Tonopah Test Range air traffic controller job 12/04/2014

Air traffic controller job at the TTR

This looks pretty routine for an ATC job, other than maybe not every controller has access to the FLIP these days. (The document has FOUO status.] Also not every ATC needs top secret clearance.

This line caught my eye:

On occasion must be able to work weekends and holidays.

There is this theory that tests of a sensitive nature are done on holidays, when there are less eyeballs around the range. The problem with that theory is yes, there are less people on base, but you also have the potential for yahoos at the border.

Of some interest is PAE runs the air operation at the not so secret drone base in Djibouti.
PAE air operations

a reply to: gariac

Whenever I see that name "Tonopah" I think of Howard Hughes and Jean Peters secret marriage in 1957. Some of the Hughes executives had spent a millions of 1970's dollars accumulating mining rights in various properties around Tonopah. Hughes, of course, was an aviation genius, flew his own test planes and he was intimately connected with Lockheed for 40 years, Jack Real being one of his best buddies.

Sorry, I did not mean to hijack your thread. There is a lot of folklore surrounding Tonopah. You say this job posting caught your eye. What's going on in Tonopah that we should know about?

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

I have a series of google search that I routinely do, with the TTR being one of them. The TTR, being something like a gray world version of Groom Lake, is worth studying. Over the years, projects that grow too big for Groom Lake show up at the TTR.

Howard Hughes was married in the L&L Motel in Tonopah. The building has been gone for about a decade. I forget the name of the motel at the time of the destruction.

The reason there is anything left to display at the Tonopah Mining Museum is that Howard Hughes paid for security long after there was anything "valuable" in his mines. Otherwise, it would all be poached.

What is going on in Tonopah is they have a brew house now, and the Mizpah is open again. Both owned by the same people. Otherwise, the town is still in decline. But it is a handy place between Vegas and Reno, and I support the people trying to make the stop a little more comfortable. Mizpah food could use some work, but everything else is top notch.

There are all sorts of silly rumors about the Mizpah, all crap of course. But what is true is the "Red Eagles," based at the Tonopah Test Range, used to party there.

Oh, and of course, they are periodically flying the F-117.
F-117 still flying

a reply to: gariac


Not being in the know, what exactly is the "TTR" ?


Thanks,

- NF

originally posted by: nullafides
a reply to: gariac


Not being in the know, what exactly is the "TTR" ?


Thanks,

- NF

TTR: Tonopah Test Range.

originally posted by: gariac
What is going on in Tonopah is they have a brew house now, and the Mizpah is open again. Both owned by the same people. Otherwise, the town is still in decline. But it is a handy place between Vegas and Reno, and I support the people trying to make the stop a little more comfortable. Mizpah food could use some work, but everything else is top notch.

There are all sorts of silly rumors about the Mizpah, all crap of course. But what is true is the "Red Eagles," based at the Tonopah Test Range, used to party there.

Took a google search to figure out what "Mizpah" is, Mizpah Hotel which I have passed by a number of times. A lot of supposed ghost stories about the place, and a description of it as "morbid".

Don't forget this place In Tonopah, also creepy and weird:
www.atlasobscura.com...

a reply to: gariac

Thanks for the neat info! I went over to google maps and explored Tonopah. I used the person-view to simulate me driving north on 95 into Tonopah. In the south end there is a Texaco and a McDonald's and the Tonopah Station/Ramada.

As I continued my journey north on 95 I found the exit for Tonopah Airport, nearby the BF Goodrich towing place.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

I think the McDonald's is out of business. The exit for the Tonopah airport is on route 6, so you probably saw a sign indicating to turn east on 6. I always make it a point to check out the Tonopah civilian airport since often contractors working with the TTR can't land at the TTR for some reason, so they use TPH. Also the Sundance helicopters have contracts to service facilities on the range. They often stop at TPH.

Lockheed Martin N146PC at KTPH

a reply to: FosterVS

Here the deal with the Mizpah. No rooms are really original from what I am told. Back in the day, you didn't get your own bathroom. No traveler would put up with that today (well except for the Little Aleinn). So the number of room were cut in half when the hotel was remodeled. But I think much of the rest of the hotel is "stock".

myths of Tonopah...debunked!

Inside the Mizpah is Ottsen's Turquoise. It used to be across the street. You can tour the mine. Kind of pricey.

mine tour

That atlasobscura link is pretty good. It all looks right except for the BREN tower, which is no longer standing.

originally posted by: gariac
Air traffic controller job at the TTR

This looks pretty routine for an ATC job, other than maybe not every controller has access to the FLIP these days. (The document has FOUO status.] Also not every ATC needs top secret clearance.

There could be a reason for that. The job title says Air Traffic Controller, but the description for that job is all Airfield Management/Flight or Base Ops. They do everything on that list, but you wont find an Air Traffic Controller doing anything on that list. lol. They push tin, thats about it. Someone messed up that posting. lol

Edit: Notice under experience it says "Minimum of four (4) years experience at a civilian Flight Service or Military Base Operations or equivalent experience in an airport management field"? Doesnt mention anything about pushing tin.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Lockheed Martin N146PC at KTPH

That seems to be 80 year old aviation technology. Lockheed built the SR-71 and they have always been involved in top secret aviation projects. en.wikipedia.org...

What is Lockheed's target market for this totally pedestrian single prop airplane design? Who buys these things?

a reply to: boomer135

I noticed that I didn't archive the job title, so I went back and double checked. [I could have screwed up. It has been known to happen!] The job is advertised as Air Traffic Controller, but in the job description it does mention Airfield Management Services.

Job at LinkedIn

So yes, you pointed out their screw up. I checked a few sites with the posting and they are all the same. The reason I archived it is these jobs offers leave the interwebs once the person is hired, but the threads on ATS seem to never go away. I didn't want a missing link.

Now that we know PAE has the contract, the next step is to figure out if it is a USAF contract or a Sandia contract. At the TTR, there is always the question as to who runs what since the base is used for both the USAF and the DOE. Sandia run on the three day schedule and this job hits at a three day schedule:

Must be able to spend three (3) nights away from home (or reside in Tonopah).

Reside in Tonopah....well I suppose that would be possible, but I'd need Amazon Prime and Netflix. The last geeky store in Tonopah was the combination Western Auto - Radio Shack, now defunct. As I've posted a few time, that Radio Shack had the best collection of electronic parts I ever saw. The guy who ran it said they stocked stuff for the "range." Entertainment wise, all you have in Tonopah is drinking and for variety, drinking. At one time they used to have live entertainment at Main Street Station in their bar.

Interesting topic, gariac.
A question to all. How Air Force check if a person is a good candidate to be a top secret facility Air Traffic Controller? Is there something like IQ test?

originally posted by: SpeedFanatic
Interesting topic, gariac.

A question to all. How Air Force check if a person is a good candidate to be a top secret facility Air Traffic Controller? Is there something like IQ test?

well not really. If your an air traffic controller you have to have a decent IQ. Thats one stressful job where hundreds if not thousands of lives are at stake everyday. The real thing they want to know is if you have a top secret clearance or at least a secret clearance. Top Secret clearances take months if not a year to get and cost a ton of money. I know when i got mine it took them nine months total before it was issued (although in my job we just got interim TS clearances anyway because of SIOP/8044). A top secret clearance lasts five years and a secret lasts ten (last time i checked, correct me if im wrong) and follows you when you leave the military. I know I had like four years left on my TS and like four and a half on my secret when i got out. So I could be a candidate for that job if I was an ATC.

And gariac, your correct I wasn't correcting you, i was correcting the posting. sorry if it came off the wrong way! I actually had to go to your website and follow the yellow link road to get to the posting to see if they actually made the mistake. Those airfield management jobs make pretty good cash too. i know a few booms who got out and moved right into our base ops after becoming civilians and they were something like gs-11 or gs-13 or something like that (early 2000s). All they really did was develop flight plans for us which gave us our route, air refueling tracks, route back, etc, and put them on a PCMIA card so we could plug it into the jet. Besides that Im not sure what they did for that money!

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: boomer135

Must be able to spend three (3) nights away from home (or reside in Tonopah).

oh and im not sure how this really works though. Cause my cousin is a firefighter at, well lets just say he takes a janet flight, and he works the strangest work schedule. Its like 4 on 3 off, 5 on 6 off, or something like that. So is it exactly three nights away or is it appx three nights away?

And keep these postings coming. I love reading about them. Sometimes they are very telling...

a reply to: boomer135

I knew you weren't correcting me. However, I often do these posts at stupid O clock, so I went back to make sure I didn't write air traffic controller instead of airport manager.

Fire could be a special case at these bases. Test flights are done often at odd hours, so fire (callsign Pony at Groom) needs to be ready for odd hours.

I presume the test flights get no FAA paperwork if they stay over the restricted airpspace. So the tower personel can have a more normal schedule. The old A-12 test flights went way outside the range, as did some of the F-117 flights, so it would be interesting to know how they were handled. The F-117 pretended to be another plane. [Wiki isn't helping, but I think it called itself an A-6 Avenger.] I'm assuming the Bakersfield crash had some sort of FAA sanction as a plane other than the F-117.

The Janet driver jobs get advertised periodically. However, I don't recall any tower job advertised for Groom Lake. Perhaps you get a job at the TTR, and then can transfer to Groom.

I was told the tower personel leave on the last Beech Janet at the end of the day, and arrive on the first Beech Janet, presumalby uncontrolled. So this TTR job description doesn't match what I was told by a good source, or things have changed.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: boomer135


I was told the tower personel leave on the last Beech Janet at the end of the day, and arrive on the first Beech Janet, presumalby uncontrolled. So this TTR job description doesn't match what I was told by a good source, or things have changed.

Last Beech at the end of the day or at the end of the week? Cause that actually would make sense if they left on the last flight out friday and arrived first flight in monday. You dont need controllers in the tower to land at certain airfields. TTR or hell even Nellis could control them all the way to landing with nobody in the tower. We had an airfield in oklahoma near Altus AFB that didn't have anyone in the tower ever, yet approach control for Altus controlled the touch and go's at that airfield. Lots of training goes on there!

Here is another job that went up two days ago.

TTR job

There is little detail in it. In fact, the job might not even exist. I've seen companies just do these adverts to have names handy.

--Highly experienced in UAV/RPA and command and control operations environments

Yeah, well we knew they have UAVs out there.

Demonstrated knowledge of and experience with implementing Sandia policies affecting research, design, and development activities, projects, or initiatives.

And just how does some schmuck not working for Sandia have experience with Sandia policies? Hence my comment about the job probably not existing.

I've seen HR do these hunts just to get a sample of salaries, which is why I never revealed a salary any time I took a new job. The idea is not what you are making now, but rather what does it take to get you to change employers.

originally posted by: gariac
Here is another job that went up two days ago.

TTR job
There is little detail in it. In fact, the job might not even exist. I've seen companies just do these adverts to have names handy.

Maybe it was intended for in-house purposes? i.e. someone wants to change positions at Sandia.

Hmmm, looks like maybe they pulled the posting? Your link goes to a page of postings in Albuquerque, NM.

EDITED TO ADD: I see now, you cannot directly link to the postings. A search for TTR shows this listing:
R&D, Systems Engineering (Senior or Principal)
Job ID: 647116
Primary Job Duties
Plans, conceives, and conducts flight testing for Sandia's customers and sponsors; directs systematic data collection efforts toward the evaluation of the nation's nuclear stockpile readiness program. Provides and encourages new understandings and capabilities by using the scientific method's hypothesis, test, and evaluation techniques; critical review; or similar engineering research and development methods to collect test data information.

Sounds FUN!

a reply to: FosterVS

Well crap, I didn't check the link. It turns out you need to search on the keyword Tonopah. The ATS quoting of external news text totally destroys the formating, else I would have posted it. For small posts, I fix it by hand, but that page is just too big.

Thorough knowledge of and applied experience with scientific and engineering methods and with the discipline's standards for the ethical conduct of research.

Ethical research? Hello Sandia. In the air force you kill people and break things. You are testing nuclear weapon delivery systems, hence the DOE Q clearance. Luckily the death and destruction all looks like a computer game.

Uses physical and computational simulation, analysis, and evaluation as inherent activities of development.

A real job would indicate what simulator tools you are expected to know. I'm telling you this job doesn't exist, or as you indicate, they are advertising it for some equal opportunity statute but the real candidate already works at Sandia.