As Rose Anna Rosanadana used to say, “It’s always something, if it ain’t one thing, it’s another!”  Well, that’s my excuse for not having my member profile of Chapter 59 Treasurer, Jeff Orr done by now.  I was beginning to think he didn’t want me to write this thing anyway.  I e-mailed him, and his e-mail went down.  I tried to call him and he had moved and changed his phone number.  I was beginning to think that Air Traffic Controller was just his cover, and he really was a CIA agent or one of those other guys I’ve read about in John LeCarre novels.  Well, I finally tracked him down, and here’s his story. 

 As a kid Jeff always liked airplanes, and got his first real taste of aviation as a small child flying out to Lubbock from his home in Dallas in a Trans Texas Airlines Convair to visit his grandparents.  When he was twelve years old living in north Dallas, DFW airport was being built and Jeff and his buddies would ride over to the construction site on their bicycles and imagine all the airplanes that would soon be occupying those thousands of acres.  He decided he wanted to fly in the Air Force, but his eyesight didn’t make the cut, so he went for a degree in Petroleum Engineering at Texas Tech and graduated in 1983.  Not great timing, since the boom in oil became a bust about that time.  He went to work for an oil company in Dallas and during that time pursued his desire to fly by earning his Private Pilot license.  Flying Cessna 152’s out of Addison, Jeff had one particularly interesting problem to overcome.  Jeff, our resident Air Traffic Controller, was scared to death of talking on the radio!  As a Student Pilot, he would take off in a rented 152 or 172 from Addison and fly to Lancaster or somewhere with no tower.  He would then wait there until the tower closed at Addison before returning, just to avoid talking to the controllers. 

 Some time after being laid off due to a weak oil economy, Jeff happened to visit an ATC facility on an Operation Raincheck tour and decided it might not be so bad to be on the other end of the radio.  Shortly after that he saw an ad looking for Controllers so he started the long, drawn out paperwork process to get accepted into the FAA Air Traffic Control School in Oklahoma City.  It was a tough four month course with a washout rate of two thirds of the class, but Jeff made it through and landed his first assignment right here in Waco at the Madison Cooper Regional Airport. 

 Of the 15 or 16 controllers at the Waco Airport, Jeff is one of only about four who are pilots.  Jeff’s experience on both sides of the radio helps him help student and inexperienced pilots cope with the ATC system.  With the title of Air Traffic Control Specialist, Jeff’s day typically consists of a couple of two hour shifts in the tower and a couple of shifts with TRACON (approach control).  Working Approach is the busier assignment since the airport may only land about 100 or so planes a day, whereas they may work 300 or more approaches including students from TSTC and other area training programs, as well as Air Force trainers from Randolph in San Antonio.  While working high density airports like DFW may be more intense, small airports like Waco have their own challenges with their mix of jets and Cessna 172’s requiring a drastically different spacing and pace.  They also have the challenge of working both ends of the runway when one plane wants to practice the ILS to runway 17 at TSTC and someone else wants to do the NDB to 35. 

 One of the benefits of being an Air Traffic Controller is the ability to jumpseat with the airlines occasionally, and Jeff took the opportunity to hop a flight to Portland last year to visit Van’s Aircraft and get a ride in an RV-6A.  He tells me his dream is to start an RV-7 project.  He says that “one of these days” he’s going to order the tail kit.  As a vital part of the Chapter 59 Potential Builder Harassment Program it is now incumbent upon all members to bug Jeff, give him RV rides, and generally aggravate him until he gives in and orders his kit. 

Our EAA Chapter consists of people who have one important trait in common.  They’ve “always” loved airplanes.  There are airplane owners who just fly them, and there are professional pilots who just fly them.  You won’t find them in the EAA, because they just don’t have that important trait that binds us together, the love of airplanes.  Jeff sought out our Chapter about a year and a half ago after finding our where our meetings were, and already he has almost a year as a Chapter Officer under his belt.  Like many of our members, Jeff doesn’t have tons of flying time, but he has lots to contribute to our Chapter, and for that we are all very lucky.  Jeff has accumulated about 180 hours of flying time and is a true aviation enthusiast.  He was just recently married and lives in Waco with his wife, Becky.   He has an eight year old son by a previous marriage whom he hopes to interest in aviation. 

- McMains