Sky-High Traffic? He’s Got It All Under Control

Brian Winget spent five years as a merchant marine officer, navigating 39,000-ton oil tankers and container ships across the oceans of the world.

But the job was just too darn boring. Just one big ship in one big ocean, says the 35-year-old Anaheim resident.

So Winget took his career to the other extreme. Now, as an air traffic controller, he guides all manner of aircraft, from single-engine Cessnas to Boeing 757 jetliners, in and out of the increasingly congested skies over John Wayne Airport.

“You’ve got a 737 coming in on a 5-mile final approach and you may have three Cessnas inbound from the Southwest. And you know you’ve got more 737s and 757s and MD-80s on final and you’ve got to somehow make it work so that these guys are interspersed and the spacing is all correct and everybody gets off the runway in time for the next guy to land.

“There is no dress rehearsal. Every single day is a performance.”

There were 523,000 takeoffs and landings at John Wayne last year, according to airport statistics. When ranking airports by total arrivals and departures, John Wayne was the seventh busiest airport in the United States in 1994, due mainly to the small, general aviation aircraft that use it. Statistics for 1995 are not yet available.

After graduation from a four-month course at the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic controller school in Oklahoma City, Winget was sent to Fullerton Airport, where he spent two years keeping small planes safely apart. He was brought up to the big leagues in 1990, taking a seat behind the traffic-filled, green-on-black radar screens atop the 84-foot-high John Wayne Airport Tower.

“I was ready to move on, because the traffic level and volume of aircraft at Fullerton really wasn’t that challenging for me,” said Winget, president of the John Wayne chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. “I needed to do something more challenging.”

Winget’s radar screen looks surprisingly similar to one of the first flight simulator games made for personal computers about 17 years ago. There are a few green lines that outline mountains near the top of the screen, the coastline near the bottom, the Tustin and El Toro Marine bases in between. The electronically generated lines depict topography, navigational beacons and the airport’s two runways.

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Moving slowly across the screen are groups of flashing numbers, called tags. Each “tag” represents an aircraft and indicates type of plane, flight number, altitude, speed and destination. Controllers are also surrounded by communications equipment for contacting nearby military bases and emergency agencies.

Yet they still have dial telephones.

“Yes, we are dealing with antiquated equipment. Yes, we are struggling to free up more money to buy better equipment and upgrade facilities.

“I’ve heard people question whether or not air travel is really safe. As an air traffic controller and as an air traveler myself, I have to say: Yes, absolutely it’s safe. The United States has one of the safest air traffic control systems in the world. It’s the people who are air traffic controllers right now who are making the system safe.

“A lot of what we do here is based on experience. At this particular airport, you have to know the performance capabilities of a large number of aircraft types. That makes it a difficult place to work.”

The level of difficulty increases because controllers must guide relatively inexperienced pilots of small aircraft into congested airspace between giant jetliners carrying hundreds of passengers.

“There are a lot of student pilots that fly in and out of here. You can even get people from a place like Billings, Montana. They want to go to Disneyland and they’ve got the family with them and they’ve saved all year for this family vacation. So they’re flying their private airplane in, but they’ve never really flown in a congested airspace like this. We have to deal with those things on a regular basis.”

With 25% of all U.S. air traffic flying in Southern California’s skies, Winget said he is not surprised that John Wayne Airport is nearing capacity.

“We have 14 gates and they are almost always full. In the morning, you’ll see every single gate is full, and every airplane is loading with passengers. And if you look out around the airport, the entire overnight parking area is completely full of airplanes, waiting to get to the gates.

“You can only fit so many airplanes physically in an airport this size. But this does not mean we are jamming more airplanes into a smaller space. It means our busy periods are lasting longer. You cannot go beyond what the system will accept. You cannot do that.”

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Profile:

Brian Winget

Age: 35

Hometown: St. Paul, Minn.

Came to Orange County: 1987

Residence: Anaheim

Education: Graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in science

Background: Worked as a chief navigational officer and 3rd mate aboard oil tanker and container ships for Chevron, Matson and American President lines; graduated from Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controller school in 1987; worked at Fullerton Airport for two years; came to John Wayne Airport in 1990

Controller burnout? “The air traffic profession is, for the most part, made up of very enthusiastic people who like this job. That’s when you burn out, when you stop liking this job.”

Source: Brian Winget; Researched by