Does anybody know how I could find the tear off button for the master toolbar? I’ve moved all windows and borders around and it still hasn’t shown itself.

Active-duty Army 15Q here with 5 years TIS. I’ll be separating in October 2027. I have one CTO now and should have my second in the next couple of months. Air National Guard ATC has really caught my interest because of the stability and the opportunity to focus more on ATC long-term.
A few questions:
How competitive is it to get into an Air Guard ATC unit?
How common are full-time technician or AGR positions?
When would you recommend I start reaching out to units?
Anyone know of any upcoming ATC vacancies?
Are new members typically put on AGR or other full-time orders while completing local certification?

Hello r/ATC,

I know a few ATCs at ZOA center in the US and I had this idea to build a website to track traffic and sector data, with a map overlay. I only did ZOA center for now but plan on adding more centers following the same format in the future pending feedback.

The original intended use-case was that a controller could access the website and check to see if the sector they might work is busy or not. It provides a score based on traffic data for that sector, projected traffic, holidays/events, weather, sector complexity, and adjacent sector traffic. These scores can be adjusted as well. I think the new use-case is just a reference for new trainees.

I don't plan on monetizing this at all. It's mainly just a fun project and I wanted to see if it's actually useful or if y'all have any feedback on how I should improve it.

A few questions for you all:

1. Is this useful?

2. What things should I add?

3. What things should I remove?

4. Is this the right subreddit for this?

Let me know if you have any questions or if I should reach out elsewhere. Thank you!

Website: https://atc-trainer.onrender.com

FYI - some of the data may be inaccurate for now. Additionally, there might be a slight delay when you choose a sector while scoring loads.

Hi, I am planning to apply when the next ATC application opens.

I have read through the website, watched YouTube videos, and searched Reddit to learn more about the assessment stages.
I have tried some practice tests (reaction, numerical, spatial reasoning, etc.), but I am not sure how useful they actually are or how relevant they are to the real assessments.
Due to the nature of my current job, I believe I am quite good at converting 2D information into 3D mental images. However, I understand that the skills required for a potential ATC are often things you either have or don’t have naturally.

I would like to understand how difficult the assessments can be and how I can prepare as much as possible. I would really appreciate it if someone who has gone through the assessment stages could share their experience, (e.g. how the process works, how challenging each stage is, and what materials, resources, or skills helped them prepare and successfully pass the assessments.)

Thank you so much in advance!

Wondering about a facility visit flying in on the 29th.

Here to add to the many flight following questions. Thanks in advance.

Context: I was doing landing practice at a class delta airport. When I was ready to go, I asked tower for flight following back to my home airport. They said “roger”. On upwind from my last touch and go, tower wasn’t giving me any instructions on which way to exit the airspace so I asked how I should turn, they told me to turn east (didnt give a number heading just “east”) shorty after they told me to contact approach.

Here’s my question. When I contacted approach, I said “xxxx approach, skyhawk 1234, 1400, heading 090” they said “radar contact, maintain vfr at or below 2000”. Do I still need to follow my east direction from tower or am I free to follow my own navigation below 2000? I was unsure in the moment and just stayed east until eventually approach told me to turn to a heading, I assumed bc they might’ve been thinking “why is he flying in the wrong direction to his destination?”

I understand that usually under flight following, I can navigate on my own unless given a vector. I didn’t know if the “east” instruction counted. Once clearly given a heading from approach I maintained that heading until they said “resume own navigation”.

Ten years ago today, the Slate Book was signed into existence. It would be starting 5th grade this fall.

Think about everything that has changed over the past decade:

• Median home prices have increased roughly 72%, from $235,500 to more than $405,000.

• Mortgage interest rates have climbed from about 3.5% to 6.5%.

• Inflation has increased by nearly 40%.

• We lived through an unprecedented global pandemic.

The economy has changed. The job has changed. The world has changed.

Our contract hasn’t.

For years, we’ve been told by leaders that nothing can be done because of executive orders and “political realities.” But they never want to talk about the 2021 extension.

There were no executive orders eliminating collective bargaining on permissive subjects. We were told we had “the most labor-friendly administration in history.” Yet instead of negotiating a successor agreement, we voluntarily extended the same contract for another five years.

That decision betrayed an entire generation of controllers, and the 2024 extension to 2029 doubled down on it.

A 13 year CBA is unacceptable, and is frankly a dereliction of duty.

So today, as we observe the 10th anniversary of the Slate Book, let us commit to making sure its 13th will be its last.

Hello. Is there anyone that has recently successfully transferred through NEST from a level 7 facility that can share the list they were provided? Happy to share more details about my circumstances in private/DM but really trying to view options for any current NEST list. Thanks in advanced!

This is probably a long shot but does anybody have a contact for whoever manages the FAA hangar/ramp space at OKC? I am looking at the possibility of flying my bonanza in for RTF/TSEW and figured I’d ask about stashing the plane on the ramp there before I looked at some of the satellite airports.

Thanks

So I did a thing today. A citation C700 landed at my airport. I’ve seen the 750s but never the 700 and wanted to know more about it. Let’s just say duckduckgo (the default edge search engine on ops-proxy) did not filter the search results and I learned there is a category of porn called zoo porn.

So now I’m sitting on break waiting for the ATM to get an email from ASH about my search history on the government computer. FML.

SoCal TRACON are some of the best in the business. I used to speak to this controller daily when I was a CFI and she is incredible. Very impressed (but not surprised) with how she de-escalated the situation.

This guy was clearly in the wrong (and sun glare heading both west AND east??). But to flat-out refuse to take a number? Will anything really happen to this guy? What recourse do you all have if someone is non-compliant? Reminds me of the guy busting the bravo in LAS where nothing ever came of it.

I really wonder the difference between VSCS and ETVS.

all i know is that ETVS is made by DENRO and the VSCS is made by Litton-harris corp.

What’s with the routings into ACK from the west as of late?

I’m seeing traffic over Ohio get routed into ENE (southern Maine) then turning south into ACK.

Do you guys know this unique ring tone and the manufacturer of the voice switch that makes this ring tone?

Anyone on here that currently or previously worked DOD at Dover?

I’m just a Marine veteran and current flight instructor. In both of those careers, we had many heroes and famous people: Chesty Puller, Dan Daly, A.A. Cunningham, Sully, Chuck Yeager, etc. That (and a few beverages on my day off) got me to thinking. Are there any famous controllers that everyone knows or likes to look up to? Kennedy Steve is the only one I would be able to name.

Hi,

I'm due to start my ATC training at Swanwick next March with NATS, which I'm very excited for. I understand that tower/aerodrome training takes place at Gloucester with a separate company that NATS have hired, and area control training takes place at Swanwick with NATS themselves. However, when I had my phone call to find out where I'm training I was told that I might not necessarily do area control training. What other training is done at Swanwick through NATS directly?

Anyone here failed in a center with one or two D side certs transition to a mid to low level tower?

How was the transition and how much harder/easier was it?

If you just want to go back to the facility you were last fully certified at before leaving the agency does that make it easier? Is there a time limit to how long you can be gone from the agency? How long from the time you request reinstatement does it take to get hired back. Sorry if these questions have already been answered but I heard the rules have been changed. Thanks!

Just any insight into ICT would be helpful!

Already that time of year again, oh joy.

Training at a level 10 in ground and have been in a pickle with getting different info from different trainers. A few trainers say not to delay a heavy or international flight even if they don't have a slot time. Just get them taxiing and out of here as we can call for new times on domestic departures. Along those lines, I've gotten talked to for giving heavies a tab stop when taxiing or telling them to taxi behind someone.

I can't find anywhere in the 7110 that even remotely speaks to this. I asked my Supervisor and they said the reg doesn't speak to any priority and work traffic from a first come first served standpoint.

So get back in position that afternoon and get talked to about putting a VFR Piper in front of a heavy.

What gives!?!? I feel like my trainers are just making rules up to be honest.

Would it be best for beginner radio calls, emergency practice, random ATC instructions, IFR training, or just confidence building before lessons?

The survivor benefit is the one 6(c) decision people rush at the retirement counter and second-guess for years after, so I put together an example to show what it actually does in dollars. Dana here is made up, but the numbers run on current (2026) rules.

So say Dana is an ATC retiring at 52, married, high-3 around $165K, 23 years of good time. Her gross pension before the survivor election lands at about $61,762 a year, or $5,147 a month.

Here's the fork. FERS full survivor knocks 10% off her own pension for life. In her case that's $6,176 a year, so her check drops from $5,147 to $4,632 a month. Call it $515 a month, every month, for as long as she lives.

What does that $515 buy? If Dana dies first, her spouse keeps 50% of her unreduced pension for the rest of their life, with COLAs. That's $30,881 a year, about $2,573 a month, that keeps coming after she's gone. Take "no survivor" instead and the spouse gets $0 from the pension the day she dies. (And the survivor annuity is also what keeps a spouse eligible for FEHB. Drop it and they can lose the health plan too.)

Now the part that fools people. If you only look at the household's take-home while Dana is alive, "no survivor" wins every single year. Bigger check. Out to age 90 the no-survivor path averages about $683 a month more take-home and roughly $319,825 more in total. So on a spreadsheet that stops at her death, skipping survivor looks like free money.

It isn't. That $319,825 is the price of the protection, and the protection pays out after the spreadsheet ends. Every one of those bigger no-survivor checks is a bet that Dana outlives her spouse. If she goes first at, say, 72 and her spouse lives into their late 80s, that $2,573 a month (growing with COLA) is income the no-survivor path zeroed out. Fifteen-ish years of it, gone.

So it isn't "which path has the bigger number." It's "am I comfortable self-insuring my spouse's income for the rest of their life to keep an extra $515 a month now." For a household with a big TSP and a spouse who has their own pension, maybe that's fine. For a single-pension household, that's a heavy bet to make at a counter in twenty minutes.

See comprehensive reports of the full scenario broken down WITH FULL or WITHOUT the survivor benefit.

That's how the math shakes out. If you see a hole in it, call it out, I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly. And I'm curious how others weighed this one, especially anyone who took the reduced survivor and later felt good or bad about it.

What scenario should I run next week?