Having desired to visit an air traffic control facility for several years now, I finally took the time to make a few phone calls. This is the second ATC facility visit for me, but the first time I am organizing it myself. When I was at CFI Academy, my ground instructor took the class to Gwinnett ATCT, a VFR tower under the Atlanta B airspace. That was a great learning experience, even though I had only flown to Gwinnett a handful of times, and was not very familiar with the airport.

I wanted to visit a TRACON this time, and the most obvious choice was Kalamazoo ATCT, the closest tower with a TRACON, whose airspace I and my student pilots spend a lot of time in. Great Lakes TRACON, located at Kalamazoo, covers the majority of lower Michigan – a consolidation of what was formerly Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Lansing, Flint, and Saginaw TRACONs individually. My initial phone call went to the control room floor, and the controller transferred me to who I assume was a supervisor, and he told me they were not doing facility visits. After having the plan in the back of my mind for so long, naturally I was quite disappointed.

I decided to try the next closest TRACON – South Bend. This attempt was more successful, and after several phone calls, the visit was scheduled.

I invited a number of local pilots, but in the end, only myself and one of my IFR students were able to make it. We were greeted by the Air Traffic Manager at the door, who was very friendly and made us feel welcome. After signing in, I handed over a box of cookies I brought as a small thank you to the controllers.

The first stop on the tour was the tower cab. After an elevator ride and a flight of stairs, we arrived at the room with its large windows on all sides. The view was impressive; we could see the entire airport. There were two controllers working, one on local, and one on ground/delivery. Our guide explained the roles of each position, and explained a lot of the equipment in the cab. He showed us a flight progress strip, explaining what each field was, and how he would read it to give an IFR clearance. He also explained what we were seeing on the TDW (Tower Display Workstation), the small radar display at the local position. This display is used alongside visual identification of aircraft to enhance the local controller’s situational awareness. The light guns, both the old incandescent one and the new LED one were taken down from their place and shone at the floor. I was surprised they were not brighter. Trying to spot an LED light gun signal during the day looks difficult, and the incandescent one must be nearly invisible.

I found it interesting how they keep track of runway/taxiway closures and the locations of snow plows and maintenance vehicles. There is a large airport diagram at a desk between the controllers. It appears to be magnetic, and they can place colored strips and pins on the board to mark locations of closures and vehicles.

It was a slow day in the tower, so we only saw one departure, but it was very cool to see the regional jet take off from that view.

After about half an hour in the cab, we traveled back down to ground level and into a dimly lit, windowless room. This was the TRACON, where there were three more controllers were working. The one I assume was the supervisor immediately asked me if I was a pilot. When I responded I was, he said I look the part. I laughed; it caught me off guard.

Aside from the supervisor there were two other controllers, one working the whole airspace combined on one of the radar displays and the other on flight data, preparing strips, answering the phone, and giving IFR clearances on the satellite airport RTRs. Our guide set up one of the unused radar displays so he could show us how it works. This part of the tour brought out the most questions for myself and the other pilot, who is working on his instrument rating. It was enlightening to see things from the big picture, top-down view, and to see the information that the controllers have. Their scopes combine information from primary radar, secondary radar (i.e. transponders), and ADS-B into one display that updates every second and can track aircraft almost all the way to the ground, even at the far edges of the airspace. We learned how they establish radar contact, why they verify our altitude, how handoffs work, and why they like providing flight following.

The way they divide the airspace when more than one radar controller is on the scope was also interesting. There is a simple North-South split, and South can be further split into South High and South Low. This is because the South High airspace is where Midway arrivals pass through. Two STARs merge into one line within SBN’s airspace, and the South High controller makes that merge happen with the proper spacing between arriving aircraft, before handing them off to Chicago TRACON.

The controllers in the radar room were talkative, and they gave us information and answered our questions along with our guide. We also found out that one of the controllers is an AirVenture controller too. We asked him some AirVenture-related questions, of course. He encouraged us to fly in to Oshkosh sometime, to watch videos on the internet of the Fisk arrival, and to bring someone along to help spot other aircraft.

After about 30 minutes in the radar room, bringing the visit to about an hour total, we met the Air Traffic Manager again on the way out. We expressed our thanks for the visit, and he said to feel free come beat up their pattern anytime, except on game days of course, when the airport gets very busy.

A big thank you to everyone at South Bend ATCT for this 10/10 experience. I think every pilot should visit an ATC facility at some point. It helps understand why many of the procedures exist that we have as pilots. Meeting the controllers can also help pilots who are nervous about talking to ATC realize that controllers are just people trying to help us accomplish our flight safely. They are not looking for our mistakes or trying to get us in trouble. Pilots and controllers are a team, working toward the same goal – to get us to our destination as safely and efficiently as possible.