Policing the Skies

Air Cops: A Personal History of Air Traffic Control, by Billy D. Robbins is a quick read. In a brief 89 pages it covers the evolution of air traffic control — from the early days of the US Postal Service’s Airmail and their use of bonfires, up through the highly automated/computerized system in place today, and all the various systems used in between. The explanations are technical enough for accuracy, yet plain-language enough to be easily understood by a non-technical audience. In the wrong hands, a book about the evolving systems of Air Traffic Control methods could have easily devolved into a mundane collection of standards and protocols. But AIR COPS is told within the context of Mr. Robbins’ own career, mixed with anecdotal stories of his life in the field. Each improvement introduces its own shortcomings, and the subsequent daily crisis management that Air Traffic Controllers employ to keep the planes in the sky. In one noteworthy example, an Air Traffic Control error caused a near miss over Florida between the planes of President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. A rather extreme example of the kind of on-the-job stress that makes Air Traffic Controller the profession with the country’s highest suicide rate.

Over the last year I’ve been researching the life of my grandfather, Ralph Grayson. If I can find sufficient documentation, I hope to get a biography published. Short of that, I intend to get enough of his life’s accomplishments shared on the internet to see that his story gets told. My recent contact with his former friend and business colleague, Billy D. Robbins, led me to his book, wherein Ralph receives several noteworthy mentions.

The animation above was conceived of by D. Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne for the Celestial Mechanics project — visualizations of manmade aerial technologies. With animation programmed by Gabriel Dunne, Eric Keller, Aaron Koblin, and Jarrett Quon. FAA data was parsed and plotted using the Processing programming environment. The frames were composited with Adobe After Effects and/or Maya.[1]

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Live Feed of Air Traffic Control @ LiveATC.net

National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Air Traffic Control Association

Federal Aviation Administration