heaviest concentration of air traffic.
Oddly, Leesburg was distant from any airport, and forty miles from Washington, D.C., from which the Air Route Center took its name. The center itself was in Virginia countryside — a cluster of low, modern buildings with a parking lot — and was surrounded on three sides by rolling farmland. Nearby was a small stream named Bull Run — its fame enshrined forever by two battles of the Civil War. Keith Bakersfeld had once gone to Bull Run after duty, reflecting on the strange and diametric contrast between Leesburg’s past and present.
This morning, despite awareness of the summer’s day outside, everything in the spacious, cathedral-like main control room was operating as usual. The entire control area — larger than a football field — was, as always, dimly lighted to allow proper viewing of the several dozen radar screens, arranged in tiers and rows under overhanging canopies. The control room noise level was what any newcomer noticed first. From a flight data area, with great banks of computers, assorted electronic gear and automatic teletypes, arose the continuous whir and chatter of machinery. Nearby, from dozens of positions where controllers sat, directing aerial traffic, came a ceaseless hum of voice radio exchanges on a host of frequencies. The machinery and human voices merged, producing a constant noise level which was all-pervading, yet strangely muted by acoustic, sound-absorbent walls and ceilings.
Above the working level of the control room was an observation bridge, running the room’s full width, where occasional visitors were brought to watch proceedings below. The control room activity looked, from this eyrie, not unlike that of a stock exchange. Controllers rarely glanced up at the bridge, being trained to ignore anything which might diminish concentration on their work, and since only a few especially privileged visitors ever made it to the control room floor, controllers and outsiders rarely met. Thus the work was not only high pressure, but also monastic — the last condition added to by the total absence of women.
In an annex to the control room Keith slipped off his jacket, and came in wearing the crisp white shirt which was like a uniform for air traffic controllers. No one knew why controllers wore white shirts on duty; there was no rule about it, but, most of them did. As he passed other control positions while heading for his own, a few colleagues wished him a friendly “good morning,” and that was unusual too. Normally, the immediate sense of pressure on entering the control area made it customary to give a hurried nod or a brief “Hi!” — sometimes not even that.
The control sector which Keith regularly worked comprised a segment of the Pittsburgh-Baltimore area. The sector was monitored by a team of three. Keith was radar controller, his job to maintain contact with aircraft and to issue radio instructions. Two assistant controllers handled flight data and airport communications; a supervisor coordinated activities of the other three. Today, in addition, the team had a trainee controller whom Keith had been instructing, at intervals, over the past several weeks.
Others of the team were drifting in at the same time as Keith Bakersfeld, taking position behind the men they were to relieve, and allowing a few minutes while they absorbed the “picture” in their minds. All through the big control room, at other positions, the same thing was happening.
Standing at his own sector, behind the radar controller about to go off duty, Keith already felt his mental acuity sharpen, his speed of thinking consciously accelerate. For the next eight hours, except for two brief work breaks, his brain must continue to operate that way.
Traffic, he observed, was averagely busy for the time of day, taking into account the widespread good weather. On the scope’s dark surface, some fifteen pinpoints of bright green light — or “targets,” as radarmen called them — indicated aircraft in the air. Allegheny had a Convair 440 at eight thousand feet, approaching Pittsburgh. Behind the Allegheny flight, at varying altitudes, were a National DC-8, an American Airlines 727, two private aircraft — a Lear jet and a Fairchild F-27 — and another National, this time a prop-jet Electra. Several other flights, Keith noted, were due to come on the screen at any moment, both from other sectors and as a result of takeoffs from Friendship Airport, Baltimore. Going the opposite way, toward Baltimore, was a Delta DC-9, about to be taken over by Friendship approach control; behind this flight were a TWA, a Piedmont Airlines Martin, another private flight, two Uniteds, and a Mohawk. Height and distance separations of all aircraft were satisfactory, Keith observed, except that the two United heading for Baltimore were a little close. As if the controller still at the scope had read Keith’s mind, he gave the second United a delaying diversionary course.
“I have the picture,” Keith said quietly. The other controller nodded and moved out.
Keith’s supervisor, Perry Yount, plugged in his headset above Keith’s head and leaned over, making his own assessment of the traffic situation. Perry was a tall, lean African-American, a few years younger than Keith. He had a quick, retentive memory which could store a mass of flight data, then repeat it back, as a whole or in pieces, with computer accuracy. Perry was a comforting man to have around when there was trouble.
Keith had already accepted several new flights and handed over others when the supervisor touched his shoulder. “Keith, I’m running two positions this shift — this and the next one. We’re a man short. You okay for a while?”
Keith nodded. “Roger.” He radioed a course correction to an Eastern 727, then motioned toward the trainee controller, George Wallace, who had slipped into a seat beside him. “I’ve got George to keep an eye on me.”
“Okay.” Perry Yount unplugged his headset and moved to the adjacent console. The same kind of thing had happened occasionally before, and was handled without difficulty. Perry Yount and Keith had worked together for several years; each was aware that he could trust the other.
Keith told the trainee beside him, “George, start getting the picture.”
George Wallace nodded and edged closer to the radarscope. He was in his midtwenties, had been a trainee for almost two years; before that, he had served an enlistment in the U.S. Air Force. Wallace had already shown himself to have an alert, quick mind, plus the ability not to become rattled under tension. In one more week he would be a qualified controller, though for practical purposes he was fully trained now.
Deliberately, Keith allowed the spacing between an American Airlines BAC-400 and a National 727 to become less than it should be; he was ready to transmit quick instructions if the closure became critical. George Wallace spotted the condition at once, and warned Keith, who corrected it.
That kind of firsthand exercise was the only sure way the ability of a new controller could be gauged. Similarly, when a trainee was at the scope himself, and got into difficulties, he had to be given the chance to show resourcefulness and sort the situation out unaided. At such moments, the instructing controller was obliged to sit back, with clenched hands, and sweat. Someone had once described it as, “hanging on a brick wall by your fingernails.” When to intervene or take over was a critical decision, not to be made too early or too late. If the instructor did take over, the trainee’s confidence might be permanently undermined, and a potentially good controller lost. On the other hand, if an instructor failed to take over when he should, a ghastly midair collision could result.
The risks involved, and extra mental pressures, were such that many controllers refused to take them. They pointed out that the task of teaching their work to others carried neither official recognition nor extra pay. Moreover, if anything went wrong, the instructing controller was wholly responsible. Why suffer so much strain and liability for nothing?
Keith, however, had shown an aptitude as an instructor as well as patience in bringing trainees along. And although he, too, suffered and sweated at times, he did the job because he felt he should. At this moment, he took a personal pride in the way George Wallace had developed.
Wallace said quietly again, “I’d turn United 284 right until you get altitude separation with Mohawk.”
Keith nodded agreement as he thumbed his microphone button. “United Flight 284, from Washington center. Turn right, heading zero six zero.”
Promptly the reply crackled back. “Washington control, this is United 284. Roger; zero six zero.” Miles distant, and high above in clear bright sunshine while passengers dozed or read, the powerful sleek jet would be easing into a smooth controlled turn. On the radarscope, the bright green half inch wide blip which was United 284 began moving in a new direction.
Below the control area, in a room devoted to rack upon rack of ponderously turning tape recorders, the exchange between ground and air had been recorded — for playback later if need arose. Every such conversation, from each position in the control room, was recorded and stored. Periodically, some of the tapes were replayed and listened to critically by supervisors. If a procedure was wrong, a controller heard about it; yet no controller knew when a recording of his own might be selected for analysis. On a door of the tape-recorder room was the grimly humorous reminder,
The morning progressed.
