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Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson shares the Anchorage bowl with one of the busiest cargo airports on earth. You work the radar. Fighters, freighters, and everything between, in weather that rarely cooperates.
Choose your position
Relief is available at any time. Your traffic keeps moving either way.
Approach
Vector arrivals onto final, sequence the stream, keep three miles between everyone. The busiest seat in the building.
A11 TRACON · 60 NMEn route
Work the high sector above the terminal area. Altitudes, handoffs, and crossing times at the arrival fix.
ZAN CENTER · SECTOR 14Precision approach
Talk one aircraft down to minimums, continuously, by voice alone. Everything else waits.
GCA · RWY 16Evening shift
| Callsign | Type | Alt | Speed | Hdg | Route | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No aircraft on frequency. | ||||||
Elmendorf ATIS
Field conditions
Approaches in use
Position briefing
You are relieving the previous controller at Elmendorf Approach. Traffic is already in the air. Nothing waits for you to get comfortable.
Working an aircraft
- Click a target on the scope, or pick a callsign from the Aircraft list.
- Choose an instruction, then a value.
- Press Transmit. The readback comes back over the air.
The five buttons under the dropdowns cover the instructions you issue constantly. They apply to whichever aircraft is selected.
Keeping them apart
Three miles laterally, or a thousand feet vertically. Either one satisfies it. Aircraft trending toward a loss turn amber; a violation turns red and goes in your record. Heavy jets need more room behind them than that, so give a regional jet following a freighter extra space on final.
Sequencing
Arrivals enter from the north and east and have to end up in a single line on final, properly spaced, at the right speeds. Vectors and speed control are your only tools. Turn someone too late and you will be taking them around the pattern again.
Minimum vectoring altitudes
The Chugach sits immediately east of the field. The scope shows sector boundaries with the lowest altitude you may assign inside each one. Descend an aircraft below that line and the low altitude alert fires.
Traffic view
Select an aircraft and press Traffic view to pull a visual of it. Useful for nothing operational, but you will want to see what a C-17 looks like breaking out of a thousand-foot overcast over the Chugach.
When it goes wrong
Lose separation and you will see the two aircraft from outside, at the distance you put them. Let two aircraft occupy the same piece of sky and the shift ends there.
Grades
Pick a grade on the shift card. A trainee works one or two aircraft in good weather in real time. A senior controller works eight in a thousand-foot overcast at three times the pace. Everything in between scales with it — the traffic, the weather, the wake rules, and whether anyone is watching you.
The airfield
The Airport button shows the field from above with both runways and the active one marked. Worth a look before your first shift so the final approach course on the scope means something.
Assist
At trainee grade a line under the scope tells you what needs doing next. At developmental and journeyman it becomes a button you press when you want it. At senior grade there is no assist.
Voice
Pilots read back over your headset. Each aircraft sounds a little different. Turn it off with the Voice button if you would rather read the log.
When the weather goes down
Low ceilings and blowing snow are normal here. An aircraft with a failed receiver in bad weather will ask for a precision approach. Taking that request moves you to the PAR position and your radar traffic keeps flying while you are there.
Your supervisor
Elmendorf Approach runs on results. Separation losses, missed handoffs, and aircraft left circling all get noticed.