Dear friends followers welcome back to my channel and lovely greetings from New York's JFK Airport
I flew in today for one specific reason only I got the great opportunity to probably interview the most famous
air-traffic controller out there
Kennedy Steve, so a couple of weeks back
I uploaded this video the canon salute is a bit of a giveaway congratulations
That's Kennedy Steve ever heard of Steve if you're watching please contact me. I would love to have an interview with you. A day later
I got an email from him was excited like crazy and we've been writing back and forth to arrange today's meeting
So definitely enjoy this interview with your sent in questions and let's get started.
- Kennedy Steve's office and as you guys have sending the questions
I'll be now asking you all these questions to Kennedy Steve
And what's up with the first one? How and where did you start your career as an ATC controller?
So I started in the early nineties
1994 I spent my first four years of Teterboro Airport northern, New Jersey. Okay. I came to Kennedy in 1994
Did you do all the positions meaning as an a traffic controller you to ground delivery and tower?
Yeah, so all controllers in the United States
Work every position in the facility where they're assigned
If it's an ATC tower, if you go in the center environment you would in order to be certified
Definitely able to work without a trainer you have to be certified in all the positions that's called a certified professional controller. Okay
So I would work every position
Usually every shift this just picture a day at work of yours you went to work and did you do like ground for two hours?
Then tower for two hours or how did it work two hours just a maximum you could work on position and found a break. Yeah
Usually strived for 60 to 75 minutes, especially when it was very busy
She needed a break after 75 minutes in crazy and the assignment of position it was truly
It was up to the supervisor of the controller in charge
They you know, you can start out working Clara's delivery could start out working local control. You start out working ground
it didn't do it control or it didn't matter just
I
Liked working ground alone. I mean it was you know what? It's
most fun most dynamic
And you kind of never knew which you were gonna get. Yeah, so
At least had it made every day a little different
Okay, okay that you say ground because I haven't actually flown in today get myself. I mean this is one of my big goals
I'm still working for it. Do you like the layout of taxiways from JFK?
Do you think this makes sense to you or is it actually?
one of the challenges of working here and truly in most
Older design airports is the geometry of the airport. Yeah, it's really not very efficient. Okay
In the United States if you look at you know
DFW or Atlanta or Denver?
all these newer airports with multiple sets of parallel runways and a pretty straightforward taxiway system and
You know two or three ways or two or four ways in and out of every alleyway
It's a lot easier to move traffic. Yeah, this is an airport that was designed in the 50s
Okay built for smaller airplanes with propellers
You know have a380s running around. So that's the challenge. The challenge is really the geometry in the Airport layout
Have you got any like great stories involving crank or have you experienced a massive experience combat many times? Yeah
So the Concorde was a funny airplane, especially, you know for controllers that used to come to Kennedy
Yeah, because as trainees they'd walk in and you know, they'd be all excited. You got to work they come. Wow, so cool
You're one of the only airports in the u.s. You get to work the Concorde
Yeah, then you work that kind of cord for a few months and you go. Wow
Because so the Concorde had many unique challenges first of all his landing speed was much faster than anything else so that was a challenge
Very noisy. So there were a lot of noise abatement issues
So, you know the airplane could never follow there are times vehicle couldn't follow the traffic patterns of everybody else
So that may be the challenge
I have two good Concorde stories one
Was one of my co-workers was training with me on court one day
And asked him and probably about a thousand feet to circle the land another runway
And you know the pilot thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, of course, he's you know off the approach
Rattling every windows so they're green
he's doing it and the person who was training him was kind of sitting back and watching was going on and he heard him say
That one wait a minute. Did he really just say that and there that goes to Concorde breaking off the approach making right traffic?
There's an interesting evening. I worked the last Concorde operation out of JFK
Have you experienced any like serious emergencies you have to deal with us
Control, okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know what the definition of the serious emergency is. Forces are real
So we you know routinely there are emergencies at Kennedy every other day. I mean, they just happen. I was working a Aragog
No, no longer business
Aragog was a
used to fly from Ecuador
To Kennedy and one night. We were it's the end of the shift
we're doing a runway change in Aragon was flying the vor approach to 1/3 left and
Basically make right traffic into one of the parallels and if you line up for the wrong runway
It's about a mile between the base leg in the runway threshold
And if you line up for 13 right versus 13 left the window of opportunity and notice that is very limited
And we routinely land 13 left and depart 13
Right, and there are leading lights that take you to 13 left and there's a small stuff to take you to 13, right?
But so we're landing 13 left and that is the norm
If you've any kind of lands that line Sarah Dahl decided to land on one three, right?
Well, I had somebody sitting in position on the robot
So, you know notice that at the very last second and again there we noticed we send our gal around I said
You know most airplanes. If you hit the toga switch the airplane kind of cleans up and climb sounds very rapidly
So Aragon was in an old
767-300 and I guess he didn't think it was so important to climb very rapidly. So just kind of lumber
Over the top of an airplane that was departing Indonesia. So that was
Just a little more interesting than it needed to be I
expected to tow the switch envy
Yeah, the rapid climb with a very high powerful very powerful airplane without a lot of gas in it
And I didn't get that so they try to add it to them
Now you obviously on the internet on YouTube are famous for your and say more
casual ACC conversations with the pilots
Yes, and one of them which is really really famous. And I'm not sure if you remember now the was a Lufthansa pilot
Yeah, I think you told him there wasn't like a panel of something that I opened up on his plane. So so he was
Taxiing out 231 laughs yeah, and the aircraft behind it was said there was an access panel open
So yes, I'd like to go I would try to be active and close it
Don't really know if you're allowed to but
there's not much I can do from here to stop you from doing yeah, so I
Can imagine that a man getting his binoculars that see if he maybe there's a rear access panel
And I'm not I don't I guess they could climb down through a stairwell or a ladder. I
Don't actually don't even remember. I think they send mechanic out to close the
First time anybody
Performances big
Ok, is there an airline?
You would say is the funniest or like, you know?
You were really enjoy talking to them and giving them clearances or is there one of them you said you didn't like at all?
we didn't like your
The Middle East three tend to dislike making work more than anybody else
They did not appreciate any of it
We're not going to say they took things too seriously they were very regimented and I guess how those companies are
Unreasonable in terms of and I know in general planes
why is there a plane you really favor will say that is your favorite plane to work with or just in general and it looks
A bit I think the easiest airplane that work was a Boeing 757. Yeah. Yeah
Great great performance. I can't get down here
I mean could climb really well could turn on a dime could go very slowly if you needed to bring
Where's airplane to work at our bus 340 301?
oh really best description ever given me that airplane by a virgin atlantic by like I said
It was an airplane with four hair dryers under the wing
So it kind of goes against the fact that those guys don't have a sense of humor because I thought that was one of the
best descriptions ever because
In terms of 911 if you want to speak about were you on duty that day
It was a good day not to be at work, I you know my most
You know, I have a couple of vivid recollections of 9/11. I live under the
Kind of northern approach fix into LaGuardia and some are routinely see arrival traffic
And my wife and I were out that afternoon. I was walking my dog
not an airplane to be heard in the sky obviously and then all of a sudden
We are you know a couple at fifteens coming down the Hudson River they go over, New York
So yes, this Kennedy Steve have a pilot life. Mr. Kennedy
Steve does not have apologize. And because Kennedy Steve has terrible motion sickness. Oh my word
Yeah, so learning to fly in a small airplane that would get bumped around a lot would not be a good thing for these days
Can you tell us your best ATC joke?
You know, we have somebody, you know, there's so many great stories over my career
and I think one of the funniest
Was one of my colleagues was
He's working in Air India 74. So yeah, um, what's somebody right behind me?
You know, he says ever any what I want without delay exited victor, you know traffic short final behind you
Oh wonder Dauterive idiot ones it all comes back to me cuz they're any one-on-one
No delay turning traffic short final needs you off the runway the parking spot goes dollar
This is not the motor Connor ant is it jumbo jet and we are running as fast as we can
Do you have a favorite movie?
Don't say pushing tin if you say I don't think there's been a good aviation moving
Look I think airplane is wonderful slapstick humor, you know, you say pushing Tinley thing
I would tell you about pushing 10 is the reality of
The control room scenes and the interactions between piano and the ATC control it's pretty brutal is it
Okay, did you ever get in trouble
your supervisors for being a bit sort of fun boy casually on on ATC
No, no
But I mean they knew you forget
So curiously, you know, the bottom line was it was never meant to be insulted
Across the line and it was never at the detriment of not having the traffic move. Okay? Yeah
hey, you know you can if
The airplanes are moving everybody's happy and even if the airplanes are moving slowly and it's really busy
You know
That's a stressful situation. Not only for the controller but for the pilot and if you can inject a little humor
into somebody who's sitting in the middle of 180 minute taxi
Apparently you made sort of you changed your voice maybe even spoke to the tug drivers
You know if you listen to the frequency and you know
The communication method, you know radios the pilots in general
You know with the windows open you can barely hear
There's a tub it
Might take an hour
So I sometimes come to New York a lot especially during campaign time because it's a great place to raise money
We're really good
going through I
Won't say the regular role of dealing was there 41 because there's a lot of complexity of dealing with it
And if you're gonna come to New York, it's much easier to come here
Also, we need to be that brief the day in advance
No, we you know what he's won before the planes coming the airport basically shuts down
We tend not to let you know where people talk to Air Force One not
Because they get myopic and they really copy. It's not so much they concentrate on what they're saying
But they kind of forget that there's other things going on around them
because
Yeah
Okay, it's not a good thing for the controller to be focused on what everyone all right
Well, that sums it up more this Steve. I really want to say thank you very much
And
Well, it's not that I am well, I'll be coming in today. Okay, probably hopefully soon but I won't be hearing your voice
We've got great colleagues. Oh, yeah
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Canada Steve as much as I did
I definitely had a great time and New York is always a good idea. Unfortunately, I was only here to claim six hours
I specifically only flew out for the interview. I will be doing this again
I am planning out another interview with a very famous pilot here in New York. I hope everything works out. That's it for today
Thank you very much free time. Hit that subscribe button unnoticed engagement
So you want without upcoming videos and don't forget a good pilot is always learning. See you next week wishing you all that hero
Captain Joe