Feb 6, 2010 - ATC Tour with Nav Canada, at Pearson

The idea of an ATC tour came from Matt Neumann who planned and organized the event with the help of his friend Dustin Harding - who works as a controller for Nav Canada. Matt arranged for a rental of one of those 25-seat buses to take us to first Trenton and then onto Pearson. We left Kingston around 10:00 am and picked up seven more people in Belleville from the Prince Edward Flying Club. From there we went to Trenton Air Force base where Al Baldry and folks gave us a tour of the Joint Rescue Command Center (JRCC).

That was really interesting. Trenton's rescue operation territory includes most of central Canada, excluding the Maritimes and BC. Their rescue efforts are heavily dependant on implementation of the new 406 ELT standard. That said, when someone goes down or is overdue, they work with any information they can get - including OPP, Flying Clubs, and airliners overhead who might be listening to 121.5.

Next stop was Pearson's ATC control centre where Dustin took over and split our 24-member group in two - half went over to to the new control tower and the other half went with Dustin over to the ATC floor. Later the two groups switched places so everyone could get a good look at the entire operation.

Dustin took some time with us to describe the training involved to become a controller. It's pretty grueling. For example, out of twelve hires that came in with him in 2005, only four were left to graduate two years later. The highlight for this author was to watch the fellow running Approach. He was incredible.

Anyways, kudos to Matt and Dustin for making this possible for us!