Actually I think it would have been worse, much worse. Things would have continued to go down the wrong path and the result would have been the contracting out of the ATC system after it got close to collapse.

Right now as it sits I am not happy about the new hires getting the lion's share of the pay raises, but at least now we have a chance of hiring other people than fast food workers and entrants right out of high school. Our washout rates should stabilize and actually go back down once we start getting better qualified applicants.

I think we deserve better than what we got, but take a moment to step back and look at all this.

Lets say we got FULL restitution with back pay and retirement adjustments. How much is that going to cost? $20K in my case? $100K in the 1440 that got hired on one scale and paid in another scale?

Honestly, there is no way you can explain that to a guy that got laid off from his job now working 2 fast food jobs to feed his family. We get a 3% plus locality raise for 3 years in a row and the new hires get about 20-30% raise over 3 years. Keep in mind that everyone else is looking at 2.4% this coming year so we might end up with 3.5% to 4% after locality is rolled in. The other two years could be 0%.

I think the biggest problem I see is that the panel took much greater effort on the newest hires that hired on KNOWING WHAT THEY WHERE GOING TO MAKE, than any other harmed group. Now we have thousands of under-qualified new hires that came from verizon cell phone sales, best buy and used car lots that are benefiting the most for being willing to take the job for much less. If they hadn't taken the job in the first place the FAA would have had to fix this mess 2 years ago. So now with this "FIX" you will have one of the 1440 get paid the SAME after 9 years of employment as the kid that helped continue this mess 3 years after getting here.

The panel could have met in the middle and made the pay scale 1/2 way between before and after and still gotten rid of the B-scale. With this solution you have thousands of people lumped together at the bottom of the pay scale.

URET is part of ERAM not a stand alone like it is today. LOL so much for that!

Paul i agree with what you are saying in respect of developing systems. Host had at least broadband to revert to in a moment's notice (And they did many times over, drop the scopes and make shrimp boats). Host was WAY out there in terms of software and what we asked it to do with the given computing power. Eram is being developed among many currently working systems (Including HOST) there is no reason for it to take this long and to be this flawed and be accepted as a working system.

My guess is you could get any decent college kid to make a working ATC program to do much of what ERAM is suppose to do (OPPS that already happened.)

There is no reason for ERAM to not be working at this point in time. Many FLAWS are working as intended according to lockmart. The main problem is not having the system USERS involved with development. Many team "leaders" have not worked real traffic in decades, others have never worked in any facility. I am not saying controllers could have prevented this from going over budget and running late I am saying they should have been involved more than they have. From what I have seen the lockmart programmers are bad at what they do.

You are correct. ERAM has two double channels (4 processors) a pretty common redundancy in very important applications. If there is a software glitch it should resolve the same way on ALL four channels resulting in ALL four channels failing at the same time. You are correct there is no "EDARC" or other processor to bring up, we will have host for a short while as a backup but it won't be instantaneous, it will take 15 to 30 minutes to come up. What do you do in the meantime? Pray and hope everybody has a working TCAS.

Hardware wise I seriously doubt we could ever see all 4 fail at the same time. Then again the FAA might set up a single point of failure like they did with our communications lines to save a few dollars.

If you don't make the grade, lower or change the standard we are looking for. The FAA is constantly looking for ways to make itself look better rather than come up with solutions to all the problems we are having.

NAS was made when the traffic was a tiny fraction of what it is even today. It was totally new concept back then, IT SHOULD HAVE HAD PROBLEMS. The FAA has called the system IOC in ZLC when it can't even pass a simple TEXT file we call a flight plan.

My point is we have a VALID system written in an ancient language but the concept is there. How to make it work is there, yet Lockmart can't get even the simple parts of it to run. You will have less to worry about with the flight plans when the target markers (Data blocks) don't track properly. We have barely more than a year before the host computer's service contract expires.

Over-budget and late, now that is the FAA I am used to.

If you are going as far as saying we should be grateful to have a job because we are much better off than the rest of the world then you might as well say low wage earners from McDonalds or Walmart should be grateful that they make more than most of the rest of the world's population. THAT IS A FACT.

Your advice comes from someone that is on the sidelines armchair quarterbacking what the rest of us are going through. Either you where forced to leave or left on your own, either way you are not in the trenches with us so heck yeah, it is easy to say you don't have it that bad. the very next sentence that goes with that terse comment is "If you don't like it then Quit". Seriously give it a rest.

You where darn lucky to have ANY retirement, my FSS brothers did not have it that good.

You where a controller longer than I have been, you probably where a decent controller to last that long. I agree it is a big part of my life now, the day I retire is the day I forget about the FAA.

If your life has boiled down to being so concerned about the FAA that you have to come to a blog to stir the pot I feel real real sorry for you. I have very little time left in the agency, but I will fight for what is right until the day I leave and try to leave the FAA better than it is right now.

Seriously, put down the crack pipe, The FAA is FLUSH with money. If they where really serious about saving money they can start by laying off 90% of the national and regional staff, reduce the management numbers to something less than 1 supe watching 3 or 4 people.

The White book was NEVER all about the money it was imposing the agency's will on its controllers. The FAA has 30 THOUSAND people doing OTHER jobs that do not directly involve the movement of Air traffic. Many are important such as AF people and inspectors, but we also have thousands of MANAGERS that are only glorified secretaries. Many of those jobs could be accomplished by a young temp for less than $35K a year instead of a former weakstick controller getting paid $168K a year plus benefits.

We are working 6 days a week with reduced traffic bud, no way traffic could attempt to climb with as few controllers we have, the only people scrambling for their jobs are members of management, I can't recall how many times I have seen congressional testimony of the FAAMA rep crying to congress on how important they are to the organization. Oddly enough I have never seen a controller have to plead that case. I know I am needed and in a major way. At least in my neck of the woods management falsify TOP by showing themselves working 8 hours per shift and are earning (I use that term loosely) credit hours like crazy to cover those 3 week vacations they have been taking all summer long. I have to ask why falsify their TOP, what benefit is there to that? BINGO, they are now very important, if they are working themselves silly they actually need MORE management people to help give them a break, they use CICs with full FLM staffing in our facility with one sitting in the back room with their feet up in the air every single day, yet they still show themselves "working" on what was briefed to us as our official time keeper.

Controllers will never be threatened by trains, be for real. The Us is way too stuck on the gotta get there now fix to ever go back.

Gerald is a person I hope to never become. A bitter old man that offers very little "service" for the money he is raking in. He is the very same goof that just doesn't get it himself, yet slams someone else just because they disagree. One time right before the imposed work rules Gerry bragged at how its not so bad for controllers and that so many controllers are just plain old idiots with huge bills to pay and there is no way so many would actually retire just because of a few minor changes. I think he needs to take a long look in the mirror and speak for himself. I won't be the moron working until I am 70 in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country when I could have been retired 15 years ago and living better on retirement just about anywhere else. By the way I called Gerry personally and complained about the crap he posted on a government website that was obviously commentary and propaganda but posted as fact. I am sure many others did too. Just like so many other important FAA HQ "managers" he was away from his desk so I left him a long message of rage for him to enjoy. The article was removed within the hour. I did wish I had saved it, it was a prime example of how twisted and self righteous that person is.

Scorched earth blogging? How did that hurt anybody? It was a way for many of us to vent after being treated so poorly