I'm never going on a plane ever again

[paulnickson@mastodon.social]

@thomasfuchs When your ATC is run by kids who have the mentality that if a plane goes down, not to worry as it will regenerate or something.

[alisonw@hachyderm.io]

@thomasfuchs
If someone is amongst "the best and brightest" I doubt they would choose ATC as an occupation.

[bedifferent@mastodon.social]

@thomasfuchs Holy shit ... https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/trumps-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-and-federal-aviation-administration

Family member getting married this month. A friend was invited and was told I wasn't going. I said to my HS friend I don't trust flying. She said the same thing. We're both old and educated.

[em_and_future_cats@mastodon.social]

@thomasfuchs ooohh god ‍
I hate this timeline

[misjavanlaatum@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@thomasfuchs obligatory "do a barrel roll!" quote

[arem@mstdn.ca]

@thomasfuchs They'll be fine if first trained in VATSIM.

"Flight CX376, you are now cleared to crash."

[jlm@mastodon.world]

@thomasfuchs can't be any worse than the aviation engineering students I encountered at my job 20 years ago. They were glad to get C's and D's. Probably leads on some project at Boeing by now.

[guillotine_jones@beige.party]

@thomasfuchs
Can anyone on this thread name a single time that excessive haste and unrealistic deadlines combined to derail an important project?
The reflecting pool, the destruction if the White House East Wing, and the Iran War don't count -- so don't mention those.

[dannyreving@mastodon.social]

@thomasfuchs Yet another reason never to visit the US again. Seems like they make up new reasons every day. It’s beyond me why anyone would want to go there as a tourist.

[callisto@disabled.social]

@thomasfuchs I still blame Reagan

[thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io]

@callisto that would be correct

[thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io]

@alisonw tbf it's in quotation marks

[somekindofgarf@kind.social]

@thomasfuchs joking to skip the main point but will @acarsdrama have to introduce content warnings for the gamer moments

[enema_cowboy@dotnet.social]

@thomasfuchs
Maybe these new hires can start their tower experience for private jets in Silicon Valley and Austin.

[piiiepsbrummm@chaos.social]

@thomasfuchs "Trained on X-Wings"?

[space_burger_steve@mstdn.ca]

@thomasfuchs I mean, I can kind of see the assumption that air traffic controllers use thought processes similar to real time strategy players, with the bonus of no game mechanics actively trying to thwart you. If it were just job counselling advice, or an ad campaign to attract recruits, that wouldn't be so bad.

But from what others are saying about the stress of the job and the lack of training facilities, this sounds unsurprisingly tone deaf.

You know what might take stress off ATCs? Reducing their work load with a high speed rail network from Alaska to Mexico, and California to New York. Not a quick solution, but the second best time is now and all that.

[lizette603_23@mastodon.social]

@thomasfuchs JFC

[anonymousless@kind.social]

@thomasfuchs some context from an ATC. Hiring 2000+ people per year is only a record because the previous hiring limit was 1200-1500 per year that barely or frequently did not keep up with attrition. After COVID shut down the training pipeline for a year and a half we’re now significantly behind on numbers. Regardless, those 2000+ will now winnow down over the course of training and we will probably end up with roughly 50% of those as fully certified ATCs… in about 3 years

[love@thistlenfern.org]

@thomasfuchs Same since about 2020 and this does nothing to change my mind.

[geowend@kosmos.social]

@thomasfuchs ....oh yes, just the thing I needed to see right when I was considering a flight to deal with some things in the States.