es ERD RR ee
January 11, 1978
...sheer panic (continued)
[continued from page 1]
the amount of fuel, and the
extent of the fire.
Hectic minutes later, the
plane landed safely and the
fire was extinguished.
“It had been really slow
that morning,’”’ Rick said
later. ‘1 wasn’t expecting
it. But that’s the time
things like that always
happen.”
This was a fairly typical
day for Rick Hamm, air
traffic controller. Rick, who
lives at 755 Terrace Avenue
in Mount Joy, describes his
job as ‘‘long periods of
boredom punctuated by
moments of sheer panic.’
In the emergency de-
scribed above, a lot of
responsibility was resting
on Rick’s shoulders. 19
souls were on board the
burning plane, and he was
required to act quickly and
precisely to set up the
landing.
An airplane pilot’s job is
to land and take off safely:
the traffic controller’s job is
to avoid collisions, both in
the air and on the ground.
An airplane pilot often
has extremely limited visi-
bility, worse than that in
any auto or truck. A 747
pilot, for example, can
barely see his wingtips, let
alone what is above, below,
or behind him. . Because of.
; the; pilot, -
‘concern =
air traffic conte
doesn’t have®te
himself with other aircraft
— the controller keeps
them out of his way.
The job of keeping fast
-moving planes apart has
been compared to three
dimensional chess, or
weaving a giant rug in the
sky. It's complicated, and
demands the ability to
make sound decisions in-
stantly. ‘‘Sometimes,’’ Rick
says, ‘‘you don’t have any
basis to decide, so you'll
mentally flip a coin, and
divert one plane. Then you
have time to think about
the resulting situation.’
What makes this game
against collision so tense is
the consequence of losing.
Rick told the Times
about an air controller
friend of his who works at
O’Hare airport in Chicago,
a ‘“‘boiler room’’ tower that
controls one of the busiest
flight areas in the world.
After he got off work, this
friend went into a bar and
bought salted nuts.
“Do you want peanuts or
cashews?’’ asked the girl
behind the bar.
The man found himself
totally unable to make this
one extra decision after a
day of split second life and
death decision making. He
told the girl to decide for
him.
Much has been written
about the nervous tension
and early heart attacks in
Rick’s profession.
claims he isn’t bothered by
tension, and he has a
hobby to help him unwind
— air traffic control.
Rick
Rick spends many week-
ends coordinating and
leading activities of the
local Civil Air Patrol, a
volunteer auxilliary to the
Air Force.
During mock airplane
crashes and searches, Rick
is usually on three or four
radios, coordinating the
exercise, driving his jeep,
and observing how the
cadets of Squadron 308 do
their work.
Rick has been in the
CAP since high school, and
it was his involvement in
that group which led him
into air traffic control:
When he graduated, he
joined the Marine Corps
with a guarantee of
training in that field.
Incidentally, the CAP
is ready to perform not
only peace-time duties —
they sank two Nazi U-boats
during World War II, and
lost S2 pilots in the line of
duty.
Rick spent 20 hours on a
recent weekend CAP exer-
cise. ‘‘It’s not. really
relaxation,”” he says, ‘‘But
I do enjoy it. I wouldn’t do
it if I didn’t.”
“I have to keep busy,”
he goes on. ‘I'd go
bonkers if I had a day off
with nothing to do.” Rick
has many unfinished pro-
jects around his house that
were started on such days,
“#nd néver. finished ‘due to. E
Tim Eshelman on dean’s list
his hectic schedule.
Rick does have one
hobby that doesn’t involve
flight control — flying. He
already has his private pilot
license, and is working
on the commercial and
instrument tickets.
‘““Talking with other
controllers, as a pilot,
helps give me perspective
on my job,” Rick explains.
“There’s an ego thing
between pilots and control-
lers, and flying puts me on
the other side of it. Some-
times I listen to another
controller and think, ‘I
hope I don’t come across
like that!’ ”’
Pilots tend to think of
controllers as ‘traffic
cops’’ according to Rick.
This is natural, since the
controller’s orders must be
obeyed by all pilots. Rick
tries to avoid any curtness
and often explains why he
is giving a certain directive
to a pilot, time allowing.
“Every word you say is
by formula,” Rick says.
‘‘But there are various
ways to say ‘No.” ”’
The most extreme dis-
agreement Rick ever had
with a pilot occured while
he was a Marine Corps
controller at Quantico base
in Virginia. The conflict in
a military setting is
aggravated by the fact that
controllers are enlisted
men, while pilots are all
officers; hence they are
more irked at any bossiness
in a controller.
It all started when Rick
told a helicopter pilot, who
was circling in a holding
pattern, to turn around and
circle the other way. (The
pilot’s circle was inside a
plane holding pattern, and
he was going the opposite
way, thus increasing the
risk of collission.)
Rick gave the order, but
the pilot radioed back,
‘‘Negative,”” and kept
circling the wrong way.
Rick asked again. And
again. Each time the officer
merely said ‘‘Negative’’
and ignored him.
Finally Rick told him to
comply or depart the
Tim Eshelman
pattern, reminding him
that he was breaking a
rule. The helicopter depart-
ed the pattern all right —
he flew straight across a
runway (fortunately empty
of traffic at the time) and
landed next to the tower.
Rick was busy with many
other aircraft just then, but
he did look out the window
to see the outraged pilot
storming out of the copter
and into the bottom of the
tower.
Still jockeying flight
paths, Rick heard the irate
officer stomping up the
tower stairs, cursing and
describing just what he was
going to do to that
t$#&%9 controller.
A fight in the tower
could have caused crashes
outside as well as in: Rick
jammed the door closed
and called his CO. The
pilot was hauled off before
he could break in, and was
suspended for 90 days.
Despite the pressures he
is under, even in normal
situations, Rick doesn’t let
himself get rattled. He
can’t. ‘‘Attitude is the
important thing. I've seen
plane crashes, in the
Marine Corps, but I don’t
think of a 747 as 450
people. I think of it as a
flight. I just do the best job
} can,”
Tim Eshelman of Mount
Joy made the dean’s list at
Juniata College this fall.
Tim, the son of Mr. and
Mrs. James M. Eshelman
of RD2 Mount Joy, was
one of 36 students whose
index was better than 2.75
out of a possible 3.0.
Tim is a sophomore
majoring in engineering.
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