clear days Manning says When the tIE weather gets bad and theres there's a lot of traffic the approach control gets tough Because of the hazardous weather you want to get them down as fast as possible but you still have to be safe He says bad weather slows the operation of getting the planes down You put them on holding bolding patterns and one at a time shoot them down A plane in a holding pattern main main- maintains maintains maintains a constant altitude assigned to it by the tower and flies in an oval pattern of about 8 to 16 kilometers 5 to 10 miles in diameter The controllers use six standard patterns scattered in all directions from the airport If more patterns are needed they invent them Explaining ng how planes flying frying by instruments are assigned flight pat pat- terns Stock says a plane leaving Kansas City for Columbia for example radios the Kansas City Qty airport tower The tower contacts the FAA Center and the pilots pilot's departure location cation l and destination are run through a com com- puter The pilot is assigned an altitude that he maintains until he is 40 kilometers 25 miles outside of Columbia The FAA Center has a direct telephone to the Columbia tower and notifies the controllers of the routes assigned to planes coming to Columbia This information along with the kind of craft its number and time of arrival are logged on narrow w strips of green paper pale The strips are slipped into a frame and the controllers know at a glance what planes are in the air When the pilot is 40 kilometers 25 miles from Columbia he radios the tower for far instructions The approach Bad weather slows the operation get of ting the planes down You put them on holding patterns and andone andone andone one at a time shoot them down controller has to work the plane down considering the other otha- planes in the area and keeping all of them separated by meters 1000 feet of altitude or by ten minutes of flight time if they are flying in the same direction When the plane is 8 kilometers 5 miles away from the airport it becomes b comes the too ground and local con con- controllers controller's controllers controller's controllers controller's responsibility He guides the plane to the runway making sure only one plane at a time tune is on each of the airports airport's two runways In Li case of an emergency aircraft in trouble are given first priority The airport fire crew sew is called and the Columbia Fire Department is asked to stand by Such an emergency situation occurred occUlTed last year when an aircraft with faulty landing gear was forced to land belly on the grass along the tIE run run- way Stock recalls there was light damage to the plane but no one was hurt Both Stock and Manning learned air traffic control techniques while in the military service Cornine Carnine was a pilot for the Air Force and learned con con con- controlling trolling after being discharged All An of Columbia's controllers are FAA em em- Although there is an FAA controllers controller's training center in Oklahoma City Okla Okia controllers learn most of d. their business by the job training The learns the various positions and is given a license by the FAA Each tower is rated and training qualifications for Columbia's tower would w uld not be the same for St Sl Louiss Even if a controller transfers from one tower to another of comparable size he be must start at a the bottom bott m of the training sequence and learn all of the positions again A rigid physical examination is is required every year Controlling air traffic cant can't be learned in textbooks it takes a lot of practice and experience Manning says You get the knack of it after a awhile awhile awhile while you can ten tell what's going to work