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
He forgot to ask one question: What does Kennedy Steve hate more, the tugs or blocked transmissions?