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ATC Training

A group blog by ATC Training in Division Updates

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Contributors to this blog

  • Daniel Crookes 35
  • Andy Ford 33
  • Samuel James 30
  • Adam Arkley 29
  • Adam Farquharson 17
  • Oliver Rhodes 16
  • Alex Beard 9
  • Will Jennings 4
  • George Wright 3
  • Fraser Cooper 3
  • Kieran Hardern 3
  • Nathan Donnelly 2
  • Sebastian Rekdal 2
  • Fergus Walsh 2
  • Chris Pawley 2
  • Jack Edwards 2
  • Craig Stewart 1
  • Simon Irvine 1
  • Kye Taylor 1
  • Reece Buckley 1

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Entries in this blog

ATC Training

ATC Training Consultation: Response

As many of you are aware, we recently held a consultation of the membership regarding the direction of the ATC Training Department and what you want out of your division. Nearly 40 of you replied and, well, we listened. In the downloads section of the website (direct download link) you can find our response. This addresses some of the questions raised, gives action points for the future and also highlights changes that we have already made. For a number of the points raised, I will be appro
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

9
ATC Training

Training Staff Changes (ATC)

Bon Soir! After a few discussions over the past couple of days, @Luke Collister is stepping down from his role of TGI for TG2 due to his availability and other commitments. With that being said, @Lee Roberts will move into the role of TGI for TG2 whilst retaining his current role as TGM - TWR for a short period.  Please join me in thanking Luke for his time as TGI and in wishing Lee Roberts good luck in his new role. Dan ✈️
Daniel Crookes

Daniel Crookes in ATC Training

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ATC Training

C1 Training Place Allocation & Hour Requirement Changes

Hi all, Over the past few years, the enroute team have allocated C1 training places on a purely ‘first come, first served’ principle, changing the number of places available for each training sector to suit students’ eligibility. This has ensured overall fairness and parity, but can lead to uneven student:mentor ratios, and therefore uneven training times, on each sector. To rectify this issue, from Saturday 1st May, the number of places available for each training sector will be set,
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

5
ATC Training

ATC Update, Winter 2018

Hi all, As the year draws to a close, we wanted to give you all an update on what ATC Training has achieved over the past 12 months, and look forward to the next! Over the past year, we have: Issued 115 S1s (up by 51.3% from last year); Issued 58 S2s (up by 123% from last year); Issued 19 S3s (up by 46.2% from last year); Issued 4 C1s (down by 25.0% from last year, but the sample size is low - the absolute difference is by one); Inducted 90 visitors an
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

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ATC Training

CTS Controller Booking Etiquette

Hi all, Following a couple of queries and concerns raised over the last couple of days, I wanted to post a reminder of booking etiquette, particularly for new members who've joined fairly recently and might not be aware of the conventions. The website regulates that "booking shall not be excessive in duration", which is deliberately a rather vague rule (perhaps the main source of confusion). "Excessive" is a difficult term to define, as what may be considered excessive in one case may
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

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ATC Training

Military ACC Course - Released

We are pleased to announce the release of our Military Area Radar Moodle Course and the re-introduction of Military ACC endorsements. A massive thank you to Callum Presley and Lee Roberts for creating this course for us. The course is open to view to all members. Members holding a permanent controller rating of C1 or C3 and also a Military APC endorsement are invited to take the exam (please submit a ticket to the helpdesk to have the exam enabled) at the end of the course to gain their Mil
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

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ATC Training

British Summer Time (BST) begins Sunday 31st March at 01:00

"There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music." - John Keats At 1am on Sunday 31st March the clocks will advance one hour. This means that 1am shall immediately become 2am, thieving us all of an hour of our day, and @George Wright will spend the next six months dancing 'the funky chicken' whilst dressed as Bob the Builder. For those of you in other timezones: as you were. For those of us in the UK, we must now engage in intellectual gymnastics every time we use t
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

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ATC Training

Military Radar (APC) Moodle course RELEASED

A massive thanks to @Callum Presley and colleagues for their hard work developing and testing the new Military Radar (APC) course on our moodle platform. I'm delighted to announce that it is now available for S3s to enrol and complete. Once you have passed the Final Exam, simply submit a ticket to the Military RTS and we'll get the endorsement processed. It'll be great to see some more of our Military APP positions manned in the future. Enjoy!
Samuel James

Samuel James in ATC Training

13
ATC Training

Updated Observer Training Process

Dear all, From today, we are slightly adjusting the way we do our OBS-S1 controller training. Thanks to the hard work of Fraser Cooper, Luke Collister and Leon Grant we are now in a position to utilise Manchester in addition to Gatwick for our initial Part 2 sessions. The new process is shown in the diagram below:     The majority of the S1 progression path remains largely unchanged. More information of the new optional further training sessions on Gatwick or Manchester
Samuel James

Samuel James in ATC Training

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ATC Training

Samuel James

All, Unfortunately, Sam will be taking some time away from VATSIM due to ill health in the family.  George Wright has kindly agreed to look after the ATC Training Department in Sam's absence. Any ATC Training Management matters can be directed to George during this time, via the helpdesk.  
Nathan Donnelly

Nathan Donnelly in ATC Training

9
ATC Training

Shifting Focus: Tower Training

Following feedback received during and following the ATC Training Consultation, the department has been hard at work. One of the points raised during the consultation, that many of you have added your voices to since, is that as a division, we spend a lot of time in our training doing theory. Often, teaching the same thing multiple times and on topics that students should be able to learn for themselves. Some have gone as far as to say that some people expect to be spoon-fed information, like a
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

5
ATC Training

January Changes

Hi all, After a few months of testing we are adjusting the way that ATC exams are picked up. Previously our Head Examiner has assigned exams to our examiners, the new method will allow examiners to pick up exams without waiting for them to be assigned. Our aim is to minimise the time students are waiting after being submitted for an exam. To ensure that examiner currency and any potential speculative bias is removed, we have set criteria that governs whether an examiner can  pick up and exa
Daniel Crookes

Daniel Crookes in ATC Training

5
ATC Training

Resignation - John Batten

Dear all, It's with some regret that I announce that @John Battenis standing down from his post as Training Group Instructor within our New Controller training group. John was appointed in March 2022 and in the 27 months that he's been in post, he's been instrumental in the success of TGNC, leading the delivery of quality training to new members of our community whilst also juggling his tenure as Member Services Director. In recent times, the training group has seen record numbers of e
Adam Arkley

Adam Arkley in ATC Training

7
ATC Training

S1 Gatwick Endorsements - Hours Checker

Hi all, From listening to the feedback we’ve had over the past few weeks about the recently introduced Gatwick endorsement scheme, we’ve realised that the requirements to start training for the endorsement could be made clearer.  From today, thanks to some fantastic work by the Web team, we’re introducing a new system to guide you through the process of gaining your Gatwick endorsement. If you are currently an S1-rated controller, you can go to this page to use the new system. If
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

4
ATC Training

Changes to the Manchester Familiarisation Sessions and Gatwick Endorsement

Hi all, Over the past couple of months, me and Josh have spoken to mentors and students to see what could be improved in regards to S1 continuation training. The most common things that cropped up were that the Manchester Familiarisation Sessions weren't getting used to their full and proper potential, and that the Gatwick Endorsement was not properly training people. Here are the changes that we have made;Manchester Familiarisation: As some of you may be aware, TG New Controller, along with the
Fergus Walsh

Fergus Walsh in ATC Training

7
ATC Training

CTS Theory Exam and Training Place Eligibility Changes

Hi everyone, As mentioned in my recruitment post, in the past couple of months I’ve been looking at what quick changes can be made in order to improve ATC Training. My main focus is maximising the use of mentors time - feedback from mentors suggests that they spend a lot of time teaching theory that is already available through other resources (Moodle, Syllabus, vMATS etc.). Explaining the practical application of theoretical concepts is an important part of the role of a mentor and we want
Adam Farquharson

Adam Farquharson in ATC Training

1
ATC Training

Military PAR Course - Released

We are pleased to announce the release of our Military Precision Approach Radar (PAR) Online Moodle Course. This course is for those members that want to take their Military Approach controlling up a notch, offering pilots the opportunity to be talked all the way down the final approach (similar to a SRA), with vectors and glideslope information. A massive thank you to Trevor Hannant and Callum Presley for creating this course for us. The course is open for all members to view and self-enro
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

4
ATC Training

S3 Moodle Course Release

Hi all, Following the launch of the S2 Moodle eLearning course in December, we’re very excited to announce the launch of our S3 Moodle eLearning course! The course guides students through 14 sections, starting with some fundamental Approach Control concepts (e.g. a high-level overview of the principles of separation) and moving on to Altimetry and Meteorology, Navigation, Approach Control Principles, Equipment and Systems, Identification, Validation, and Verification, Appreciation of A
Daniel Crookes

Daniel Crookes in ATC Training

0
ATC Training

GCAP Update 3: Effect of Change

Good morning all, Yesterday, we processed the first roster update since GCAP went live on the 1st March. On the 1st March, we retained on the roster anyone who had controlled at all within the preceding 12 months, from the 1st March 2023 to the 1st March 2024. Thereafter, currency requirements dictate that to remain on the roster, a controller must control three hours within every fixed quarter; three hours between the 1st Jan and the 1st April, three hours between the 1st April and the 1st
Adam Arkley

Adam Arkley in ATC Training

3
ATC Training

S2 and S3 Theory Questions: Revisited

Many of you who have taken your S2 and S3 theory exams recently may have noticed that quite a few of the questions weren't exactly relevant and some were, well, too easy. It turns out that some of our theory questions are very old, with some of the S3 questions dating back to the pre-GRP days when S2 didn't exist and S3 was in-part a TWR rating. You will all be glad to know (or maybe not, if you were hoping for an easy pass!) that we have removed a lot of questions and added new ones to ref
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

4
ATC Training

TG Tower Staff Changes

Hi all, Firstly I’d like to thank everyone for the kind messages following the announcement of my appointment as ATC Training Director. Having moved roles this left a space in the TWR team which a couple of people quickly expressed their interest in. Following a few discussions we have decided to appoint @Kye Taylor to the role.  Kye joined the Training Department 15 months ago as a New Controller TG Instructor. Having been involved in many projects including the development of th
Adam Farquharson

Adam Farquharson in ATC Training

4
ATC Training

S1 Syllabus and Lesson Plans Release!

Hi all, Marking the end of a year-long project for the New Controller TG, including six months of trials with groups of students and mentors, we’re pleased to announce the introduction of a series of structured lesson plans for S1 students. The practical component (part two) of the S1 training programme will now consist of a series of four sessions, which students will move through sequentially to apply the knowledge obtained from the programme’s theoretical component (part one) to sce
Daniel Crookes

Daniel Crookes in ATC Training

0
ATC Training

E duobus unum: Merging Waiting Lists

Hi all, At the beginning of 2017, in the delightfully entitled post ‘Exitus Acta Probat’ (Latin for ‘the end justifies the means’, from the poetry of Ovid, if you’re interested), Sam announced the merger of the old RTSs into the Training Groups (TGs). One of the main reasons for doing so was to reduce the discrepancies in waiting times between the RTSs. In the same spirit, and following discussions with students, mentors, and staff, we have now merged the S2 and S3 waiting lists for TG
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

2
ATC Training

S1 Examinations

Hi all, In order to improve and standardise the quality of our S1 training, and in response to feedback which we have received from mentors, students, and controllers, we will shortly be introducing S1 practical examinations, in line with the process followed at S2, S3, and C1. This will not change the process of training, whereby members initially attend in introductory group session, complete eLearning courses, and receive one-to-one practical training. However, instead of being reco
Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes in ATC Training

3
ATC Training

S1 AFISO/AG Validation: Additional Airfields

Now that things have had time to settle, we're adding some additional aerodromes to the list of those that S1 rated members holding the AFISO/AG validation may control. They are as follows: Barra (EGPR) Bodmin (EGLA) - airfield information sufficient to VATSIM needs is available on the airfields website - Bodmin does not feature in the AIP. Wolverhampton / Halfpenny Green (EGBO) We decided not to add Barrow/Walney Island (EGNL) at this time, due to instrument approach an
Andy Ford

Andy Ford in ATC Training

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