CONTROLLER HAS GUIDED PLANES SINCE 1959.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

VAN NUYS - The Cessna banked slowly into its final approach to Van Nuys Airport runway One Six Left - directly into the binoculars of veteran air traffic controller Phil Aune.

``OK, short final,'' Aune told the pilot in a calm yet earnest radio voice from the VNY control tower. ``Have a good day.''

For nearly five decades, Aune's soothing voice has been a comfort to pilots from ``prop jobs'' to jets at the world's busiest general aviation airport.

Known to some as the ``Voice of Van Nuys Airport,'' the nearly 70-year- old grandfather also known as ``Papa Alpha'' may well be the oldest aircraft controller in the nation.

Grandfathered into his FAA Van Nuys Airport control tower chair because he was hired before the mandatory retirement age of 56, Aune (pronounced awe-nee) is known as one of the few remaining controllers who can track more than a dozen aircraft at once - and take no notes.

``He's an institution,'' declared pilot Brian J. Terwilliger, producer and director of ``One Six Right,'' a documentary on Van Nuys Airport scheduled for limited release this summer.

``When you hear Phil, you know you're home. Most (pilots) have never met him, but everyone knows his voice.''

But few might know the humble man behind it. From his six-story box of glass, Aune stands shoulder to shoulder with six other controllers, squinting from capacious picture windows over two parallel runways.

He checks the radar, which shows a dozen planes from Burbank to the Santa Susana Mountains. He checks his instrument panel, which includes dials going back to the 1960s that indicate wind speed, direction, altimeter settings and other measurements.

Most importantly, he scans the skies above the sweltering runways. Like moths, Cessnas and Learjets drift in and out of summer's haze to land or take off at about one flight each minute.

So intense are he and his fellow FAA controllers - with more than 150 years of experience in their wedge-like bubble - that visitors to the tower are banned from speaking.

``It's like flying: You gotta be watching for everybody else, paying attention to what's going on,'' said the 69-year-old veteran controller and pilot with the wide brow and clear blue hawk-like eyes during an earlier conversation.

``Wrong - you're dead.''

A native of Fergus Falls, Minn., Aune grew up during World War II dreaming of snarling P-40 Warhawks and barreling F-6F Hellcats. As a boy, he loved to sit on a fence and count planes rumbling over his country airport.

The day after he left the Navy as an air traffic controller in San Diego, Aune signed on at Van Nuys Airport. The year was January 1959. He was among the first hired by the newly founded Federal Aviation Administration.

The San Fernando Valley was then so choked with smog he couldn't see the mountains for three whole months.

Aune over the years watched farm fields turn to tract homes, Air National Guard fighters replaced by corporate jets, and the dawn and disappearance of the venerable Van Nuys Air Show.

He can remember the befuddled pilot who, in 1960, taxied his Cessna tail- dragger down the runway complaining of sticky brakes - unaware of the tie-down rope dragging a large block of concrete.

He can recall the Pregnant Guppy transports that rose like blimps with their moon-rocket cargo. The U2 spy planes that rose like rockets. And celebrity pilots such as Harrison Ford and John Travolta. He once cleared Tom Cruise's vintage P-51 Mustang for takeoff.

And over the years, he grew to remember nearly every pilot and plane number in 46 years of service, even while during stints at such airports as O'Hare in Chicago.

In 1967, veteran Van Nuys pilot Clay Lacy was flying a United jetliner into Chicago when Aune suddenly queried from the tower, ``So how's everything in Van Nuys?''

``He's an excellent, excellent controller,'' said Lacy, owner of Clay Lacy Aviation in Van Nuys and holder of numerous aviation firsts, who started at VNY in 1952. ``He doesn't get rattled. He thinks calm and straight. When things get busy, he doesn't panic as others do.''

Though the FAA since 1972 has retired controllers at 56 because of studies that show that judgment diminishes with age, Aune each year breezes through his medical exams.

The father of three and grandfather of nine children can just as easily be seen two-stepping at the Crazy Horse saloon in Chatsworth, skiing in Mammoth, or riding his pink-flamed Harley-Davidson each day from his West Hills home to work.

``I'm grandfathered in: I can work forever as long as I can pass the physical and can get up those (tower) stairs,'' said Aune, who has won awards for his work. ``I don't think of myself as 69 - I dance, I ride, I ski.

``My reflexes are the same as a 25-year-old - still sharp as a tack.''

And though he has talked of retiring, few can imagine Van Nuys without its guiding Voice.

``He's the glue that holds us together,'' said air traffic controller Bill Aslaksen, president of the Van Nuys chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. ``He leaves everybody feeling a little better.''

Dana Bartholomew, [phone]

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Phil Aune began his career as an air traffic controller at Van Nuys Airport in 1959 - long before the FAA began requiring retirement at the age of 56. At 69, he is still working at the world's busiest general aviation airport.

(3) Air traffic controllers scan the runways of Van Nuys Airport from atop a six-story tower.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer