I'm willing to bet if the powers that be took a "tour" of your training facility, they'd find another FAA proving ground. I mean really. Who in Gods name needs a 33 page ARTCCAM, a 136 page operations manual, a 113 page M98 specific SOP, and a 59 page specialist manual. And all of this is required reading for new controllers to ZMP??? I don't quite think that is in the "spirit of GRP".

Before you go calling out another facility, make sure you do your homework, and better yet, make sure your facility is in good operational order and in compliance with all policies and directives, and not about to crumble to bits and pieces.

It's funny, Dan. Every time someone at another facility looks at our documents, the issue of page count comes up. I'd be far more inclined to field concerns about the length/breadth of our policies and procedures if people would actually look into reading the documents instead of simply tying page count to complexity. Those documents were written to be a comprehensive reference to working any position under any imaginable traffic level or circumstance, and aren't meant to be memorized. Furthermore, the 113-page M98 SOP is, if you peruse it more closely, approximately 50 pages of diagrams regarding airspace flows and delegations for our 8 different runway configurations, none of which are expected to be committed to memory.

The 59 page specialist manual to which you refer is our training syllabus which is only of concern to our training staff and not required reading for our students/controllers other than to provide an insight into the way their training will likely progress. We have a fairly strong commitment to standardization amongst our training staff which allows for increased flexibility in instructor/student pairings, and our training manual allows us to achieve this with greater efficiency.

In closing, I've heard more complaints about the page count of our SOPs from you and other outside observers than I have from our own students and controllers. I'd say that's a fairly telling fact. That being said, perhaps you ought to heed your own advise and do your homework prior to calling out our policies. Feel free to apply for visitor status and prove me wrong .

Thanks for your efforts, Bryan. It's a shame that the guys at ZJX have had to go through such a document shuffle over all of this.

http://www.minniecenter.org/docs/vZMP_ATCSOP_rev5a.pdf

Section 4.1/4.2 lists KRST as being classified as an LCTP facility. To which Gary above mentions is a defunct program.

I stand by my earlier statement to say that all facilities could use a good scrub of their policies to ensure everything is "up to code". A bit of spring cleaning if you will.

Guilty as charged. You'll notice that the publication date of that document is Feb 2, 2009, prior to the release of GRP2.

Revisions to the document in question are forthcoming and while the SOP may still indicate as such, the LCTP rating is not enforced, nor has it been done so since the publication of GRP2.

As a staff member at the facility in question, I feel I need to address some of Jason's comments and put a stop to the allegations that he has brought against us both here and on the VATSIM Forums.

Jason, prior to making any more allegations against ZMP as a facility and the procedures to which we hold ourselves, I suggest you re-read those SOPs to comprehension, something that countless students within our facility have done without complaint.

That specific facility SOP was approved by our ATD prior to its publication on our website. Indeed, the first page and introductory paragraph explicitly states that the SOP is designed for high-traffic situations and shall not be a substitute for good controller judgement in the absence of traffic levels that justify its use.

Regarding ground metering and SWAP routes, VATUSA has conducted an officially sanctioned comprehensive traffic management course over the past 4 months, in which two of our facility members have been enrolled. The purpose of that course has been to increase awareness and proficiency in applying various FAA traffic management initiatives, INCLUDING SWAP routes, to the network. Feel free to contact Alex Evins at ZNY or the VATUSA staff if you feel this is going against the spirit of the network. Since I have yet to see a complaint on your part about ZNY's Operational Information System regarding the VATUSA NAS or their spearheading of this Traffic Management Training Course, I can only conclude that either you are uninformed on this matter, or simply selectively targeting ZMP out of convenience, malice, or both.

I'm curious as to your interpretation of airports that "CANNOT be staffed by an otherwise appropriately rated controller". Our facility requires a KMSP tower certification prior to starting M98 TRACON training as KMSP is our major field. Until such a certification is complete, a controller cannot provide top-down service as MSP_APP and therefore is unable to work the position in compliance with the GRP. At NO point during our training do we instruct students to terminate services at a TRACON boundary. If a pilot is executing an instrument approach procedure to a Class D airport at a time outside that airport's hours of operation without the tower staffed, then yes a frequency change is given and we advise that the pilot report an IFR cancellation, a policy, to the extent of my knowledge, that is echoed by a majority of the ARTCCs within VATUSA. Unless you have specific examples to the contrary, I suggest you keep such allegations to yourself.

Regarding 'letting the students get on and control', that's exactly what we do. We simply prefer that our controllers be prepared to handle a high level of traffic should it occur, and I have been informed by more than one student following a busy event how appreciative they are of this philosophy.

Allow me to close with the following. You are not now, nor at any point have been a member of ZMP. Thus, none of our policies should directly affect your enjoyment of this network. At no point has one of our controllers used our policies or procedures as a crutch to deny services to a pilot, thus I fail to see how our SOPs are causing you any anguish or inconvenience.

My inbox remains open to any SPECIFIC grievances you may have, rather than simply blasting rhetoric about the philosophy in which ZMP's staff chooses to conduct operations within our facility.

Come help Daniel Iden earn his Minneapolis Tower cert starting at 5pm Central on Tuesday, 8/31 (2200z). IFR, VFR, all types of aircraft welcome at KMSP!

Great video Noah!

Was it just me or could nobody intercept the localizer properly >

Line up and wait isn't enacted yet. I got a modified version of the instructions on a flight this morning. UND has an LOA specifying "Standard taxi" routes with Grand Forks Tower, so the exact control instructions up here were "Runway 17L, standard taxi" instead of "Standard taxi to runway 17L". The actual exchange, however, went something more like this:

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Me: "Grand Forks Ground, Sioux 9 on Charlie ramp, VFR to the Southeast, requesting traffic advisories with Mike."
GFK Ground: "Sioux 9, Grand Forks Ground, standard ta-...correction...runway 17L, standard taxi, squawk 0174."[/quote]

Nice to know we're not the only ones who are struggling with it!

Not to dig up an "old" thread, but WIP for the commonARTS-IIIE ACD:

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2004084/ACDcolors.jpg\\\" border=\\\"0\\\" class=\\\"linked-image\\\" /]

ARTS-IIIE ACD Colors:

[div class=\\\'codetop\\\']CODE[/div][div class=\\\'codemain\\\' style=\\\'height:200px;white-space:pre;overflow:auto\\\'][:CP:CARTS ACD 30PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=2763306
ColorAirport=2763306
ColorAnchorLines=5000268
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=2763306
ColorCoasting=19789
ColorConflict=77
ColorEmergency=77
ColorFiltered=19712
ColorFix=2763306
ColorHandoff=5000268
ColorHighAirway=2763306
ColorHighBound=2763306
ColorHistoryTrail=5055510
ColorLDB=19712
ColorLowAirway=2763306
ColorLowBound=2763306
ColorNDB=3092271
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=5000268
ColorPrimaryTarget=10752
ColorRangeRings=526344
ColorRunway=2763306
ColorSID=2763306
ColorSTAR=2763306
ColorSelected=5000268
ColorStickyBorder=2763306
ColorStickyText=65535
ColorTargetSymbol=5062912
ColorToolLines=5000268
ColorTracked=5000268
ColorUntracked=19712
ColorVOR=3092271
ColorVectorLine=5000268

[:CP:CARTS ACD 60PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=5592405
ColorAirport=5592405
ColorAnchorLines=21504
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=5592405
ColorCoasting=39835
ColorConflict=155
ColorEmergency=155
ColorFiltered=39680
ColorFix=5592405
ColorHandoff=10066329
ColorHighAirway=5592405
ColorHighBound=5592405
ColorHistoryTrail=10176300
ColorLDB=39680
ColorLowAirway=5592405
ColorLowBound=5592405
ColorNDB=5592405
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=10066329
ColorPrimaryTarget=21504
ColorRangeRings=1118481
ColorRunway=5592405
ColorSID=5592405
ColorSTAR=5592405
ColorSelected=10066329
ColorStickyBorder=21504
ColorStickyText=39680
ColorTargetSymbol=10187520
ColorToolLines=10066329
ColorTracked=10066329
ColorUntracked=39680
ColorVOR=5592405
ColorVectorLine=10066329

[:CP:CARTS ACD 100PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=9408399
ColorAirport=9408399
ColorAnchorLines=65280
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=9408399
ColorCoasting=65535
ColorConflict=255
ColorEmergency=255
ColorFiltered=65280
ColorFix=9408399
ColorHandoff=16777215
ColorHighAirway=9408399
ColorHighBound=9408399
ColorHistoryTrail=16741960
ColorLDB=65280
ColorLowAirway=9408399
ColorLowBound=9408399
ColorNDB=9408399
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=16777215
ColorPrimaryTarget=35584
ColorRangeRings=1710618
ColorRunway=9408399
ColorSID=9408399
ColorSTAR=9408399
ColorSelected=16777215
ColorStickyBorder=35584
ColorStickyText=35584
ColorTargetSymbol=16760576
ColorToolLines=16777215
ColorTracked=16777215
ColorUntracked=65280
ColorVOR=9408399
ColorVectorLine=16777215[/div]

Same treatment, this time for STARS TCW R19 (I'm not 100% on the history trails being green instead of blue in this revision - r/w input would be great here!)

[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2004084/TCWcolors.jpg\\\" border=\\\"0\\\" class=\\\"linked-image\\\" /]

STARS TCW R19 Colors:

[div class=\\\'codetop\\\']CODE[/div][div class=\\\'codemain\\\' style=\\\'height:200px;white-space:pre;overflow:auto\\\'][:CP:TCW 19 30PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=3158064
ColorAirport=3158064
ColorAnchorLines=17920
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=3158064
ColorCoasting=77
ColorConflict=77
ColorEmergency=77
ColorFiltered=5120
ColorFix=3158064
ColorHandoff=19789
ColorHighAirway=3158064
ColorHighBound=3158064
ColorHistoryTrail=400916
ColorLDB=19712
ColorLowAirway=3158064
ColorLowBound=3158064
ColorNDB=3158064
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=19712
ColorPrimaryTarget=19712
ColorRangeRings=526344
ColorRunway=3158064
ColorSID=3158064
ColorSTAR=3158064
ColorSelected=5066061
ColorStickyBorder=5066061
ColorStickyText=5066061
ColorTargetSymbol=5055497
ColorToolLines=17920
ColorTracked=5066061
ColorUntracked=19712
ColorVOR=3158064
ColorVectorLine=17920

[:CP:TCW 19 60PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=6316128
ColorAirport=6316128
ColorAnchorLines=17920
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=6316128
ColorCoasting=153
ColorConflict=153
ColorEmergency=153
ColorFiltered=10240
ColorFix=6316128
ColorHandoff=39321
ColorHighAirway=6316128
ColorHighBound=6316128
ColorHistoryTrail=802089
ColorLDB=39168
ColorLowAirway=6316128
ColorLowBound=6316128
ColorNDB=6316128
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=39680
ColorPrimaryTarget=39168
ColorRangeRings=1118481
ColorRunway=6316128
ColorSID=6316128
ColorSTAR=6316128
ColorSelected=10066329
ColorStickyBorder=9211020
ColorStickyText=9211020
ColorTargetSymbol=10045458
ColorToolLines=17920
ColorTracked=10066329
ColorUntracked=39168
ColorVOR=6316128
ColorVectorLine=17920

[:CP:TCW 19 100PCT]
ColorARTCCBound=10526880
ColorAirport=10526880
ColorAnchorLines=29696
ColorBackground=0
ColorCenterlines=10526880
ColorCoasting=255
ColorConflict=255
ColorEmergency=255
ColorFiltered=17152
ColorFix=10526880
ColorHandoff=65535
ColorHighAirway=10526880
ColorHighBound=10526880
ColorHistoryTrail=1336644
ColorLDB=65280
ColorLowAirway=10526880
ColorLowBound=10526880
ColorNDB=10526880
ColorOceanicTracksEast=8421376
ColorOceanicTracksWest=8421376
ColorPositionSymbol=65280
ColorPrimaryTarget=65280
ColorRangeRings=1776411
ColorRunway=10526880
ColorSID=10526880
ColorSTAR=10526880
ColorSelected=16777215
ColorStickyBorder=16777215
ColorStickyText=16777215
ColorTargetSymbol=16742430
ColorToolLines=29696
ColorTracked=16777215
ColorUntracked=65280
ColorVOR=10526880
ColorVectorLine=29696[/div]