This is utter bilge that Mr Sutherland should erase from his cv at once. Pure bollocks. Hello Simon, hope you are enjoying the film.
shareTo everyone that has not yet seen this film:
will-finney's "review" couldn't be more wrong! He really should take his advice to Mr. Sutherland and use it himself on his post here.
Ground Control has excellent character development and plenty of excitement. After seeing this film, I guarantee that you will think about and quietly thank air traffic controllers EVERY time you fly from now on!!
I agree WatchCat. I thought the movie was a pleasent surprise. I saw it on Netflix last night. It was much better then a lot of big name movies that are suppose to be thrillers. And I am not the easiest person to please. The film was very entertaing and that is what matters. Yes there were flaws, Like what was the Kristy Swanson character doing there. She looked like Daryl Hannah in Steel Magnolias. And how Sutherland was re-certified by a one question quiz. Made me think about all of those inexperienced ATC's that were hired after Reagan fire all of the ones who went on strike. And his melt down scenes reminded my of Robert Hayes in Airplane. ATC's is a highly stressful job. I am surprised they never got him help.
A few things to remember when looking at these type of movies. In a disaster movie if you see babies or small children, we can count of something bad happening to whatever they are traveling in. If in a movie they actually use real names of airlines like they did in this movie, the fictional airline is the one that is going to be in trouble. If there is know-it-all character chances are by the end of the movie he is going to mess up.
I wonder how many incidences like this happen and we never hear about it.
lol oh man I never thought about flight movies like that haha that's a good point!
sharemarbleann^
Oh my gosh.
Your post had me ROTFL :)
I just watched this film and I thought it was worth a watch :)
But these comments by you are what had me laughing:
"Like what was the Kristy Swanson character doing there. She looked like Daryl Hannah in Steel Magnolias"
"And his melt down scenes reminded my of Robert Hayes in Airplane"
I thought EXACTLY the same thing!
"A few things to remember when looking at these type of movies. In a disaster movie if you see babies or small children, we can count of something bad happening to whatever they are traveling in. If in a movie they actually use real names of airlines like they did in this movie, the fictional airline is the one that is going to be in trouble. If there is know-it-all character chances are by the end of the movie he is going to mess up."
marbleann, you are too much!
Thanks for the great post!
"We would have been fine, if there hadn't been any.....mess"
Thanks Denise. You really have to appreciate these flicks for what they are mindless entertainment. Remember years ago when Trans World Airlines was around, all the planes in these types of movies were called Trans Global. Kind of like they knew TWA wasn't going to be around too much longer. And what about those Airport movies where George Kennedy is a mechanics in the first movie and by Airport 74 he was a pilot. And those movies were suppose to be good. So one can imagine what this flick was going to be like.
But I had a experience like Keifer Sutherlands character in the movie, I was a Train Conductor for years and I was out sick for like 6 months at one time. I came back to work like I was never out for half a year, no going back to a few classes (we had to go to school to become a Conductor). No they put me right back on the road, no questions asked other then telling me I was working RDO until the new schedule bids come up.
The third day back at work something happens. The train had smoke coming out of the vents so that means something is on fire or smoking and get the passengers off the train as soon as we can. Get to the station and a supervisor is standing on the platform who knew me and knew I had been out for months. He walks up to me while I am trying to get the passengers off the train. They are mad and they don't care if fire was coming out the vents they want me to fix it because they do not want to get off the train.
It is true there is always a Ernest Borgnine type who thinks they know better then you. So I have to deal with that type and being a woman on a typically mans job does not help with Ernie around. In any case this idiot supervisor decides to give me the Keifer Sutherland one question test while this was all going on, He asked me how to open the doors when the electricity is off. Gee oh my god since the doors are open that must not have been a problem(you take the cover of the seats and manually open the door with a lever)I tell this and he says OK Conductor you are qualified. Huh wait I didn't know there was a secret qualification question. It was crazy. In the end it turned out some idiots were bar-b-cuing on the train, that's another story. But the same happened to me. Maybe that supervisor wrote the script to the movie.
marbleann^
That's a great story.
Yep; always seems to be at least one of those 'know it alls' around, at any jobsite.
Usually, they aren't only 'know it alls', but have to be 'show that they know it alls' :0
I can just imagine what you were thinking when you are getting 'the question' while everything was going on.
My sister and I have this expression we get -- a kind of incredulous 'Whaaaat?' type of look when confronted by such lame "WTF, are you kidding me?" comments/questions.
When I see it on my sister's face, I almost burst out laughing because I know EXACTLY what is happening and what nonsense she is having to deal with, and usually at the worst time.
Too much!
"We would have been fine, if there hadn't been any.....mess"
Oh God and I knew that Supervisor was somewhere around because he wore this cologne that you could smell 5 miles away. I guess he thought he was doing something by asking me that dumb question. I wanted to tell him to STFU I have a bunch of passengers that don't want to leave the train and there is smoke coming out of the vents.
shareAnn, I appreciate your experience and the work that you do/did. However, as someone who not only did ATC for 30 years, and also had to recertify after a 22 month sabbatical (guess when?), I can assure you with absolute certainty, that there is no one question, one day, one week, or even one month process that gets a controller back up to speed. And I'm not even talking about full proficiency--I'm talking about not being a danger to anyone. I saw people who were fully certified controllers come back after absences of three or four years who were never able to recertify. Words cannot describe how challenging it can be.
As the guy who was training me (re-cert training) said when I was having inexplicable difficulty, "I can see that you're a good controller. But in the time you were gone, you lost that sixth sense we all have for taking care of the obscure stuff and fully concentrating. Until it comes back, you need to do a lot more checking, cross checking, and double checking whenever separation is involved." He was right. And I did get it back. I worked another fourteen years after that.
Don't even get me started on supervisors. The FAA had/has a horrible history of manager selection that was biting their butts in the '50s and is still biting their butts today.
LRod
ZJX, ORD, ZAU retired
I know my Uncle was a ATC. We were laughing about how ridiculous they asked one question and Keifer Sutherlands was re-certified. I know it is a very nerve racking job.
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