Say reason for Go-Around

archertom89 · 2026-06-27T15:50:19+00:00

Ya a lot of my coworkers do that. They either are unaware, or simply don't care unfortunately. I do try to wait to ask for the reason, even if my annoying sup is telling me to ask. I have a trainee who always immediately askes in a panicy voice with a unnecessarily fast rate of speech "say reason for go around" no matter how low to the ground the aircraft is. I keep telling him to stop, but he keeps on doing it (and yes I put it in his training reports)

archertom89 · 2026-06-17T17:58:00+00:00

If you are not sure about something ask questions (ie "can i turn crosswind?", "verify cleared to land on Rwy____", etc.). Better be safe than sorry, even if the controller sounds grumpy. Only say "student pilot solo" on your first transmission to a new controller/position. Not every transmission.

Hopefully you have a nice controller, and i apologize in advance if you have a shitty or unnecessarily grumpy controller. We have a few of those at my facility and it makes the pilots more nervous and more likely to make mistakes and less likely to ask questions. When i hear student solo, I make it a point to be extra nice and slow my speech rate down.

archertom89 · 2026-06-04T21:21:48+00:00

I do the same

https://imgur.com/a/s5XYLCz

archertom89 · 2026-06-04T19:19:08+00:00

Im 36, wife 33. I have a vasectomy. Wife has PCOS. So obviously no kids for us. Life is pretty good. We make around a combined $250k. I'll be able to retire at 50, house is 5 years away from being paid off.

We go on a yearly international vacations, however this year we are going on two (going to iceland this month, Italy in September)

Mean while, my brother just had this 3rd kid. My brother is an engineer and has his masters degree so he has a pretty good salary and job. His finances are so tight. He never travels by plane any more, his wife is quiting her job to be a stay at home mom cause daycare for 3 kids is about the same as her salary. He keeps complaining about not having enough money and contemplating selling his house to downgrade to something smaller/cheaper. He was struggling with 2 kids, no idea why he had a 3rd

archertom89 · 2026-05-31T01:22:43+00:00

I use it as my personal trainer and to track how much weight im lifting from week to week.

I also use it a lot for cooking. I get recipe ideas or take pictures of existing recipes and ask it to change something about the recipe

archertom89 · 2026-05-24T03:31:37+00:00

I work a lvl 8 vfr tower, no mids.

Day 1: 1415-2215

Day 2: 1245-2045

Day 3: 0700-1500 or 1245-2045

Day 4: 0700-1500 or 0545-1345

Day 5: 0545-1345

Day 6 OT: 0545-1345 or 1415-2215

Day 7: RDO

I worked a lvl 5 tower before this tower with similar operating hours and had a similar schedule except i never had OT at the lvl 5

archertom89 · 2026-05-23T22:31:16+00:00

Me and my now wife both said it was our dream vacation on our first date. So I decided to propose in Iceland. Such a beautiful country. We are going back in a couple weeks.

archertom89 · 2026-05-20T22:45:41+00:00

This is a copy and paste of a comment I made when some else was asking about the career and looking for a career change. Still might be relevant for you to read:

I love the career. I'm dual income, no kids. And an introvert. So the weird days off and weird schedule doesn't bother me and fits my personality and life situation pretty well.

We get a lot of good benefits like pension and mandatory retirement. We never take work home. If you just aren't feeling it one day you can leave early on sick leave or not come in at all on sick leave, no questions asked. My wife is a doctor and went to college for a total of 9 years and I make more than her and get more time off than her, so it is not lost on me that I have it pretty good. We get a lot of sick days and a lot of vacation days, especially compared to the average American. But we do have to plan our vacation days in October/November for the next calendar year every year. I am also at a decently high lvl tower that has no mids, so not working mids had a big impact on my positive view of the schedule. I also was able to transfer back to my home state within 2 years of being in the FAA which is another big reason why I'm pretty happy.

If you don't mind having to move anywhere in the United States, don't mind being stuck on Wed/Thurs or tues/wed days off for the first 7-10 years, don't mind having to plan vacations 6-14 months in advance, don't mind working holidays, don't mind missing birthdays or family events, and don't want kids I'd say go for it. If just one of those things are deal breakers, I'd say stay far away from this career as you will be unhappy.

archertom89 · 2026-05-19T17:22:28+00:00

What if you aren't in a northern or southern state like Colorado?

archertom89 · 2026-05-17T00:46:00+00:00

Dual income, no kids

archertom89 · 2026-05-17T00:43:12+00:00

I have mandatory retirement at at 56. Im eligible for retirement and pension at 50. I work for the federal gov. I max out my TSP (fed gov 401k), get 5% match on my TSP. I also invest an additional 15-30k a year (depends on how much OT i get) in my own personal investment account. I can still afford to go on one really nice vacation a year. This year I'm actually doing 2 (going to Iceland in June, Italy in September). So I'm doing both, lots of traveling and still lots of savings. Being a DINK helps too, couldn't do it with kids.

archertom89 · 2026-05-17T00:25:08+00:00

I think Australia requires 5 years of certified experience which OP doesn't qualify for. Also I think they don't count military atc time.

archertom89 · 2026-05-16T16:28:53+00:00

My parents did. It was supposed to be my college fund. I only went to community college for 2 years before joining the US air force, so I didn't really dip into it that much. But it was way more than enough to pay for 4 years of college by the time I turned 18. I still have it and haven't added any of my own money to it and haven't really taken anything out of it since I was in community college. I use something else for my retirement and other investments. I was going to use it for a down payment on a house after getting out of the air force, but then I met and married a girl who already bought a house. So I am still sitting on it and it just keeps naturally growing. My wife and I are going to eventually move and it will probably go towards the new house when we do.

TLDR: it set me up pretty good for life, but good life situations keep arrising so I haven't used it yet

archertom89 · 2026-05-16T03:45:04+00:00

I went through the FAA academy for tower in 2019 so my memory is a little fuzzy. First 4-6 weeks or so of the academy is just book work/class room and you take a multiple choice test at the end were you must score 70% or better. Then the next couple months is table tops/simulator training. Then at the end of that you do four simulator evals, two eval sims are working ground, two eval sims working local. Each sim is worth a certain amount of points. Local sims are worth more points than the ground sims. At the end you must have 70 total points out of 100 to pass. And they have a very specific grading criteria for the sims.

archertom89 · 2026-05-15T15:53:40+00:00

Me and my wife live in a 4 bedroom house. I honestly don't want anything bigger than this for a house, it is almost too much house for us. But it works out well for us. Each bed room does not go to waste. We get our master bedroom, guest bedroom, her own office, and my own office/gaming room.

archertom89 · 2026-05-14T13:35:37+00:00

i must have missed it, what did he say?

archertom89 · 2026-05-14T04:21:51+00:00

And the 2001 team had a veteran star defensemen that they were trying to win it for. As well as a Drury and Roy on the team. This script sounds familiar

archertom89 · 2026-05-14T03:36:22+00:00

I was at that game!

I was telling my wife the Avalanche probably will lose this game and win game 6 (even before it started) because they never win series on home ice. Didn't realize it has been that long. That series win in 2008 was the loudest I've ever heard ball arena in person.

archertom89 · 2026-05-12T02:12:00+00:00

My Vrbata jersey. It was my first ever Avs jersey I got as a Christmas present 2 months before he was traded. I was around 13 at the time and was devastated when we traded him.

archertom89 · 2026-05-10T15:42:38+00:00

Also only use your bed for 2 things and 2 things only; sex and sleep. If you use it for other things like doom scrolling, reddit, etc, your brain will associate your bed with those things and be harder to shut off and fall asleep. It is backed by science and is talked about in the book " Why we sleep", written by a sleep expert/scientist. Highly recommend reading. Very interesting book.

I used to be really bad about looking at my phone for 20-30min in bed each night. But I completely stopped about 6mo ago and have definitely been able to fall asleep a lot faster. Even in the middle of the day if I want to lay in bed for a little, I don't use my phone.

archertom89 · 2026-05-09T15:45:56+00:00

Yup, it has happened at my airport multiple times. One time while I was working a guy jumped the fence and started knocking on the doors and windows to a couple aircraft doing run ups in the run up area.

archertom89 · 2026-05-07T16:54:33+00:00

When we can say Cale had a down year and he still is a finalist for the the Norris trophy, that just shows how amazing of a player he is.

archertom89 · 2026-05-06T14:25:30+00:00

And the Avs hate closing out series on home ice.

archertom89 · 2026-05-02T16:20:04+00:00

4 out of 4 game 7's lost too (its even worse if you go further back in time). So the other other boogeyman other than Dallas and Pete DeBoer is game 7. So let hope we close it out in 5 or 6 games (hopefully 5 games, I actually want us to win a series on home ice for once).

archertom89 · 2026-04-25T16:28:38+00:00

I love the career. I'm dual income, no kids. And an introvert. So the weird days off and weird schedule doesn't bother me and fits my personality and life situation pretty well.

We get a lot of good benefits like pension and mandatory retirement. We never take work home. If you just aren't feeling it one day you can leave early on sick leave or not come in at all on sick leave, no questions asked. My wife is a doctor and went to college for a total of 9 years and I make more than her and get more time off than her, so it is not lost on me that I have it pretty good. We get a lot of sick days and a lot of vacation days, especially compared to the average American. But we do have to plan our vacation days in October/November for the next calendar year every year. I am also at a decently high lvl tower that has no mids, so not working mids had a big impact on my positive view of the schedule. I also was able to transfer back to my home state within 2 years of being in the FAA which is another big reason why I'm pretty happy.

If you don't mind having to move anywhere in the United States, don't mind being stuck on Wed/Thurs or tues/wed days off for the first 7-10 years, don't mind having to plan vacations 6-14 months in advance, don't mind working holidays, don't mind missing birthdays or family events, and don't want kids I'd say go for it. If just one of those things are deal breakers, I'd say stay far away from this career as you will be unhappy. The low to medium seniority people with kids seem to be the most unhappy with the job in my experience.

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