SOCAL the busiest

I would’ve thought our 125.1/119.2 freq would be on the top list. That’s a bit surprising.
 
Velocity173 said:
All the numbers are fabricated. Mscard88 said Eglin Approach is the busiest!
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It was one of the busiest in the Air Force. Never claimed it was the busiest, don't know where ya got that from. I did say ATL was the busiest airport in the world a few times. Maybe you're confused w/ geography? o_O
 
mscard88 said:
It was one of the busiest in the Air Force. Never claimed it was the busiest, don't know where ya got that from. I did say ATL was the busiest airport in the world a few times. Maybe you're confused w/ geography? o_O
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Guess I should've put a :D on that. Never heard you even mention how busy Eglin is/was.

If you look at controller workload, Eglin would be comparable to anything on the list. Friend of mine works at ATL TRACON and he said he was far busier working Approach in the Marines. Everything at ATL is canned and sectorized so no one controller is overloaded. It was like touring a center when I went down there. Where we worked, the number of ops are less but it's one person working it with no STARs / SIDS. Aircraft arriving and departing in 360 directions
 
Velocity173 said:
Guess I should've put a :D on that. Never heard you even mention how busy Eglin is/was.

If you look at controller workload, Eglin would be comparable to anything on the list. Friend of mine works at ATL TRACON and he said he was far busier working Approach in the Marines. Everything at ATL is canned and sectorized so no one controller is overloaded. It was like touring a center when I went down there. Where we worked, the number of ops are less but it's one person working it with no STARs / SIDS. Aircraft arriving and departing in 360 directions
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Also Macon and Columbus TRACONS were combined into ATL TRACON years ago. The facility is just east of Peachtree City's airport. So ATL TRACON provides service to not only ATL but MCN and CSG airports also, and surrounding smaller airports.
 
mscard88 said:
Also Macon and Columbus TRACONS were combined into ATL TRACON years ago. The facility is just east of Peachtree City's airport. So ATL TRACON provides service to not only ATL but MCN and CSG airports also, and surrounding smaller airports.
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Yeah, it's a huge airspace. Another reason why the numbers are misleading. Like SOCAL, I toured that place and their airspace is at least 10 times the size that I worked. At least 10 times the number of controllers also. Big airspace with many big airports within the airspace = high number of ops.
 
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A
luvflyin said:
Where's the Meme? I was expecting to be entertained. This is just numbers
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One of the rare times they put out something serious on ATC MEMES...at least they said these are non fictional numbers.
 
Of the ten facilities on that list, only four are not “consolidated” TRACON’s. See if you can guess which are which.
 
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SOCAL is the busiest, and it’s *really* busy! Nice bragging rights, but you still have to be a Californian to brag about it, so there’s the downside. ;) To sum up, California is extremely congested, overcrowded, overrated, underfunded, and most of it lies on the wrong side of the big crack which makes that part of the state perilously close to becoming an island or New Atlantis. Congrats! :D
 
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MarkZ said:
Of the ten facilities on that list, only four are not “consolidated” TRACON’s. See if you can guess which are which.
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I'll bite. Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Miami. But if you go back far enough I'd bet they all are a combination of former standalone facilities.
 
I did my first solo at SNA/John Wayne and chose early morning for most of my early flights (graveyard shift comes in handy sometimes.) Trying to squeeze a call in to SNA on a weekend in the afternoon can become quite a challenge. However, once you get accustomed to it going into any other airport is a breeze.
 
Lachlan said:
and most of it lies on the wrong side of the big crack which makes that part of the state perilously close to becoming and island or New Atlantis. Congrats! :D
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I always have to laugh at this notion buy others around the country that California ONE day MAY somehow fall off into the ocean...meanwhile entire towns are blown off the map in Hurricanes and Tornados in the Midwest and East Coast EVERY year!

I know...science is hard. I'll take my odds.

...and yeah, it is stupid busy and too many people!

Back on topic, during my SoCal TRACON tour they did day that it was most likely the last of the Super TRACON facilities to ever be built. Moving forward the FAA is going with a smaller regional approach to the physical facilities both for security and distribute the risk of one jackwaggon compromising the entire system at a consolidated facility.
 
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Hard to believe NYC isn't the busiest
 
Shawn said:
I always have to laugh at this notion buy others around the country that California ONE day MAY somehow fall off into the ocean...meanwhile entire towns are blown off the map in Hurricanes and Tornados in the Midwest and East Coast EVERY year!

I know...science is hard. I'll take my odds.

...and yeah, it is stupid busy an too many people!

Back on topic, during my SoCal TRACON tour they did day that it was most likely the last of the Super TRACON facilities to ever be built. Moving forward the FAA is going with a smaller regional approach to the physical facilities both for security and distribute the risk of one jackwaggon compromising the entire system at a consolidated facility.
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Norcal came later
 
Lachlan said:
.... and most of it lies on the wrong side of the big crack which makes that part of the state perilously close to becoming an island or New Atlantis. Congrats! :D
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Nope, all wrong. California will remain standing and the rest of the US will slide into the Atlantic. :D

There's a certain part of Wisconsin that's the busiest, for a week out of the year. :) But most radio communications are one-way.
 
Lachlan said:
Which one covers more airspace? (serious question)
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Pretty sure New York. But pure size doesn't tell the whole story. A lot of it is Oceanic stuff. A huge piece of Los Angeles is delegated to Joshua Approach and a lot of LA's sky is Restricted and Warning areas that are almost always hot. You really can't gauge 'busyness' on just overall volume of sky and number of operations
 
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Shawn said:
I would think number of airports within that TRACON airspace would be a more relevant metric to compare than just geographic size.
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Yeah. Location to. The interior Centers have a lot more traffic passing through at altitude. The ones in the 'corners' have lot more stuff climbing and descending traffic. LA for instance has very little traffic just passin through and almost all of the traffic is in a piece of pie about 140 degrees wide
 
Shawn said:
On a pure commercial ops level juts looking a B and C operations yeah, I would agree but there are a lot more C and D airports crammed into the SoCal airspace overall.
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So True. Three Class C's that either overlap or abut LAX's Class B, another C close by (March) and another Class B less than 100 miles to the south. Add to that about a dozen Class D's and a bunch of nontowereds that I count on the TAC, many under the shelves of Class B and C...

Keeps us on our toes!
 
Shout out to DLF on the mil side yo. We busier than cats covering sheet down here!:D

Nothing for hundreds of mile though, like the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner....
 
Lachlan said:
SOCAL is the busiest, and it’s *really* busy! Nice bragging rights, but you still have to be a Californian to brag about it, so there’s the downside. ;) To sum up, California is extremely congested, overcrowded, overrated, underfunded, and most of it lies on the wrong side of the big crack which makes that part of the state perilously close to becoming an island or New Atlantis. Congrats! :D
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Funny, cause I find California beautiful, wealthy, spread out, tasty, underrated and with a massive surplus. Plus, we have the best flying in the world.

luvflyin said:
I'll bite. Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Miami. But if you go back far enough I'd bet they all are a combination of former standalone facilities.
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Isn't Chicago approach a "quasi-super" TRACON, given that they cover ORD and MDW, plus whatever else?

Shawn said:
Back on topic, during my SoCal TRACON tour they did day that it was most likely the last of the Super TRACON facilities to ever be built. Moving forward the FAA is going with a smaller regional approach to the physical facilities both for security and distribute the risk of one jackwaggon compromising the entire system at a consolidated facility.
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The Chicago Center thing really made the FAA rethink the consolidation trend. So did likely the Miami Center outage. That said, I also think that there really aren't anymore areas where Super TRACONs make sense. It might make sense to transfer facilities like OXR and CMA to SBA, but a full on Super TRACON doesn't really make sense in other places. Maybe consolidating a few "TRACAB" facilities, like AUS and SAT or something like that, but not much further to go.

James331 said:
Hard to believe NYC isn't the busiest
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Not really.

luvflyin said:
Pretty sure New York. But pure size doesn't tell the whole story. A lot of it is Oceanic stuff. A huge piece of Los Angeles is delegated to Joshua Approach and a lot of LA's sky is Restricted and Warning areas that are almost always hot. You really can't gauge 'busyness' on just overall volume of sky and number of operations
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Yeah, people forget that Joshua Approach handles a fair bit; and Mugu handles a busy transient airspace, 3 Deltas, one with lots of high performance military, and one of the busiest G's anywhere.

SoCal RV Flyer said:
So True. Three Class C's that either overlap or abut LAX's Class B, another C close by (March) and another Class B less than 100 miles to the south. Add to that about a dozen Class D's and a bunch of nontowereds that I count on the TAC, many under the shelves of Class B and C...

Keeps us on our toes!
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Remember, it isn't just the LAX Class B and the 3 +1 Cs (March has an approach facility, but they are pretty limited and SoCal takes over for them a lot), but SoCal also covers the entire San Diego B and all those underlying Ds, including a bunch of military traffic. They also sequence a bunch of traffic in and out of Mugu's airspace with the one extremely busy and one less busy D there. There is also a massive amount of flight training, insanely busy airports by movement and complexity issues (SAN's single runway, LAX requiring 24/25 ops up to 10 kts tailwinds, BUR's preferred set up, etc.).

That said, it is a great place to learn how to talk on the radio, because only a moron with a death wish would fly through the area without FF.
 
N1120A said:
Isn't Chicago approach a "quasi-super" TRACON, given that they cover ORD and MDW, plus whatever else?
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No. ORD and MDW are 13 miles apart. Would be pretty hard to have different TRACONs work both. They are the busiest stand alone TRACON in that the controllers that work there are certified in every position in the room. The consolidated TRACONs like so-cal, New York, Potomac, etc have different areas the controllers are assigned to. Much like small centers.
 
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