ATC Training

Perhaps you should decide what the priority for VATUK's training program is. Is it improving controller quality, or is it reducing waiting times? I see a mixed strategy and regrettably both have inherent pulls in opposite directions.

Putting hours requirements in for a succession of airports before continuing training/getting an examination is a false efficiency. Firstly it is a delaying facing the inevitable responsibility to train them, secondly it does nothing other than to irritate trainees (who leave and take all the time investment to date with them), thirdly I see it as a cynical attempt to make people hoop jump for no logical reason other than to satisfy some unrealistic, misguided fantasy of getting perfect exam candidates.

People are stuck with S ratings for way, way too long in this division. I do not see this anywhere else. I have looked up a few people I know of who are excellent controllers from other divisions and on average I am seeing approximately one year to C1.

Divisions have different numbers of active numbers, yes, but big divisions have more mentors than smaller divisions with less members. It is a matter of ratio.

Moreover, it is a matter of expectation. 

The ATC standards of VATUK are no better and no worse than any service I have received anywhere. To put this into perspective, I have approximately 6,700 flying hours on VATSIM.

Can I be so bold to suggest that the syllabus and the expected standard of an exam pass student is way too high?

Can I ask anybody with the ability to do so, to seriously undertake to review the syllabus and exam standard in detail?

Perhaps it sounds daft, but I honestly believe that if you loosen this considerably (I'd consider a current 'good' student to be ready for the rating, frankly) you will start to see a vast improvement in waiting times without any significant deterioration in quality. After all, people should only be gaining experience once they have their ratings.

In my RW instructor role, if I didn't provide people with their certification until they were skilful powerboat skippers, I wouldn't pass anybody. All I am looking for is safety and students operating within their capability. Being able to stop passengers throwing up in a Force 6 or being able to nail it onto a trailer in a crosswind and a running tide is beyond the expected skill of somebody new. Let's use the same philosophy here.

It's a game. You aren't the NATS or the CAA.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Callum McLoughlin

A few points of clarity:

The original CT vision envisaged the ability to train at a number of airfields, allocated to your training group, with a view to achieving two things. Firstly, it would allow mentoring session to go ahead more broadly, i.e. "we cant' do Manchester tonight as it's booked, let's try Glasgow instead, get the materials and I'll see you later". Secondly, as alluded to, it would enforce the concept of controlling approach positions, rather than simply learning Essex Radar. The strong and specific emphasis here is the concept of could train on multiple airports, not must train extensively on multiple airports.

Mr Lawrence is correct; my original vision was that the examiner would select the airfield. This was in order to introduce a challenge for the student, but still be able to demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of the position without blindly saying "aircraft leave point X on heading Y because that's what I was taught."

If I might be so bold as to ask, please stop equating what's happening today to my original vision for CT. Those path deviated long ago.

On 31/01/2018 at 20:04, Callum McLoughlin said:

 

My view, as it always has been, is that if you simplify training processes the time saved can be re-invested in other areas. Moving people from airfield to airfield is not a simplification, it is a complication. The students need to re-learn airfield specific information, mentors have a transient pool of students and have less ownership to see them through to the exam, students have less of a chance at having a consistent mentor (a consistent mentor is critical to efficiently and effectively developing somebody's learning) and members usually sign up to control their local airfield, so passing them from pillar to post will probably cause more drop-outs, wasting further time.

Will this fix the training issue? No it won't. There is a lot more to this problem than piddling around with making sure people get the skills they need to control at an airfield. I coped without moving training fields and so has the majority of VATSIM.

The UK is undoubtably a popular division. This makes the argument for streamlining training processes in every way possible stronger, not weaker.

 

I have said this in a previous post , so i will say it again  give each mentor a student, an airfield they are competent on and let them get on with it...

I used to do this.... training as a job albeit it was in medicine but i was given a student we worked together we got the job done (training and exams)  in a shorter time than if they were pushed around to other mentors.

As a mentor you get to know that student , their ways of working , learning speeds, how they learn, everyone learns differently and at their own pace..

Ok there will be times that they can not meet online but thats up to the mentor and student to work out a training plan between them and try to stick to it, with contingencies as a work around. 

Tried and trusted old school see one do one teach one ....

As I think I said last time Steve -- whilst I agree in theory, in practice from personal experience I would say that it doesn't really work in our environment.

It's fine in a professional setting where both trainer and trainee are obligated to turn up at specified times etc. However, in a voluntary system my experience is that it's very inefficient and leads to a large amount of admin overhead on all sides:

• Someone has to assign the trainee to an instructor
• The instructor has to make contact initiating a flurry of e-mails along the lines of "I'm free here, here and here. How about you?" To which the response comes back "Oh, I can't do then, then and then, but I might able to do this day..." etc.
• Hopefully after several messages a time and date is agreed on. Or it isn't, in which case either the student shrugs their shoulders and disappears in to the ether, or the whole thing gets pinged back to the person who did the assignment in the first place who then has to reassign the student to someone else, and assign a new student to the other instructor, and the whole process starts again
• If a time and date is agreed on for the first session and it goes ahead as planned, repeat the pinging back and forth of e-mails again for each subsequent appointment
• Instructor A goes on holiday for a fortnight. Student B is now left hanging, whilst Instructor C whose student was unavailable that week is not doing any training and therefore no sessions at all take place that week. To make matters worse, Student B is then away the following week and thus he goes three or four weeks without a session as does Instructor A. When eventually after another round of e-mails they get back together again, they end up going back over what they did before because said student has forgotten what he did in the previous session and now it's five or more weeks without actually moving forward.

Broadly, our instructors found that they were spending an inordinate amount of time chasing students, sending e-mails and trying to pin down times -- and because you can only realistically assign one or two students to an instructor at a time (in case they all turn out to be very keen and each have a session a week), the upshot was that we ended up with a big waiting list and relatively stilted progress. 

We have recently introduced a system whereby our instructors enter their availability and students are able to book slots at their convenience with an instructor of their choice. This allows the student to drive their progress through the course (they can either wait for their preferred instructor to become available, or if they want to crack on they can book with a different instructor), allows instructors to control their commitments and allows different students to progress through the course at different rates based on their enthusiasm and availability without leaving instructors hanging.

So far the results have been very positive and certainly the number of sessions taking place has risen dramatically. Yes, there is a need to ensure that instructors communicate effectively, train to a consistent standard and read the previous trainer's report to identify whether a particular detail needs to be re-flown or whether it is possible to move on to the next detail, but overall we are finding that most students tend to book with the same one or two instructors (students like consistency too!) and in general it feels as though we're getting a lot more done. We've also been able to take on a few extra students, so so far so good...

What I am interested to know is whether there is actually a set training programme for ATC students? I know there is a broad syllabus of things that need to be achieved, but on the flying side we have a standard course: for the P2/P3, that happens to be seventeen flying details (plus a couple of navigation exercises, some of which can be completed solo), each with a specific purpose and proficiency criteria (perhaps two or three bullet points for each detail) and each building on the previous sessions. If the student has achieved the proficiency criteria for the previous session, they move on to the next session; if not then there will be some level of revision ranging from a quick refresh at the start of the next session before moving on up to a full re-fly, depending on the instructor's judgement built from the performance (and his knowledge of) the student and the comments of the previous trainer. In any event there is a known baseline in terms of what the student has already done and what they are about to do, a standard way of conducting each detail, and a clear line of progress. Once all details have been completed satisfactorily, it would be highly unusual for the student not to be put forward for their final skills test, and even more unusual for them to subsequently fail it.

In any event the result is that the course is very much of finite length, the proficiency criteria are very clear and it is well-established that whilst we have high standards, we are training to competence and not perfection and what we are primarily looking for is progress. If a student is not progressing that would become very clear very quickly and it would be a relatively straightforward matter to determine whether that is down to the student failing to put the work/time in or an instructor demanding unrealistically high standards.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Simon Kelsey

At the moment i think we are setting the standards too high, as said in previous posts, maybe the TD can look at this as an idea....

We teach to pass a practical exam at present, one airfield high standard of instruction tick all the boxes pre exam then final practical exam and let loose on the live server with no further mentoring or instruction.

Have they got better or have the high standards dropped we really don't know as we at present done monitor the high standards we have set. 

So, instruct to a lower standard to pass the exam, then mentor on a regular basis to check the progress. 

Most practical exams in any field of working, driving for example learners are instructed to pass the exam then they have to go away and learn to drive, same in medical field we learn to pass the practical elements then go away and practice to get better at that particular skill, see one, do one, teach one. It a way of demonstrating if learning has taken place. 

Monitoring does not have to be weekly once a month or even every 50 hours of live server activity.

Its an idea that works in principle and in practice.  

Edited February 4, 2018 by Steve Riley

2 hours ago, Steve Riley said:

So, instruct to a lower standard to pass the exam, then mentor on a regular basis to check the progress. 

Wouldn't that create even more admin as you've got to mentor students once again? We're controlling a virtual network; not NATS!

4 hours ago, Alex Ashley said:

Wouldn't that create even more admin as you've got to mentor students once again? We're controlling a virtual network; not NATS!

yes we are a virtual network and yes it properly would create more admin ..and we are not NATS.

we set  standards or we stop training because we cant cope and say ok chaps get on with it control where you want to like the other networks, controlling standards drop, pilots moan network goes to pot and all leave...

training staff are there albeit volunteers, 

Need to make minds up and do something .. I'm making suggestions it either works or it don't .. 

Mentor to a standard which is acceptable, not exceptional and pass more people. No need to do any follow up tests or mentoring.

@Simon Kelsey is right. I think lesson plans would help and having an actual order to the teaching process.

14 hours ago, Oliver Parker said:

Mentor to a standard which is acceptable, not exceptional and pass more people. No need to do any follow up tests or mentoring.

@Simon Kelsey is right. I think lesson plans would help and having an actual order to the teaching process.

Not said extra tests , acceptable standard absolutely..

 one follow up after a set time a set number of hours for all new controllers, nothing formal just to see if all is ok and answer any questions ,pass on new procedures that may have been missed from the forum, listen to the moans ETC.

Lesson plans , ok for pilots no real variables apart from live ATC if on but of course you can go where there is ATC.

For controllers lots of variables so particular lesson plans can not be filled....

EG, Poor and rogue  pilots , no traffic, having VFR traffic that know what they are doing and saying... getting the right traffic for the particular lesson you want to do.. How many time have we sat there with a learner waiting for the right traffic to appear.

Getting too much traffic can really mess up the learner and the lesson then has gone out of the window...

SB trainer is ok to get certain lessons in Emergencies, separation, first few lessons to get the learner used to the client talking on radio, airport procedures.

Back up lessons need to be available in case of problems .... 

Go for it , if it works ...great , lots of work to do for someone.

been in  training  for over 30 years so know whats involved in writing a new course and running training departments.