Does ATC know what’s coming?

RyanB

RyanB

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Something that just happened to pop into my little pea brain...

Does ATC have the ability to see what’s coming? Such as, if I look on FlightAware I can see what aircraft are enroute and the estimated arrival time for each of them. Do controllers have this ability to see what aircraft are headed their way so they’ll know how to plan, or do they just pop in randomly whenever center gives them the handoff to you?

ex. ‘In about 10 minutes I’ll have four aircraft approaching from the south, CRJ, B55, C172, PA28’ etc.
 
Radar scopes have other controllers' airspace depicted too. It isn't a surprise especially when you have to slew and click approval for the hand off from the next sector.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Radar scopes have other controllers' airspace depicted too. It isn't a surprise especially when you have to slew and click approval for the hand off from the next sector.
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Interesting, I didn’t know how that worked. Also didn’t know controllers could view airspace outside of their own. Cool!
 
Particular facilities tend to know when the pushes are - they staff to meet expected traffic and break sectors up into smaller pieces so more people can work them.

Somewhere on the Reddit "25 Controllers You Will Work With" list is "guy who always, almost by magic, is on break during the push".

I've also seen FlightRadar24 up 24/7 in the break room and in an approach room at a couple overseas facilities. Lets them look at stuff coming from other countries pretty easily and there's no need to slew out their radar displays a hundred miles.
 
You can “zoom out” the scope to actually see who’s coming but it’s not necessary. The strip board whether paper or digital will have inbounds and overflights long before the handoff ever takes place. Don’t know if it’s a software standard but ours was set at 30 minutes prior to penetration.
 
Ryanb said:
Interesting, I didn’t know how that worked. Also didn’t know controllers could view airspace outside of their own. Cool!
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Yup. As far their Radar can see. Some places they don’t even have to expand out the range on their own scope. There is a big screen on the wall that goes way out. All they gotta do is look up, left, right or maybe over their shoulder to get a quick glance at the big picture.
 
Obviously some weather diverts can come with little notice, especially if it’s a close border facility and jets. Had 5 F-15s all weather diverts from SAV once. All emergency fuel and none on flight plans. A few were getting handed off already in my airspace. Absolute mess.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Obviously some weather diverts can come with little notice, especially if it’s a close border facility and jets. Had 5 F-15s all weather diverts from SAV once. All emergency fuel and none on flight plans. A few we’re getting handed off already in my airspace. Absolute mess.
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Did you have automation? Or were they manual handoffs?
 
Seanaldinho said:
Particular facilities tend to know when the pushes are - they staff to meet expected traffic and break sectors up into smaller pieces so more people can work them.

Somewhere on the Reddit "25 Controllers You Will Work With" list is "guy who always, almost by magic, is on break during the push".

I've also seen FlightRadar24 up 24/7 in the break room and in an approach room at a couple overseas facilities. Lets them look at stuff coming from other countries pretty easily and there's no need to slew out their radar displays a hundred miles.
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LMAO. I was an instructor at the Academy. The breakroom was nicknamed Rushduckers
 
luvflyin said:
Did you have automation? Or were they manual handoffs?
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I believe only one was amended to our destination and got an automated. The rest were manual, either direct the field or on random headings.

Things didn’t go much better for us either. They kept going missed off the PAR. One went missed off the PAR, saw the field below him on the go and just simply entered a tight downwind to the crossing runway. He went IIMC just after that, a controller then picked him up on an ASR with a 3 mile intercept and got him in on the crossing runway. Chaos!
 
Ryanb said:
Interesting, I didn’t know how that worked. Also didn’t know controllers could view airspace outside of their own. Cool!
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Find the airport nearest airport with a tower. Call the tower and ask for a tour. Don't try this at the Class B airports....The other airports, you'll probably need to provide your info in advance and make an appointment.
 
murphey said:
Find the airport nearest you with a tower. Call the tower and ask for a tour. Don't try this at the Class B airports....The other airports, you may need to provide your info in advance and make an appointment.
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Have done it a few times, but never had this question arise.
 
I'm always impressed by how efficiently they work. The air space around here gets crazy busy, and often after frequency change there isn't a single moment for me to get in. I wait patiently and then all of a sudden they end up calling me first

I always think that's cool, they already know I was handed off and call me proactively
 
The system that was what FlightAware and the like was originally based on was a capacity planning thing at the FAA (central flow). I remember the guys at Dulles showing me the thing as the "latest thing" when it came out. It was running on an Apollo DN4000 (a neat, but entirely obsolete at the time computer). This was in the old Dulles Approach control.
 
Tantalum said:
I'm always impressed by how efficiently they work. The air space around here gets crazy busy, and often after frequency change there isn't a single moment for me to get in. I wait patiently and then all of a sudden they end up calling me first

I always think that's cool, they already know I was handed off and call me proactively
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It's not always perfect but it generally works pretty well.

Typical hand off procedure:
Sector 1: Initiates radar handoff to next sector a few miles from the sector boundary or ideally as soon as there are no conflicts between the aircraft and the boundary. Aircraft label starts flashing
Sector 2: Sees aircraft flashing and accepts handoff or requests something to prevent an issue before accepting. Aircraft stops flashing
Sector 1: Sees aircraft stopped flashing and the target has the new sector assigned. "Ships" you, aka gives you a frequency change once safety is assured
Sector 2: Calls you up once you enter his sector if he hasn't heard from you. They know how busy their frequency is so typically won't get upset if you didn't jump in the middle of something and were waiting for an opening.

If someone doesn't get shipped 2 will shout down the hall at Sector 1 or call him on the landline to say "hey - double check so and so". Frequencies get lost on the pilot end or sometimes the controller got busy and didn't ship him yet. Some radars have further automated handoffs too, so once you get within X miles of the boundary it will initiate the handoff automatically (not sure if that is a feature of STARS or ERAM though?). Radars and the underlying automation/processing systems that we consider one big thing are really interesting.

If Sector 2 is on their game and sees a target getting awful close but there hasn't been a handoff because 1 is behind 2 may call 1 and clarify what is going on. 1 can then do a "manual" handoff on the phone and 2 will then take the target. Very much a team atmosphere since if there is an airspace bust both controllers slipped up.
 
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in my center (San Juan CERAP), we still use paper strips. for aircraft coming from foreign facilities, all non-radar, we receive estimates over the phone anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour ahead of the time the aircraft should cross our boundary. Aircraft coming from the Miami Center sectors to our northwest are all in radar coverage (above FL200) but we still have strips on them an hour or 2 in advance. even departures have proposal strips next to the approach controller, although the proposal times arent really used for planning. except for SJU, all the towers need to call for releases. The only aircraft that can really "surprise" us are VFR pop ups. but even then, the radar controller has probably seen your 1200 code for a bit and is glad to be able to put a callsign to the target.
 
Velocity173 said:
Obviously some weather diverts can come with little notice, especially if it’s a close border facility and jets. Had 5 F-15s all weather diverts from SAV once. All emergency fuel and none on flight plans. A few were getting handed off already in my airspace. Absolute mess.
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haha sounds about like us one time. Surprise c-bags, we are over Tybee looking for a 4 ship RNAV and 3 are emergency fuel.....and our dash 4 pilot is emergency for imminent poop.
 
Ryanb said:
Does ATC have the ability to see what’s coming? Such as, if I look on FlightAware I can see what aircraft are enroute and the estimated arrival time for each of them. Do controllers have this ability to see what aircraft are headed their way so they’ll know how to plan, or do they just pop in randomly whenever center gives them the handoff to you?
Click to expand...

Couple weeks ago I went out to fly some approaches from Frederick MD (KFDK) to Martinsburg (KMRB). It was VFR and I didn't file a flightplan but you need to give Potomac Approach a call as they have an LOA with Martinsburg tower that requires it. A layer at 2-3K was starting in though and as I called Potomac on the missed they asked me to hold at 4K. Told them no way to stay VFR going to 4K but if they'd pick me up IFR it would be fine. She did and all was well, shot the VOR-A and then headed back to Fredrick for the RNAV-05.

I knew rwy 23/5 was closed as they finished repainting as part of it's extension (heck I just left there 45 minutes prior) but Potomac was clearly talking to tower as they wanted to verify I was a circle to land to rwy 30. I was a bit surprised they wanted me to confirm that as I was a good ways down the approach already and confirmed I had ATIS prior. Kind of told me that they were at least telling tower I was inbound and that they had me as an IFR arrival.
 
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