Air Traffic Controller Falls Asleep

And you too can listen live.

I have to admit, I have the LIVEATC app for my iPad so I can listen to air traffic controllers and pilots as they fly into and out of various airports.

If I would've been listening to the feed coming from Washinton Reagan in the wee hours of Wednesday morning I would've caught this...

A veteran air traffic controller who was staffing the tower at Washington Reagan National Airport early Wednesday has admitted he was napping when two airplanes tried unsuccessfully to contact the tower.

One plane was able to talk with a regional controller and pulled the jet from 400 feet to 1,000 feet, circling the airport before landing safely a few minutes past midnight. Around that time, another aircraft from Chicago was coming into range.

While the airport usually has two traffic controllers working during the day, only one controller works the overnight shift. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to add a second controller to midnight traffic at Reagan. "It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space," he said.  The incident at Reagan garnered national attention because it is located just a few miles from the Pentagon, the White House, and the U.S. Capitol.

It's a great app, and you can listen to airports all over the world.  Too bad I never get to hear anything that interesting.

iPad Free App of the Week: Calculog

More than just a calculator app.

Calculog is a simple calculator with an extra feature: It logs the history in the background and lets you send it to your email address anytime. You can also edit the history to add text notes before sending. It is a simple app, but is thought to become the default calculator for every user.

Great for adding up receipts, keeping track of travel expenses or mileage.  All right on your iPad.

This is a great free utility.

The Catholic Church...There's an App for That

iPrayer?

The Catholic Church in America has approved  A Roman Catholic App, for use among churchgoers and lapsed Catholics alike. Patrick Leinen, of Little iApps, the company that created Confession, claims it has already helped one person come back to the church after 20 years away.

Protected by a password, the app invites users to examine their consciences and confess to their sins. But it won't replace the old-school booth. The app, which costs $1.99, just goes through the motions of confession, but churchgoers must see a priest for absolution.

I have to give the Catholic Church credit for trying to reach out to the masses with this app.  If nothing else, it's quite a media stunt.

More Improvements for Instagram

If you haven't check out Instagram in a day or so, you may want to download the software update and get back on.  The popular photo-sharing app has now added something we all wished was available way back months ago – comments and friend management. Now you can edit or delete comments on your Instagram photos, or comments that you’ve written on your friends’ pictures.  You can also block people!

In addition to these updates, you can also tag your uploaded images with certain subjects, sort of like Twitter. If you live in Los Angeles, for example, and you happen to be a sports fan, you can tag you sports pics with something like #Lakers, #Clippers or #Dodgers and it will show up in that topic stream.  It's exactly like how it works on Twitter and adding the hashtag will add your photo to that particular topic stream.  Kind of cool and convenient.

These changes the Instagram team is making is keepig it curent and allowing users to do more than just upload random pictures.  Kudos to Instagram, and can't wait to see what else is coming.

iPad Free App of the Week: Politico

The new Politico app for the iPad brings the world of politics to your iPad in a beautiful, polished application without all the noise you might expect from a political news app.

What you get is a front page that is cleanly presented, with the featured story taking up the most space. The other stories surround it, just as you would see in a newspaper. Most articles have at least one photo, but not all the photos are displayed on the main page. Photos and video really aren't a major focus in this app. It's all about the articles, as it should be. POLITICO is a major source for many breaking political stories.  It reads like a newspaper, but it is easy go in and out of articles.

There are still a few bugs in the app, but it is free so you can't complain about that right now.

It's free and the price is right for an app that offers the user a great experience while reading about the day's political stories.