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Airmen train Seattle air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers at McChord Air Force Base, Wash., are training civilian controllers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to get them ready for the opening of a new runway Nov. 20.

The SeaTac airport’s third runway will make the control tower operations dramatically busier, increasing the number of aircraft crossing live runways from an average of 35 per hour to about 105 per hour.

“It’s quite a change from the environment they’re used to working in now,” said Todd Thomas of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Controllers at SeaTac have been busy creating new procedures to handle the increase, but the airport does not have a simulator on which controllers can practice.

That’s where McChord stepped in, offering its control tower simulator to SeaTac personnel.

By the time the new runway opens, 35 SeaTac controllers will have been certified for their busier operations using the McChord simulator.

“We would not be where we are … if it wasn’t for McChord opening their doors to us,” Thomas said. “We were running out of time, [and] I don’t think we would have been prepared as much as we are for this runway to open.”

The tower simulator system is a $1 million piece of equipment housed in an old hangar. It has three screens that wrap around the controllers to create a virtual runway and air space environment.

McChord uses the simulator to train new controllers and refresh existing personnel, said Tom Quick, a civilian air traffic controller at McChord. “We’re able to take personnel straight out of tech school and get them spun up and ready to go into the control tower and work live airplanes,” he said.

The simulator also can be configured to represent the environment at Balad Air Base, Iraq, or Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, so controllers can train before they deploy to the war zones.

The Air Force has 85 simulators, housed at bases around the world, according to the manufacturer, Adacel.

The FAA also operates simulators, but at a limited number of locations, Thomas said. SeaTac is due to get a simulator, but not in time to prepare for its new runway.

Officials at both McChord and SeaTac said they believe cooperation between military and civilian controllers allows both to become better at their jobs.

“Our rules are identical to their rules,” Quick said. “We use the same manual, basically. Any time you can learn from and borrow techniques from a different controller, it’s a positive thing.”