ATC Training

On a more serious note: I look forward to peoples input

Edited February 18, 2018 by James Horgan

I realise that there is currently a lot of work going into the Moodle courses but I think that they should become a priority as it will give people something to do while waiting on their training. The seminars are a great idea and I learned a lot from the seminars I attended but having a Moodle course to work through in your own time would be the next step up. I might just be being selfish here I also think that the experienced s1 members that are willing to do mentoring(like me) could be given a reduction in waiting times for s2 training so they can get experience controlling tower and be able to mentor other s1 members which would overall lead to more mentors meaning more training, more people passing exams and shorter waiting times. I realise this would be controversial and could lead to people putting themselves forward for mentoring to skip the queues and then when asked to mentor they say they are no longer interested or wouldn't accept any sessions but if managed properly it could be very beneficial for waiting times.

I like everything that is going on at the moment. Obviously, I haven't been in the UK for long but so far it's good. Keep it up! ?

Edited February 18, 2018 by Fergus Walsh

ATC training times.

I know that there will be and always will be different training times, as different people mentor different positions in different TG's.

But I don't think the difference in training times should be in excess of what I experienced. 

For myself, I progressed to my S2 rating in 229 days, about seven and a half months. Another person training at the same time as me achieved their S2 in 35 days. In this case, this particular person started their training in the last couple of months of my training, and still managed to achieve an exam pass before me.

I'm sure there are many factors to play in this, but it's generally unacceptable for something like this happen, I can't say if this was a once off, or it happens with others in the division.

Thanks Andy for providing the platform, and I look forward to see what can/will be done to help address this issue.

 

Edited February 19, 2018 by Daniel Murphy

I agree with @Fergus Walsh, I feel everything so far is pretty good. But of course, I am only a new-ish S1.

In real world, I work in construction training and hold a teaching qualification and my day to day job is advising and correcting tutors to ensure that each course they deliver is against the course criteria and accrediting body standards. It is also my job to ensure that the tutors are actually delivering a course to ensure that the learners are receiving the information correctly.

i mention this to merely establish my credentials and hope that I can offer some constructive help in assisting making the training better for all. I am also happy to assist if required to check over any training practicises etc.

so some bullet points to consider if not already:

course content:

is the course a standardised course that is available to all, including the candidates for the course. Start of any training course always should set out the clear objectives of what the course should want to achieve, then do that, then reaffirm the information eg

”this is what I am going to tell you”

”look what I am telling you”

”tell me what I have told you so I know you understand”

 

Secondly, is the course actually fit for purpose? Does the content actually cover everything that the trainee needs to competently complete the course? In my own personal experience, albeit lowly, I haven’t controlled for quite a while as I feel that I don’t really understand euroscope. What support is offered? Should more emphasis be put on the tools that is essential to the operation of controlling along with actual controlling. 

Finally under content, what about handouts? A sheet with the main points along an idiot sheet? Anything that candidates can refer too after any course works wonders for them. 

Teaching Styles

Each tutor/mento will naturally have their own style. Furthermore, they are often doing this over TS which is very difficult to monitor progress. However, what provisions are given by tutors to accommodate different learning styles? Are they given advice on how to ensure candidate a (who learns by doing) gets the same level of training as candidate b (who learns by watching)?

Also, what constitutes being a mentor? Not a pop at the mentors here - for their hard work is more than appreciated - but how are they selected? Is it just a question of applying and having some experience? Sadly not everyone is cut out to impart knowledge - my dad bless him, is clever as &@£ but he can’t impart that to a student as he gets frustrated that the student can’t understand in what he considers to be easy as it’s easy for him.

Standardisation

how do you ensure that each course is delivered to the same standard? Are mentors monitored? Are candidates given advanced notice of what is expected? 

In theory each course should be delivered identically. In practice this doesn’t happen. But they should be close enough to be recognisable. 

After Course

Are candidates encouraged to provide feedback at the end of the course? If so, is this monitored and analysed? 

Also, what is in process to monitor candidates after completion of a course? Are they monitored, checked upon and encouraged to progress? 

I know a lot of this is a possibly a pipe dream, and I could go on all day with real world examples of how a training course runs in the business world - and I appreciate that this a volunteer based organisation and I for one think the best is currently being done.

as I said at the top, I am happy to give my time to help if anyone feels that it would be useful.

cheers

 

 

18 hours ago, Daniel Murphy said:

ATC training times.

I know that there will be and always will be different training times, as different people mentor different positions in different TG's.

But I don't think the difference in training times should be in excess of what I experienced. 

For myself, I progressed to my S2 rating in 229 days, about seven and a half months. Another person training at the same time as me achieved their S2 in 35 days. In this case, this particular person started their training in the last couple of months of my training, and still managed to achieve an exam pass before me.

I'm sure there are many factors to play in this, but it's generally unacceptable for something like this happen, I can't say if this was a once off, or it happens with others in the division.

Thanks Andy for providing the platform, and I look forward to see what can/will be done to help address this issue.

 

+1 to that, I don't have the exact stats for myself, however, the general idea is there. there are numerous factors to play (Airports, mentors, time available) but what may/may not happen in some cases, could well be considered "selective mentoring?" I know the old example is "Bob" completes S1, gets KK_GND, mentors KK_GND, gets tower quickly because of availability etc. but surely this is a problem we need to address? perhaps looking deeper into the difference between waiting times may bring up some information we have not yet discovered?

 

+1 also to Chris, I can definitely see where those ideas are coming from, especially standardization and mentoring session structure.

 

again, just my own opinion.

There is a lot of time and effort put in to getting people trained at S1/S2 level because the powers that be don’t want a backlog of people waiting to control. What about those who are waiting for S3/C1? All you’ve done is move the blockage somewhere else. 

 

To the person who complained they took 7.5 months to get S2 (@Daniel Murphy I think it was) some of us have been waiting that long to even get offered a place on training to C1. That on top of waiting years (and it was months between sessions) to get near an s3 exam leaves some of us disillusioned by the “platitudes” offered of improvements to training. 

 

The fabled Moodle for ratin other than S1/S2 has been talked about for years. And it’s just that, talk. Instead we’ve had rehash after rehash of the existing material instead of that energy being put into moodle! Years ago I helped with the S2 modules and i stopped when the expectation became that I wasn’t producing skills material but instead materials to “teach for the test”. I see this frequently on Heathrow where with a low level of traffic, controllers default options are leave X heading Y speed Z because that’s what they were taught. 

 

With th the greatest respect to those who give up their time to mentor, I’m going to rehash an old argument here again. What training is provided to mentors? What is done to ensure they are effective trainers and aren’t teaching bad habits?

@Neil Stewart I may not have been clear in my post, I was not saying my training time was unreasonable, I was saying that my training time compared to other people is unreasonable.  If the resources are there to get people through in very quick succession, then why is it only being used for certain people.

I think some should consider themselves slightly lucky that they only have their S2 training last 7 and a half months I can tell you that my own personal training took much longer than that. Not to make me sound like someone who would often coin the phrase "back in my day" but there simply wasn't the number of mentors around like we have now. Mentors were restricted to one airfield (myself included), or region (again, myself included) but now - and I say this as a once heavy Central Training sceptic -  I think the framework is much better than circa 2 years ago. The fact that we have a strict instructor policy on how many sessions they are contractually obliged to conduct per week is again something we didn't have,  shows that things are being taken seriously.

I'm not saying its perfect but the fact that somebody can achieve their S2 in 35 days is an achievement. That would have been laughed out of the park in years gone by. Often the theory material was taught exclusively by mentors and certain documents didn't exist and e-Learning mediums were not present. I think the concept of e-Learning is one of merit and once the work has been put in, I think it will work out. Having previously been involved in document creation in the past, it was frustrating how little time the general membership was prepared to put in, despite their cries of "Where are these documents?!?!" when they were now in a position to write and contribute to these documents. 

Training in VATSIM is not a given right, you aren't necessarily entitled to it and it should be treated with respect.

42 minutes ago, Callum Axon said:

 I think the concept of e-Learning is one of merit and once the work has been put in, I think it will work out. Having previously been involved in document creation in the past, it was frustrating how little time the general membership was prepared to put in, despite their cries of "Where are these documents?!?!" when they were now in a position to write and contribute to these documents. 

Training in VATSIM is not a given right, you aren't necessarily entitled to it and it should be treated with respect.

The problem with material creation by committee is that one of two things happens. You either get the whole thing done very quickly as it’s managed properly, or more likely you get lots of people who mean well producing material of dubious quality which then gets people arguing about it and it ends up not being produced. 

You’re right that training isn’t a “right” but it is a requirement as stipulated by GRP for the provision of an ATS.  With that in mind, how do we move forward with the removal of obsticles in controllers moving from OBS through to S3? 

Firstly, not everyone learns by reading 20-30 pages documents which dictate all procedures for an airport that are well beyond the requirements of GRP.  We should actively encourage the creation of the e-learning material for each rating with 1 person from the training team (such as the CTSI/CTSM) being responsible for the material and they can gather assistance from the membership as required. 

Secondly, I constantly hear the excuse their availability was better than yours so they got the training over you. This excuse causes a lot of resentment to people who are passionate about the hobby but also have an off-line life. Surely a better way is by having the material for a member to go through and then the practical session being a consolidation. Mentors tend to have an unconscious bias against people with low availability but some of those people are the ones who would progress quickest because they put the effort in. 

Thirdly, drop the notion of a pre-exam. So you put a person through training and heavy sweatboxes, tell them they’re good enough to sit the exam but before they can sit it, they need to prove they can pass the exam by sitting a mock exam???!!! Surely they have proved it by virtue of being told they are good enough for the exam. 

54 minutes ago, Neil Stewart said:

Firstly, not everyone learns by reading 20-30 pages documents which dictate all procedures for an airport that are well beyond the requirements of GRP.  We should actively encourage the creation of the e-learning material for each rating with 1 person from the training team (such as the CTSI/CTSM) being responsible for the material and they can gather assistance from the membership as required. 

I'm sure someone up high will correct me if I'm wrong but this is exactly what is occurring. E-Learning courses not only provide the content to refer to but also test that knowledge through a series of quizzes.  I found the Heathrow Director moodle course to be very beneficial to my progression towards my validation. Using resources like this, I personally think the waiting period between different ratings can be turned into a productive study period.

57 minutes ago, Neil Stewart said:

Thirdly, drop the notion of a pre-exam. So you put a person through training and heavy sweatboxes, tell them they’re good enough to sit the exam but before they can sit it, they need to prove they can pass the exam by sitting a mock exam???!!! Surely they have proved it by virtue of being told they are good enough for the exam. 

I do agree with this to an extent. The only thing which can't be simulated by SweatBox is the unpredictability of live pilots and if somebodies training was dominated by SweatBox sessions for whatever reason, I think it leaves the student at a disadvantage going into their exam. This is where I agree that a pre-exam provides a typically higher workload with live pilots just like what would occur under the pressure of an exam situation. I feel its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other when it comes to pre-exams and the benefits (if they exist) can only be measured through qualitative methods.

2 hours ago, Callum Axon said:

I'm sure someone up high will correct me if I'm wrong but this is exactly what is occurring. E-Learning courses not only provide the content to refer to but also test that knowledge through a series of quizzes.  I found the Heathrow Director moodle course to be very beneficial to my progression towards my validation. Using resources like this, I personally think the waiting period between different ratings can be turned into a productive study period.

E-learning is great, but just out of interest, why can't I enrol myself on to any of the Moodle courses on offer?

Moodle - https://moodle.vatsim.uk/

Surely these resources should be available to everyone, especially from a controller currency perspective.

I look forward to hearing from a range of ATC staff about this, in this thread.

54 minutes ago, Alex Hartshorne said:

E-learning is great, but just out of interest, why can't I enrol myself on to any of the Moodle courses on offer?

Moodle - https://moodle.vatsim.uk/

Surely these resources should be available to everyone, especially from a controller currency perspective.

And also better links to this training material. I only found the moodle site tonight because I guessed the address. First person to find a link that isn’t on the forums gets an all expenses paid holiday to Scarbados ?

As mentioned above I also believe that any S1 who wishes to be a mentor and can fill a gap in training, an example being during the working week which I have struggled with should be given some priority. Over the past 4 months I've only been able to do Thursday day times due to family and work, this is due to change again but this is soon to change in April.

I'd be more than happy to be a mentor .

Thank you all for your comments so far - they’ve already promoted discussions within the department. Once the consultation ends, we’ll summarise everything into a document, addressing points individually and creating action points for things that need to be done that we can monitor throughout the year :)

Edited February 21, 2018 by Andy Ford

Without wanting to kick off something huge here, but as many people have said, training times seem excessive, and that's why CTS was brought in, but I was under the impression (initially) that CTS was a Centralised training system, yet all that has happened is the grouping of the RTS's into the 2 TG's we have now. Just a thought, but surely, as has been mentioned many times before, instead of still having TG's, have one for NC, one for LL, one for AC/TC and one for GMP-APP and share the mentors between airports where "tower" will be taught not "Manchester tower" so that controllers have the basics to begin with, then they can move onto local procedures for a pre exam and exam? I thought this was the general idea behind CTS? (Teaching generic tower skills not specifics)

 

just a thought

 

Seb

11 hours ago, Lee Evans said:

As mentioned above I also believe that any S1 who wishes to be a mentor and can fill a gap in training, an example being during the working week which I have struggled with should be given some priority. Over the past 4 months I've only been able to do Thursday day times due to family and work, this is due to change again but this is soon to change in April.

I'd be more than happy to be a mentor .

If you haven't yet send a ticket to atc training

Like a few others, I also believe S1s who wish to become mentors should possibly be given accelerated training/time in the waiting list, As I know I want to become a mentor but looking at my place on the S2 waiting list it may take a while to get a place on S2 training nevermind actually achieving it. 

2 hours ago, Thomas Hallam said:

Like a few others, I also believe S1s who wish to become mentors should possibly be given accelerated training/time in the waiting list, As I know I want to become a mentor but looking at my place on the S2 waiting list it may take a while to get a place on S2 training nevermind actually achieving it. 

Really? Do you think this would alleviate the problem? Just playing devil's advocate here, but would this not then swamp the helpdesk with requests to be "accelerated?" How also, would this be regulated? I have always expressed the wish to mentor, yet I am only just coming to the end of my Tower training. I know that some people complete it in days, and were waiting mere weeks for a place, but surely to accelerate one controller because he wishes to mentor and one does not is ever so slightly biased? Yes, we have a shortage of mentors, and the only way to alleviate this is by recruiting more, but I can't see this being the way to go. for a start, you would have to have them "repay" and possibly enforce a minimum amount of time spent mentoring before they can say, be given a place on the S3 list? 

 

My point here is that abuse would be rife.

Perhaps this could be considered at a much later stage, but for ATC training, I really don't see this working.

18 minutes ago, Sebastian Wheeler said:

Really? Do you think this would alleviate the problem? Just playing devil's advocate here, but would this not then swamp the helpdesk with requests to be "accelerated?" How also, would this be regulated? I have always expressed the wish to mentor, yet I am only just coming to the end of my Tower training. I know that some people complete it in days, and were waiting mere weeks for a place, but surely to accelerate one controller because he wishes to mentor and one does not is ever so slightly biased? Yes, we have a shortage of mentors, and the only way to alleviate this is by recruiting more, but I can't see this being the way to go. for a start, you would have to have them "repay" and possibly enforce a minimum amount of time spent mentoring before they can say, be given a place on the S3 list? 

 

My point here is that abuse would be rife.

Perhaps this could be considered at a much later stage, but for ATC training, I really don't see this working.

I do agree, there would be no way to keep people from saying they want to mentor for quicker training but then refusing to do it when they get their S2.

In my opinion, everyone's taking things a little too seriously on the whole, which has negative re-percussions.

At the end of the day, we want good controllers on the top positions because that's how we judge (or at least, that's how I judge a division/ARTCC/vACC's training):

- Scrap vMATS: With all due respect, a GND, TWR nor APP controller cares about the coordinates of VRPs, noise preferential routes or the identifiers and frequencies of the ILS's. Each airport: 4 sections - DEL: specific routing restrictions, SID restrictions, GND: pushback restrictions, handoffs to TWR, TWR: circuit direction and height and airborne frequencies, APP: RMA and standard agreements. These documents take 10-20mins to make, can be 4-5 pages (for a small to medium airport) and can be fully applicable to a standard controlling session.

- Let the students tick milestones before going to 1-2-1 mentoring. People take 10-20 sessions for ratings, 20x1.5hours = 30hours = 1.25 days of mentoring. Personally, TWR can be done in less than 5 sessions - make sure S1's are proficient in GND (milestones set for this could be significant hours required over a specific time, with a certain amount on high workload aerodrome etc etc.). Sessions could be: 1. Intro to TWR: cleared for takeoff, cleared to land, line up, go around, handoffs. 2. intro to VFR: circuits, leaving entering the zone, traffic info 3-4-5: to integrate and mix together etc on sweatbox and done! Sequencing and dep-sepping can be a GND self-taught thing: taxiing aircraft in a way so that they're separated: screenshot a time you've done this as a pre-req to S2? Saves mentoring time

- Having passed their S2, then if they want to learn about RSIVA and fancy stuff, then apply for the Heathrow validation (could rename to 'advanced TWR') subject to certain amount of TWR hours. Keep training at a basic level relevant and basic. Introduce the fancy stuff after people have passed their S3. What's the point of doing high workload sweatboxes with someone who can barely vector? Keep it simple and they can get more confident once they pass. 

32 minutes ago, James Yuen said:

- Scrap vMATS: With all due respect, a GND, TWR nor APP controller cares about the coordinates of VRPs, noise preferential routes or the identifiers and frequencies of the ILS's. Each airport: 4 sections - DEL: specific routing restrictions, SID restrictions, GND: pushback restrictions, handoffs to TWR, TWR: circuit direction and height and airborne frequencies, APP: RMA and standard agreements. These documents take 10-20mins to make, can be 4-5 pages (for a small to medium airport) and can be fully applicable to a standard controlling session.

I +1 this. Even though there's a contents page, it's very difficult sometimes to see where things are as they are worded differently (words that my brain hasn't registered yet). 

34 minutes ago, James Yuen said:

In my opinion, everyone's taking things a little too seriously on the whole, which has negative re-percussions.

At the end of the day, we want good controllers on the top positions because that's how we judge (or at least, that's how I judge a division/ARTCC/vACC's training):

- Scrap vMATS: With all due respect, a GND, TWR nor APP controller cares about the coordinates of VRPs, noise preferential routes or the identifiers and frequencies of the ILS's. Each airport: 4 sections - DEL: specific routing restrictions, SID restrictions, GND: pushback restrictions, handoffs to TWR, TWR: circuit direction and height and airborne frequencies, APP: RMA and standard agreements. These documents take 10-20mins to make, can be 4-5 pages (for a small to medium airport) and can be fully applicable to a standard controlling session.

- Let the students tick milestones before going to 1-2-1 mentoring. People take 10-20 sessions for ratings, 20x1.5hours = 30hours = 1.25 days of mentoring. Personally, TWR can be done in less than 5 sessions - make sure S1's are proficient in GND (milestones set for this could be significant hours required over a specific time, with a certain amount on high workload aerodrome etc etc.). Sessions could be: 1. Intro to TWR: cleared for takeoff, cleared to land, line up, go around, handoffs. 2. intro to VFR: circuits, leaving entering the zone, traffic info 3-4-5: to integrate and mix together etc on sweatbox and done! Sequencing and dep-sepping can be a GND self-taught thing: taxiing aircraft in a way so that they're separated: screenshot a time you've done this as a pre-req to S2? Saves mentoring time

- Having passed their S2, then if they want to learn about RSIVA and fancy stuff, then apply for the Heathrow validation (could rename to 'advanced TWR') subject to certain amount of TWR hours. Keep training at a basic level relevant and basic. Introduce the fancy stuff after people have passed their S3. What's the point of doing high workload sweatboxes with someone who can barely vector? Keep it simple and they can get more confident once they pass. 

While I agree it could be done in 5 sessions, due to an individual students needs/learning style, and surely the point of exams is to test, to a certain extent, a students "High workload capacity?" if not, how would we regulate exam traffic? Also, in relation to the basics, (admittedly this is something I go on about too, but again, just trying to play the devil's advocate) surely there is a need to know where VRP's are, and the little niggles/peculiarities of each airport? while the standards might be slightly excessive at present, is this not what VATSIM is about? yes, its an online environment, yes, some may call it a game, but surely we still want some realism????

Seb, the whole point is they shouldn't really need to deal with that high workload capacity on a day-to-day basis. What's the point of testing student's ability to control at high workload just to show that they're competent? I've Ctrl+F/CMD+F the GRP and it doesn't mention workload anywhere. Therefore: let students loose on positions when they're competent - some of the VATUK exams I've seen are a joke - instead of having designated 'exams' - why not let a group of instructors sign off on sessions, and if they have 3 'sign-offs' then rating is sorted? Prevents the countless go-arounds or rejected takeoffs in exams - at the end of the day: a Thursday evening on VATSIM won't have 6 go arounds and 3 RTOs- even at Heathrow!!

The ops department put a lot of effort putting the VRPs in the sector file so I don't have to fumble around AIPs to find the coordinates of VRPs - so no - if someone wants to find out the 'niggles' about an airport then they can put their own effort into digging into an AIP than making a staff member who could probably be doing something 50x more useful and fun than that. 

What I was saying is at a basic level - restrictions should be lifted! Keep and enhance the advanced area of training as that's what VATUK like, but split it up! Some people (*cough* @Jonas Hey *cough* ) won't touch an airport like EGLL so don't bother teaching them RSIVA at a detailed level - you don't need to be able to launch 30+ aircraft in a sweatbox at one go to get an S2 - once you are an S2 - then that's a good skill to develop!