Small Aircraft
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 1.5
Workload; Situational Awareness; Distraction
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Procedure; Human Factors; Staffing
I was working west and final combined. It was very busy and very complex. Lots of different types of aircraft on parallel ILS's. I had voiced; out loud; that I was going to need help on final; but because of the recurrent training class; we were short staffed; as usual. We did not have the available bodies to open final radar. I had numerous aircraft on the ILS 23L and 23R. Aircraft Y was on the left base at 7000 feet for 23L and Aircraft X was on the localizer for 23R at 4000 ft. I thought I could get Aircraft Y down to 3000 feet before he lost separation with Aircraft X. I was wrong. The closest they got was 2.61 miles and 800 feet. I knew immediately that I had a deal; but I had to keep going because we were still very busy. I was extremely angry because this is my second deal due to volume and the fact that we are so short staffed that we always have to be combined. Management hates calling in overtime because; from what I hear; the region doesn't think they need to spend the money. I realize that we are a little level 7 facility; but we do get busy and we consistently get screwed because big wigs in the higher places think we can handle it with minimum staffing. We are all getting fed up with having such low levels of staffing and management expecting us to be fine simply because we are a lowly level 7.I am not the strongest final radar controller. Our final only gets busy about once a week; so neither I; nor anyone else; gets a chance to practice final. Due to lack of staffing; we were unable to open a needed sector; final radar. My sector was extremely busy.Quit giving our management such a hard time for calling in overtime. We need it. We are short staffed. It is becoming dangerous.
GSO Controller reports of a busy session working a combined position due to a training class. Controller had a loss of separation with two aircraft and attributes it to not being a strong controller and being unable to work busy sessions with non-combined positions. Controller indicates it was the lack of staffing that led to combined positions; being overloaded; and having a loss of separation.