How Air Traffic Control Works

You know how when you fly in an airline you usually don't die? You can thank the battalion of air traffic control professionals who studiously track every moment of your flight to ensure its safety. Learn all about this unsung field with Chuck and Josh.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Josh Clark. I'm with you. Alongside

(00:22):
me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. We're about to take
this joint thirty three thousand feet into the air. But
it pushed some tin. Yeah, that's the lingo it is.
It's yeah, I saw that movie. I assume that's the lingo.
Otherwise they probably would not have titled it be sleep.
You could also they could be about like a car

(00:42):
driving movie too, somebody who has like a pretty good
radio flyer wagon. There's a lot of things that they
could apply for a recycling movie. Yeah, yes, we're speaking
of the Mike Newell like with Billy Bob Thornton Man
one John Cusack Cusack. Yeah, that's where John Cusack can

(01:05):
Um Angelina Joelie met and ended up getting married. You
mean Billy buck Port. No, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I
didn't think it was very good. Are you kidding? Did
you like it? All? Right? All right, I have to
admit that movies that I thought were awesome in the
late nineties. When I go back and watch him now,
I'm usually like, not as great. Yeah, there's very few
that hold up. I'm trying to think of one that

(01:25):
I saw again recently that did hold up. I'm gonna
sit here for a while until I think of it.
It wasn't Pushington, though, I don't know. I haven't seen
it for a while. Well, in the movie, they were
air traffic controllers. Yes, and um, that's what we're gonna
talk about today. So that's how Pushington relates to this one.
I thought I cleared that up in case people were like,
what are they talking about again? That you got any

(01:48):
other good air traffic control movies? Well, Airplane, Yeah, of course,
Classic Lloyd Bridges. Looks like I picked the wrong week
and stuff difflue. Yeah. Other than that, I have nothing.
Oh what about all the real airport movies? Oh? Sure, yeah,
Airport seventy Airport see the Grunge Years. Um, speaking of

(02:14):
the Grudge Years, I've recently gotten into David Foster Wallace
and I am genuinely sad that he killed himself. He
was a good guy. He was a good writer, good guy.
Like from what he's shared and his writing he was
pretty cool. Well, I think a late um acknowledgement of
feeling bad about that is better than nothing at all.
So welcome upboard that train, Thanks Chuck. Yes, have you

(02:38):
ever been to Reagan National Airport? I know you have
because I've been there with you, my friend. The sickest
I've ever seen another human being was you at Reagan National.
Oh my god, stomach flu people actually get green, I
learned from looking at you. And hats off to me
for pitching a television show to Science Channel in between

(02:59):
vomiting Bob Inning episodes. That was rough. You had a
staph infection in your stomach, like jumped up and after
we pitched the show and like ran to the bathroom
and puked and then came back and he's like, hey,
thanks for the time. Yeah, it was something. So that
was a bad flight home. Yes, well it could have
been even worse because had we been flying at night
UM about a year ago, last March, sometime between midnight

(03:22):
and six, we may have been forced to land at
Reagan d c A we'll call it UM without the
help of any air traffic controller. That's because one night
in March last year, two thousand eleven UM. The one
guy who was controlling the tower for all flights at

(03:43):
d C a UM fell asleep and could not be roused.
I mean he was out drunk. Because that happened in Colorado,
remember that. Uh No, there was a drunk air traffic
controller that they pulled from the job. K. That's so
not cool. No, that is a job where it's like
you drug test them every day. You you smell their

(04:06):
breath when they come in. There's somebody whose jobs should
be like clapped next to their ears. Like. But this guy, know,
his his thing was this is his fourth consecutive overnight
shifting and he was he couldn't stay awake. Um so
uh but apparently other control towers were calling him, right,

(04:27):
couldn't wake him up? There radio and him couldn't wake
him up. And then they have this system called the
shout shout line where like you can call somebody and
it goes through a p a system really loud. They
were shouting to wake this guy up, and it's in
place for that reason. Yeah, geez, and uh, nothing nothing happened.
So two different flights landed themselves, and I should say

(04:48):
they didn't necessarily land themselves the brave, valiant people at
trey Con. The what is it, the terminal radar approach
can troll people who are have nothing to do with landing.
They took over and help safely land two planes. Yeah,
it was a scary night. Well, and what you're illustrating there,

(05:09):
which is what we'll get into, is that there are
a lot of people that get you from point A
to point B when you're sitting there enjoying your vodka
gimblet but not peplaining about the peanuts. God help you
if you open peanuts on a plane these days, they
will tackle you. Really. Oh yeah, people who have peanut allergies?
Is that new? Yeah? But that was it to Austin. Yeah, yeah,

(05:35):
that's right. I had never heard of that before. That's
happened to us before. Wow is this your first time? Yep,
I just got a text. Let's just go ahead and
leave that into all right, Well, I need to show
our unprofessionalism. These are free for now. All right, I'm silent, Okay,
all right, so you're back with me. Yes, um, I

(05:55):
did not know about the peanut thing. I've never heard
of that before. On our flight to Austin, they said
we have someone who's allergic and no one can eat
peanuts on the whole flight, like, don't even open them up.
And then they served as pretzels that it said on
the on the label, Um, these are processed in a
plant that also processes peanuts and other nuts. Does it really?
But at least they weren't peanuts. But that's happened you

(06:17):
me and me before on flights where it's like, dude,
there's somebody who's so violently allergic to peanuts you can't
even open them. So, because my first reaction was kind
of jerky, I was like, well, that's not fair to
everyone else. And then I thought, come on, I don't
even care for the peanuts, you know, yeah, they're not
even that good. Now, who's who cares people who really
love peanuts? I'm sure, But I guess what I'm trying

(06:38):
to drive at is that's everything there is to know
about air traffic controllers the end, Josh, there are approximately
fifty tho aircraft operating in US airspace every day. So
here's the thing. If there's five thousand in the sky
every hour during peak hours, and did you do some

(07:00):
math that didn't work out? I don't understand this because
think about. So let's say every hour was a peak hour.
Well they're not, otherwise it wouldn't be a peak hour.
All right, I guess that's what it is then, But
even still that's crazy. It seems off. But whatever I'm
gonna I defer to Freud and Rick. He has a
PhD and I don't, although I always wondered what it
was in who Craig's the author of this article's PhD?

(07:25):
We should? We should? We can find that out. Okay,
maybe it's an honor. It's like a Bill Cosby doctorate.
You know, he's got like ten of them. He apparently.
I used to make fun of Bill Cosby, like because
I think he's an old crank jerk, and um I
got called out once it was making fun of his doctors.
He apparently has at least one I think in education
like that he earned. Yeah, that wasn't just from a

(07:47):
speaking engagement. Well who am I My dad has a PhD.
So we should probably start talking about air traffic controllers. Yes, um,
it's actually I thought this was very cool how it worked. Um,
and we're gonna get into it pretty specifically, from from
the time you are sitting on your plane to the
time you land and are getting off your plane. And

(08:09):
for those of you who like to fly between say
um D C in Atlanta, this will last approximately about
as long as your flight will. Now, well, we'll go
through it all right. Let's start out with air space.
There twenty one zones in United States airspace or centers.
Each of those zones is divided into sectors, and within
each of those zones, Uh, there are portions of air

(08:32):
space about fifty miles what in diameter? Yeah? Yeah, And
that is called TRACON. That is the terminal radar approach
control that you talked about. And within the traycon there
are could be several airports depending on where you are.
Like for example, if you're in the San Francisco area,
you have not one, not two, but three international airports

(08:54):
within that tracon within just a few miles of each other.
And each of those airports has their own five mile
radius of their own airspace. But that can overlap. Evidently,
are they within five miles? Uh No, I'll bet you
they don't build them within five miles of each other
or ten miles if if it's a five mile radius,
that would make a can overlap. So, but this map

(09:15):
might not be the scale because it looks kind of cartoony,
but it looks like they're pretty close. It's confusing in
the very last, at the very least, there's three international
airports within the same tray con alright, so f A
A they run the traffic control system. It's a government body.
They take care of it all. We'll get to the
strike a bit later. You don't want to talk about that, No,

(09:35):
I was just excited about talking about We can talk now. No, No,
it's okay. Uh. So there's there are several different um
uh divisions and we'll go over there's now so you
know what we're talking about here when you take off,
and you'll know who's handling you at any given moment.
And it's all pretty intuitive. Sure it makes sense. Uh.

(09:56):
Freud and Rick used a really good um analogy I thought,
as completely clear as any misunderstanding whatsoever. Up. It's all
very much like a zone defense. Yeah. You just as
your plane is moving, it could hand it off from
one person to another person to another person. As your
plane crosses through the air space. We could really stop there.
But let's not, okay. Division one Air Traffic Control System

(10:19):
Command Center a t c S c C. They oversee
the whole ball of wax and manage control within the centers,
uh when when there's problems. So I get the impression
that these guys are like the cream of the crop. Yeah,
like they're like, you, you've got some pretty bad weather here.
I'm just gonna go ahead and take over your controls
and handle this for you. Yeah. I got that, Yeah,

(10:40):
I got that idea. Um they have Next is the
air Route Traffic Control centers, and there is one a
r T c C for each center, and they manage
traffic within all sectors of that center except for that
fifty mile tray con zone. Yes correct, Yes, Okay, these
are the ones where it's kind of like you're on

(11:03):
the boonies. Okay. They could get the impression that Trecon
airspace is like, um, a little urban. Yeah, Like they're saying,
like there's actual airports here. This is just over the
over the great planes. There are the air traffic, air
route traffic control centers all right. Then you got your

(11:24):
terminal radar approach control, which is what we've been talking about.
The fifty mile zone that handles that, you know, flights
leaving and coming into the airport. Essentially then you have
the air traffic control tower. You've all seen those, and
everyone probably thinks that that's all there is going on,
is just the tower. That's just one little piece of
the puzzle. That's exactly right. That's basically like it's almost

(11:46):
like you can look at it as an expanded version. Right.
So an airport has its own control tower, a few
airports will share a traycon and then if you expand
out further geographically, you run into air route traffic control centers.
And then if you look at the United States as
a whole, you've got the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.

(12:07):
Well done, it's like the Power of ten the AIMS documentary. Yeah,
exactly like uh. And then finally you have the flight
service station the f f s S, and that provides
information for private pilots UM flying out of like you know,
Charlie Browne Airport here in Decapp County. Yeah, and if

(12:27):
you're a small pilot, you're allowed to fly by visual
flight rules, which means you use your peepers UM. And
if you use your peepers to fly, you don't have
to file a flight plan and you are basically guided
by UM a flight service station UM if you happen
to fly a plane that has I don't know, like

(12:49):
two people in back. You're flying what's called instrument flight rules,
which means you can fly in any weather because you're
using radar. UM. There's usually a psychic aboard who is
UM asked to give weather predictions things like that. UM,
and you are directed by this whole f A A

(13:09):
run ball of wax like you said, this whole quote
unquote f a A. Alright, so UM, yeah, I remember
when Kennedy Junior died, he was UM. Wouldn't it he
was not instrument rated? Wouldn't that the deal? I think? So?
I think he was just UM visual VFR rated And

(13:31):
they said that he shouldn't have been flying in that weather.
He was instrument rated. It's very sad it was. UM. Okay.
So let's say you're flying, um, Jacob, this is Jacob Silverman, right, No,
this is oh I was Silverman with the medical marijuana one. Okay,
that's next or in three weeks. You never know. UM,

(13:53):
Let's say you're flying from New York to San Francisco.
They're gonna be seven different portions of that flight, starting
with pre flight and ending in your landing. True to
what's in between. Oh, well, you've got take off departure.
You have en route, which is synonymous pretty much with
cruising that favoring altitude uh or vodka gimblet time for you. Uh.

(14:18):
And then you have descent. Folks were just made our
initial descent. Yeah, wake up, um, off your stuff, yeah, approach,
and then you've got well, like you said, landing. Yeah.
You know what else they called the scent is uh
skym all time. Oh yeah, because you've got to turn
off all your stuff that you're passing time with. And

(14:38):
all of a a sudden, you're like, and I guess I'll
read the sky Mall magazine. I make a second or
third concerted effort to go back to sleep. It's like, hey,
we're five hundred miles out, we're making our inctional descent.
We're not gonna be there for another hour, but I
want to talk to you. It's it's like, yes, we
all have sensed it in our inner ears. Just go
back to flying the plane. Yeah. Emily gets annoyed with

(14:59):
the descent that she can't get up and pee any longer.
Well you can really, well, yeah, she did it in Austin.
Gotten there. You know, they always say like, you should
sit back down, and she's like, do you want me
to peel over there? You don't want that? Yeah, yeah,
but they will not move. They can't move. If if
you're stuck on the the tarmac on a runway or

(15:22):
something and you have to get up and go to
use the bathroom, if you can go, the plane can't
move because you have everybody has to have their seatbelts buckled,
and you held the plane up for Hey, sometimes you
just have gotta go. You gotta Luckily, I've never been
in that situation where you're like, you hear people saying,
like I was on the tarmac for like three hours, Yeah,

(15:44):
I would lose it. Man, knock on wood, I would
get off. I would be like, they'd have to air
marshal me out of there. Get off. I always sure
you can. I thought you got to do with say
the right things. Then all of a sudden you're being
escorted off, right, But then you're off and then off
the jail. Not necessarily, Oh, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, at
the very least, you're gonna be detained for the rest
of the day. I'd rather be in jail cee, that

(16:05):
is jail sitting on a tarmac on a plane with
all those people as jail to me does not have
Go magazine. That's true. Okay, pre flight, Josh, what's gonna
happen here? You're on your plane, You're feeling good, you boardered,
your drink or taking your pill? You're trying to fall asleep.
I I don't take pills anymore. Are you good to go?
I am? That's nice. Uh, your pilot is gonna be

(16:26):
um doing some important things which don't include drinking. Hopefully
they're gonna be checking over your plane right. Uh, they're
gonna file the flight plan thirty minutes prior. Yeah, which
so a flight plan. I always thought like I would
never want to be a pilot flying a filing a
flight pan plan sounds terrible, right, And then upon reading
this article, I'm like, that's the flight plan? Really? So basically,

(16:48):
can I tell him what a flight plan? What do
you think it was? Oh? I thought it was like
this detailed like chart route, like here, we're gonna just
move to the left just slightly, and then we're gonna
go up over this mountain and then back down. No
light plan is the airline's name and flight number? Right? Um?
The kind of aircraft. It is, uh, what you intend

(17:09):
to fly at altitude and speed wise and then um,
you know which way you're going. That's it the route. Yeah,
I'm now I'm kind of like sure, I'll be a pilot. Yeah,
that's what you gotta do. I don't think i'd want
to to log that kind of travel. Well, no, of
course you wouldn't. Um. And the reason that they it

(17:30):
is probably that minimal is because they want the pilot
to be flying the plane and concentrating on that while
the men and women in the control centers handle all
the other stuff. Like we'll get into right now. So
you've got the flight data person who says, hey, this
flight plan looks pretty good. I'm going to print out
a strip that has to do with um, you know

(17:52):
your Well, basically, I think there's like twenty one different
little uh pieces of information yeah, that any air traffic
controller can look at and say, oh, based on this,
this guy should be here right now if anything happened
to the flight. Um. The the flight progress strip is
what when you have a flight like it's it stays

(18:15):
with your flight the whole time. It gets passed off
between person and person and changed as needed. Yes, and
this is all to begin with filed with the f
A a host computer, so before they can do anything,
it's got to be in the main frame. Well, the
host computer is the one that gives that spits out
the progress, so they follow the flight plan and then
it spits out the route. Yeah, probably like oh you're

(18:36):
going this route, Well, then this weather is here and
you've got to look out for ducks over here and
that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, And another thing I
learned too, there are regular ascending and descending corridors that
I think they just are typical for that airport. Not typical,
but used for that airport. So they're not just like, hey,
why don't you fly out this way today? Yeah, it's

(18:56):
a really neat if you fly into Hartsfield here in Atlanta, uh,
world's busiest airport. Um, when you're flying, when you're coming
in for a landing, there's a whole road that stretches
back for ten miles of planes that are coming in
right behind you. That's the corridor. But if you look
over to your left or you're right, there's like three

(19:17):
or four of them. At any given time, three or
four of these lines planes all flying into Hartsfield. Yeah,
I didn't realize they lined them up like that. But
when they're coming, you've got ten planes coming in, He's like,
all right, get in line. And there's a certain the corridors.
You you come in at a certain altitude, like a
certain corridors like, oh, you come in at this altitude,

(19:38):
A different corridor comes in at a higher altitude. It's
all very exact. Yes, thank god. Uh. So you you
have your approof flight plan, You've got your little progress
strip in your flight data person is gonna say clearance delivery,
and the pilot's gonna finish up his drink or her drink.
You think it's so funny. I do. And they're gonna

(20:00):
give that strip to the ground controller in the tower.
So now the ground controller is in possession of of
your of your junk, right, because that's how they get
pilots to land, to ensure that they're going to come back,
is by hanging under the junk while they're gone. That's right. Uh.
They are responsible for the ground traffic, taxing, all that stuff,

(20:24):
making sure planes in that huge parking lot down there
aren't running into each other. Yeah, that seems like that's
a that's a big one. The ground controller might have
the most frenetic job because everybody else it's like, here's
a plane that's landing, and yes, you have to keep
up with the distance between other planes, and you're managing
several planes, but you're managing them in a corridor, right.

(20:44):
This guy's got like all sorts of crazy stuff going
on with planes trying to get out and get into
the runway system, and especially at a Hartsfield. Yeah, like
you can't just say you just go ahead and pull
across runway ten there to runway twelve and you'll be fine.
You gotta make sure there is nothing taxing around or
landing obviously. And I believe the ground controller is one

(21:05):
of only two air traffic controllers that are allowed to
use binoculars. The local controller and the ground controller are
the only ones they can use binoculars, which is pretty cool.
Like these guys strike me as like early NASA dudes
who like put put men on the moon, right, you
know what I mean. Like they wear like a short
button down yellow shirts with brown ties, and like they

(21:25):
have big four arms, and like maybe they have vaguely
like military haircuts. They look like Ed Harris and Apollo thirty.
That's who I was describing. Okay, sorry, Uh so you're
taxing to the runway. The ground controllers watching all this stuff. UM,
this is all transmitted by radio initially, and like they say,
all right, get on channel whatever, Mr Pilot or mrs pilot,

(21:49):
and we will direct you to the or miss pilot,
excuse me, and we will direct you to the correct
runway right, and then I will pass that off to
the local controller here. Now, now, this plane is yours,
and the local controller is the one who is keeping
an eye on distances between planes and UM basically making

(22:09):
sure that the sky is clear for takeoff there in
the tower. And they're the ones who say, pilot, you
are clear for takeoff, and the pilot says, okay, but
I'm gonna check myself first, looks both ways, and goes okay.
And when the pilot's radied, the pilot powers up, lifts off,
and you've got the local controller hanging onto the the

(22:32):
that particular flight, UM while of course managing other flights
as well, UM for I think five miles out, but
before they reached that five mile point, the local controller
and now so we're leaving the UM the control tower
at the airport and we're expanding out the tray coon
as they hand off to a radio controller at Traycon

(22:54):
the departure controllers. Alright, so now we're in the air,
we are on route, and you have to if you're
a pilot, activate your transponder, which will UM basically make
you the little blip on the radar. Very important thing
to do. That's that's how they can follow you as
you move across the country or around the world. Right,

(23:16):
you're covering all bases on this episode. Well, your little
blip is gonna obviously represent your plane, and it's gonna
have your flight number, your altitude, your airspeed, and your
destination and uh so where are we now. It's also
how they find you if you go plummeting into the
ocean of the Earth. Sure is that the black box?

(23:37):
I think that's probably a part of the transponder. Um.
So the departure controllers at TRACON maybe handling a few
different airports, many many planes, and uh they also are
the ones maintaining good safe distances. It's very important. That's
pretty much, um because of the increasing congestion and air

(24:00):
traffic over the last like forty years. UM, that's like
job one of any air traffic controller is you have
so many planes, basically you want to keep them evenly
spaced following these prescribed corridors. And um, if you can
do that, then you can do this safely. That's right.

(24:21):
So what do you what do we have? Where are
we on route yet? Are we? Uh? Yeah? Once you
leave the track on air space which is the fifty miles,
and they pass you off to the center controller which
is a RTCC, and um, we're expanding out again, expanding out.
And it's important to note every time you get passed along,
they're gonna pass along and updated progress slip that says, yeah,
we thought they were going to be actually about fifty

(24:43):
miles further west, but because of bad weather or whatever,
we altered their flight path. And so here's what you
need to know, right or um they were they hit
some headwind, so they're a little further back. There's holl
And butt through the year. Yeah, but you're my favorite flights.
And so these guys in the UM, the radar associate

(25:04):
controller and the radar controller at the error route traffic
control centers, the rural ones, the regional ones, they UM
are the ones who say, well, they're just tracking your
plane throughout its flight, but then they're also directing it
to say, UM, like there is some weather up ahead,
there's some turbulence, we advise you to increase your altitude UM.

(25:28):
And then as they pass through air traffic air out
traffic control center after air route traffic control center, UM,
your plane is just going to be passed off from
one controller to another. You go, Bobby, thanks, Jimmy. I
wonder what they say. I think that's what they say.
I don't think that's what It's probably a little more
technical than that. UM. And then there's also a radar

(25:51):
handoff controller and they assist the the two other controllers.
When there's a lot of heavy traffic, they'll they'll come
in and say, hey, let me let me lighten the
load here. But which is significant. So you've got three
controllers all working together. Two of them are assisting the
radar controller. You have the radar associate controller who alerts
the radar controller that they have new stuff. And then

(26:11):
the radar handoff controller is basically just looking over both
their shoulders, like, don't forget that one, right, that's a
big one. Yeah, I like that one that's red look
out that one's going right towards that one, right exactly. Yeah, Yeah,
let's hope that doesn't happen very often. Remember that was
well because they were all a flitter over Angelina and Jolie.

(26:32):
Oh is that what caused that? Yeah, they weren't paying
attention to their jobs, got you because they were concentrating
on that leg. It's like a bold Dirham. Emily was
just watching that today in her sick bed. Weird. It's
very weird. Good movie. All right, So this is all
going on until you're about a hundred and fifty miles
out um from your destination, and then the center controller

(26:53):
will jump on board and do what you were talking
about earlier and get everyone coming in in a nice
tidy little line for landing, like from ten miles out,
like when you were ten miles away from the airport. Okay,
they start to get them in line. So then you
haven't hit trackon airspace yet, have you know? That's the

(27:14):
next stop as you go back into someone else's tray
coon following these prescribed corridors, and these things are not
just like easy straight lines like they're really you know
how like when you fly up, you're like, what we're
going the wrong way and then your pilot banks hard
and then you go back. That's the corridor and you're going, Yeah,
they curve like that corridors to it's really neat um

(27:36):
and we should mention too. If there's something wrong and
it's too congested or your runway is uh is not
working like the lights are off like an airplane. Uh,
they will put you in the in the dreaded holding pattern,
which is not Hey, just fly around up there for
a while. It's specific to each airport. You know what
the holding pattern is and you stay there and I

(27:56):
think it's like a big circle or it doesn't vary
pretty much. All right. So now you were within fifty
miles trackon's got ahold of you again? Um. They are
advising the pilot on heading, speed, altitude. And then when
you were ten miles out, the approach controller passes you
back to the local controller and it's all just a

(28:19):
big glorious dance. And then you land and the local
controller says, hey, go out this way, and you do,
and the ground controller takes over and then you were
directed via the ground controller to your gate and that's it.
And then once you get to the gate, obviously you
have the men and women with the orange flashlights. They

(28:41):
are airline employees, not f A. I did not realize
that until I read this. Once I read it, I
was like, oh, yeah, they're all wearing like Delta air
train or something like that. All right, so I know
you want to be an air traffic controller, Josh, how
would you go about that? Well? I would go study
very hard school and earn a bachelor's degree for your degree,

(29:03):
which you don't need, or you could work somewhere for
three years. Yeah, it's actually one of the higher paying
jobs you can get without a college degree, they say. Um.
I would also probably focus on my UM spatial vision
spatial visualization UH skills, so I could visualize things in

(29:25):
three dimensions. Yeah, look on your concentration. I'm doing it
right now. Is that what you're doing? So? Uh? Like
we said, you were employed by the f a A
and you have to apply through the Federal Civil Civil
Service system pass the test. That is. I read an
article from a guy that was on Wall Street, very

(29:47):
strectial job being decided I'm gonna go be an air
traffic controller because I just dig this stuff, and he
said the test is timed and very very hard, So
they want to put the pressure on you. Oh it
should be and the clock is ticking three d uh
spatial visible visualization on the exam reasoning, abstract reasoning. It's

(30:08):
like it's tough stuff. So they say, all right, you
can be a trainee. You're gonna move to Oklahoma City
for seven months, and not many of you are going
to make it through training. We're gonna call the majority
of you to know that going in you might not
get through because they want the cream of the crop.
But then let's say you did, and then what happens.

(30:32):
Then you go, uh, you know, you walk up in
front of an airport with your resume, I'm here, kind
of start landing lights. Yeah, um, pretty much do you? Uh,
you start working and then uh, I guess to become
uh certain kinds of air traffic controllers, right, like I
think trade cons um or the air route traffic control centers,

(30:55):
the regional ones. Um. You have to be certified yeah
for each little different job. Yeah yeah. And then as
you get better and better, you move up and up,
and then all of a sudden you realize, like you're
the president of the United States, Uh, you can make
the average starting pay twenty eight bucks an hour. Is
that right? Not bad? And so it's not a salaried Huh, well,

(31:16):
it gets to be salary at a certain point. I think,
um the average starting pay. Yeah, that's good money. Uh.
And controllers can earn um up to an over a
hundred thousand per year after just a few years. They say,
but you're gonna be working long shift duties. You can
be working on Christmas maybe working from midnight to eight am.

(31:36):
Sometimes it's inten midnight to six it's intensely stressful. What
do you mean midnight, that's that's a shift. Oh I
thought they were eight hour shift. I think there's six
hour shifts. Oh. They cut that back then, which is good. Yeah,
because one of the things when they went on strike
they were lobbying for was reduced shift hours. Well what

(31:57):
happened when they all went on strike? Do you know
about this? Are you being quite I mean vaguely? Uh. Well,
they went on strike in August. Uh, and they wanted
better wages. They wanted a thirty two hour work week
because remember these are f A employees. Yeah, so they're
federal civil servants, which is a big problem because you're
not allowed to go on strike if you're a union,

(32:18):
federal union member. Yeah, so they violated the law. Ronald Reagan,
President Ronald Reagan ordered them back to work, said you
gotta go back to work right now. That was that.
I didn't even try to do Reagan. They should try
to get No dude, Nixon doing Reagan. No. H Only

(32:39):
thirte hundred of the thirteen thousand went back to work.
He says, you've got forty eight hours. And then, uh,
in forty eight hours, they did not come back to work.
And he says, you know what, all eleven thousand plus
of you are fired by me, the president. I'm firing
all of you. And he did, and they had to

(33:02):
cut the flights back to for a while. And uh.
They were also banned from any federal service for life,
but Clinton rescinded that. And then they say it took
a full decade to restore the program back to its
original staffing numbers. That's crazy. Although they got up and
running and you know, doing the best I can within
a few years. It seems a little rash, but think

(33:25):
what you want, striking man. No, I agree, but wow, yeah,
you're you're all fired. Uh, And I thought it was
always one of the top stressful jobs, but the list
of twelve doesn't have it in the top ten. Well,
let's hear that list. Do you wanna hear it? Number
ten cab driver, Wow, yeah, okay, don't go this way,

(33:47):
go that way. Don't take third, take fourth. What are
you doing, stupid cabby? Don't take credit cards. That's more
stressful than I don't know. Number nine photojournalists. I guess
in you know Ward one countries. Sure, yeah, we're on safari.
They're dangerous. To number eight CEO like big corporate exact,

(34:07):
Number seven pr executive double really yeah, who made this list?
It's the list. I don't know who makes it alright.
Um number six event coordinator like a wedding planners and
stuff like that. It's stressful. You gotta deal with those
crazy bridezillas. No, Jerry snicker to that. Um Number five

(34:30):
cop of course. Number four army general or military general.
This thing was put together by a six year old boy,
and I'll bet it was originally written in crane. Number three, cowboy,
you're number three. Number three is actually airline pilot. Number
two is firefighter. Number one is enlisted soldier. Yeah, so

(34:52):
there you have it. No air traffic control, which I
think is a bit tinky. I think that list is
hinky podcasters. Now we're on there. Sure, I'm so stressed.
All right now it's gotta be top fifteen. Um, you
got anything else? I don't. We already talked about the movies.
Uh mentioned the articles there. Yeah, I think we're good.

(35:15):
If you want to know more about air traffic control,
you can type that into the search bar house to
works dot com. You can also listen to the companion
piece to this episode how air Traffic Control Works at
tech Stuff. Their episode is called how Traffic Control Works.
Check it out? So they did one? See who did
it better? I'm sure they don't believe they did it? Okay, Um,

(35:37):
and I think in there somewhere I said search bar, handy,
search bar the like. So it's time for listener mail.
I know this because Chuck has it in his own hand. Yeah,
I'm gonna call this one. Um our listener read it
us out to Michael Moore? Did you see this? This
just scheme in? Oh? No, I remember in the Tipping
podcast we said Michael Moore reportedly was a bad to.

(36:00):
Some people wrote in and and verified there with their
own stories too, not about Michael Moore that is, oh really,
we'll tell me that first. I didn't see that one.
I'm not at liberty to boldige this, but I can
tell you that at least two other people have said, like, yeah,
that guy is not only not a good tipper, he's
not like it's not he's not all that. Yes, wow,

(36:24):
all right. Well I felt bad for a half a
second because um Ian of Brooklyn, New York tweeted Michael
Moore asked about his tipping habits by saying this, Hey,
did you know the guy's stuff you should from stuff
you should know called you out as a notoriously bad
tipper last week? Say it ain't so so he totally
read it out, Um. And then Michael Moore, uh direct

(36:47):
messaged him back and said, ha ha, no, but I'll
add that to all the great fiction I've collected about myself.
For the record, I always lead between twenty and that
is in the face of what we've been hearing. We
got to clear this up somehow, I know. And then
I felt bad because I didn't see those other emails,
and I said, hey, listen, dude, tell the tell Michael

(37:08):
Moore that we were we were sort of suspicious about
this and that we'll clear it all up on the show.
But I guess we just didn't. We just muddied the
water even further. And Ian of Brooklyn said, can I
also hear Chuck and reenact his exasperated what? It's had
me cracking up all week? So there you have it?
What it was a pretty lame reenact? What's he looking for? Josh? Um? What? What? What?

(37:36):
What there? Okay, that's that's kind of yours to begin with.
But actually it's Fred Willard's did wouldn't it? Oh? From
Best and Chow? No, I got it from the Simpsons. Okay,
most is la it's really good at what that guy? Yeah,
he's good. Um, so I guess that's it. Yeah, Michael

(37:58):
Moore good tipper or not? We shall never know. Yeah,
we'd like to hear from you if you happen to
listen to this. Um, if it's cool with you, we'll
just show up and follow you around with the camera
for a week and watch you tip. But don't try
to put on in a show for us. Okay, up
on those little thinky Chuck is uh Chuck is mentioning

(38:21):
our tweet or Twitter handles y sk podcast Man, that
was just grammatically all over the place, wasn't it. Sure? Uh.
You can follow us on Twitter by following our Twitter
handle s y SK Podcast. You can also check us
out on Facebook at facebook dot com and uh, if
you you know what, I'm sure everybody has a crazy

(38:44):
plane flight, plane story, flight story, so just come up
with something other than that. You can email us at
Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how staf work staff as we explore the most promising

(39:05):
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you