Joint Base Lewis McChord

The Joint Base Lewis McChord is a military base in Tacoma, Washington.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Base_Lewis-McChord

Today, I went on a tour of the JBLM. It took about one hour, and we went to a few places, but mostly we toured around the air traffic control tour (which still had a lot of interesting things to look at). The main point I learned from this tour is that if you want to be an air traffic controller, you need to be sufficient at memorizing vocabulary, codes, symbols, and rules. You also need to know how to handle much pressure, as there are many times where you need to guide a helicopter/plane to its landing place without seeing it in the air- only with the map on the computer. A fact that really surprised me was that air traffic controllers have used touch screens since the 90's! In my memory, touch screen phones were a very big deal around 2008.
We saw many helicopters, some new, some in repair, but the one that really caught my attention was the Apache Helicopter. I am not sure which one it is that I saw- it could have been any of the AH-64A to AH-64E. The reason it caught my attention was because it could sense where the human eye was looking at, and could aim at that exact place for attack. This would really help the pilot fly the helicopter while attacking.

At the air traffic control tower, I learned that since there were many parts to guiding a plane to its landing place, teamwork was very crucial. There are three parts (therefore usually three people and three main computers). One that controls the ground, one that controls the flying space fairly close to the ground, and one that controls space (which is at the Sea-tac Airport).

There are three lights they use in case the radio is not working. Green, red, and white. This becomes really handy when it is foggy or rainy even when the radio is working.

This tour really inspired me to research more about helicopters. I do have a Drone, but after I nearly broke it I had lost my interest in helicopters. I think this really helped me to find my love for helicopters again. I definitely recommend it!