Supervisors

When I first started out there, Supervisors used to maintain currency on the radar. For the most part, this was a really bad thing. They just didn't work it often enough to stay sharp, or remember any of the changes that had taken place since they last worked it.

Like MH. I was on his D-side at Litchfield. We used to own a shelf in the northern part of the sector, over Toledo approach from nine thousand and above. Several months prior Toledo approach had taken over that airspace up to ten thousand feet.

There's a Detroit Metro sattelite airport arrival fix in that airspace called CRUXX that we have the aircraft cross at nine thousand feet.

We didn't own that airspace any more, so we had to handoff those aircraft to Toledo Approach.

See where I'm heading? Yeah, you've got it. MH clears the first sattelite guy to cross CRUXX at nine thousand. I tell him we don't own the airspace any more, and jump on the line with Toledo Approach and point the guy out.

Next sattelite guy comes along, and damned if MH didn't clear him to cross CRUXX at nine thousand.

And the next.

I gave up trying to get him to understand that he couldn't do that, and just pointed out everone that was crossing CRUXX to Toledo.

Fortunately, supervisors aren't allowed to work the radar any more.

Unfortunately, it took a near mid-air to institute that policy.