Hello all,

As ever, things have been changing within the ATC Training landscape and it's important to me that people remain informed of what's happening. All of us on the DSG are 'servant leaders', in that we volunteer our time to lead within VATSIM UK for the enjoyment of others and this is one of the driving factors behind my intention to be as open and transparent as possible - we have nothing to hide here!

It's worth noting that much of the content of this blog entry follows on from the original demand blog post. Just over a year on and with some changes introduced, we're in a position to start to draw some new inferences from our data, try to measure the impact of various things and clearly identify where the challenges are.

Total Joiners
In the last 90 days, in excess of 21,200 members have joined VATSIM, or 6,900 in the last 30 days. This is a marked reduction from the 8,500 that we saw in February of last year, but as before, we must be careful to draw too many conclusions from this data. February 6th is close enough to Christmas that we may have seen a peak in new member registrations following Christmas, but we have no way to determine whether this is the case.

Many of our tech team are currently on their holidays and they deserve some rest - so we can't quite get all of the statistics that we used last time. However, using the revisions to the OBS > S1 waiting list that Tech provided us with recently, we can see that since the 5th April, 186 people have joined the OBS > S1 waiting list. Perform some really bad extrapolation and we can conclude that about 92 people a month - 276 in three months - joined our S1 waiting list. Roughly 1.3% of all VATSIM sign-ups, globally, end up on our waiting list - huge numbers.

Training Demand
Of course, of particular focus for me is the demand on our ATC Training process. Thanks to our colleagues in Tech, we now have access to detailed information on when people joined the ATC Training Waiting Lists at all ratings, giving us the ability to report directly on those lists.

In the past 14 days, a total of 51 people have joined the OBS > S1 waiting list. We still don't yet have a clear view as to whether or not those are joining for the first time or re-joiners, but we do have the information. Those 51 people means an average of 3.6 people join the waiting list per day - although there is an interesting anomaly. 10 people joined the list on the 17th May; I've spoke with one of our Community team to identify whether or not we had any social media engagements on that date and there were none. So - there are inexplicable variations in our member recruitment rate.

However, this represents a significant increase in demand. Looking back at our 2023 stats, an average of just over two people per day joined the waiting list for training. We're up on that now almost 50% given our average of 3.6 people per day.

Importantly, this doesn't reflect people returning from absences and requesting training for recurrency under GCAP, nor does it consider transferees - but I'll touch on both of those categories later. Suffice to say, the tap is running faster than it was and we have no ability - nor inclination! - to turn it down or off. Subsequently, we must explore ways in which we can increase capacity - more on that story later.

Elsewhere, we continue to experience massive demand for ATC training, although we're chipping away at various things:

• We currently have 116 people on our S2 waiting list, down from 120 at the end of Q1 2024 but up from 101 at the end of Q1 2025. 14 students currently have training places, up from nine at the time of my previous demand blog.
• We currently have 53 people on our S3 waiting list, up from 31 at the end of Q1 2024 and up from 47 at the end of Q1 2025. Nine students currently have training places, down from 14 at the time of my previous demand blog.
• We currently have 21 people on our C1 waiting list, up from 16 at the end of Q1 2024 and up from 15 at the end of Q1 2025. Six students currently have training places, up from five at the time of my previous demand blog.

Before we consider a statement on demand, we must consider the availability of resources. 'Demand' can be something of an illusion - it may appear that demand is going up, but if the number of people requesting training is constant but the capacity to deliver is reduced, we paint a different picture.

• In TGNC, in Q1 2024 we delivered 220 mentoring sessions. In Q1 2025, we delivered 186.
• In TG TWR, in Q1 2024 we delivered 99 mentoring sessions. In Q1 2025, we delivered 102.
• In TG APP, In Q1 2024 we delivered 97 mentoring sessions. In Q1 2025, we delivered only 58.
• In TG ENR, in Q1 2024 we delivered 42 mentoring sessions. In Q1 2025, we delivered 60.

We must also consider the quality of training:

• In TGNC, in the month of April, we issued seven S1 ratings. It took these students an average of five (4.7) sessions to achieve their rating. We didn't gather statistics for this in my original demand post.
• In TG TWR, in the month of April, we issued four S2 ratings. It took these students an average of eight (8.25) sessions to achieve their rating, a significant reduction from 14 across 2023.
• In TG APP, in the months of April and March, we issued three S3 ratings. It took these students an average of 15 (14.6) sessions to achieve their rating, up from 12 in 2023.
• In TG ENR, in the months of April and March, we issued three C1 ratings. It took these students an average of 23 (23.3) sessions to achieve their rating, a significant increase from 14 across 2023. 

We must note, however, that none of the radar ratings issued in April and March of this year included fast track candidates - these tend to significantly reduce the average, often requiring only two or three sessions to achieve a rating. Subsequently, we must again take those numbers with a pinch of salt.

It is challenging to draw conclusions from this. Our mentoring capacity is down at S3 and S1 - significantly - and we're working hard to address this. But our capacity at S2 and C1 is up - and so is quality. I've not included it in the statistics, but a recent C1 candidate passed with only seven sessions which shows the variety that we see in training, whilst we also see marked improvements in TG TWR.

On the whole, I have to say that it feels like demand is increasing and that it's becoming more challenging to mentor - so let's talk about that.

Feedback Surveys
I've now been able to take some time to review the feedback submissions that people submitted in our Member Retention and Mentor Retention surveys. Many thanks to those that submitted responses already but it's not too late - the surveys are still open and I will periodically return to review feedback.

Member retention survey
Out of a total of 48 respondents, 65% (31) said that they either stopped controlling, or have never controlled for, events.

Of those 31:

• 58% (18) said that pilot quality influenced their decision, of which eight strongly agreed with the statement.
• 23% (seven) said that peer competence influenced their decision, of which three strongly agreed with the statement.
• 32% (10) said that traffic volume influenced their decision, of which five strongly agreed with the statement.
• 10% (three) said that the way in which events are organised by VATSIM UK influenced their decision, of which two strongly agreed with the statement.
• 48% (15) said that their availability influenced their decision, of which four strongly agreed with the statement.
• 35% (11) said that 'something else' influenced their decision, of which six strongly agreed with the statement.

Out of all 48 respondents:

• 52% (25) said that pilot quality caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which 12 strongly agreed with the statement.
• 25% (12) said that peer competence caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which four strongly agreed with the statement.
• 23% (11) said that the traffic volume on VATSIM caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which two strongly agreed with the statement.
• 23% (11) said that the administrative culture in VATSIM UK caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which four strongly agreed with the statement.
• 17% (eight) said that other issues within VATSIM UK caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which three strongly agreed with the statement.
• 46% (22) said that personal issues caused them to either stop controlling or reduce the frequency of their controlling, of which eight strongly agreed with the statement.

63% of respondents (30) left their CID with their submission. Of those, 28 stated that they were happy to be contacted about their feedback. The respondents were comprised of:

• 21 S1 rated controllers.
• 10 S2 rated controllers.
• Five S3 rated controllers.
• 12 C1/C3 rated controllers.

Mentor retention survey
Out of 31 total respondents:

• 55% (17) said that pilot quality stopped them from mentoring, of which four strongly agreed with the statement.
• 42% (13) said that student quality/effort stopped them from mentoring, of which two strongly agreed with the statement.
• 19% (six) said that the training process implemented by VATSIM UK stopped them from mentoring. None strongly agreed with the statement.
• 29% (nine) said that the training culture in VATSIM UK stopped them from mentoring, of which two strongly agreed with the statement.
• 45% (14) said that the culture in VATSIM UK generally stopped them from mentoring, of which two strongly agreed with the statement.
• 68% (21) said that personal reasons stopped them from mentoring, of which eight strongly agreed with the statement.

Respondents were asked whether they would apply for a staff role, either now or in the future. Of the 31 respondents, 39% (12) said that they would not. Of those who said they would not:

• 26% (eight) said that they would not because of the culture in VATSIM UK.
• 19% (six) said that they would not because they did not want to work for the department head for roles they were interested in.
• 29% (nine) said that they would not because they lacked time to commit to a role.
• 13% (four) said that they would not want the responsibility.
• 26% (eight) said that they believed that they lacked the skills or experience to contribute to the role.

61% of respondents (19) left their CID with their submission. All 19 stated that they were happy to be contacted about their feedback. The respondents were comprised of:

• One S1 rated controller.
• Seven S2 rated controllers.
• Nine S3 rated controllers.
• 14 C1/C3 rated controllers.

Summary
There are clear trends here. Events and mentoring are seriously hampered by pilot quality issues and I have already raised this with the Region last night. Our plan is to invite some of our neighbours to run their own servers in order to try to present a broad range of evidence to the Board of Governors for their consideration, in the hope that some focus can be given to the issue in the hope of identifying a resolution.

We can take some comfort from the fact that the rate at which members are joining VATSIM _appears_ to be slowing.  A recent BoG Report suggests that new member registrations have slowed - a graph on page 22 seems to show it best, including a statistic - a 33% reduction in new member registrations per day in Q4 2024. It is believed that the new P0 examination is likely a contributing factor to this.

As a DSG, we're also conscious that the culture in VATSIM UK is remarked upon often as a contributing factor for people being less willing to contribute. Thankfully, many of our respondents indicated that they would be happy to receive feedback and we'll begin to approach them directly in the coming days or weeks to understand in more detail how we might change that - culture is a very broad topic which means many things to many people and we can only change things if we understand more.

Narrative Feedback
A number of those who submitted feedback left comments for the DSG to address. Some of these comments are challenging to address, particularly publicly, for two reasons: commonly, people who leave comments do so anonymously and so we can't follow up with them, or those who have left comments allude to things without providing specifics. We're very grateful for everyone's contribution to these surveys, but our ability to meaningfully implement change is reduced if we don't understand the specifics of what people mean. There are some quick themes which we can address, however:

• Demotivating delays: A number of respondents comment that they are less interested in controlling now, purely because of the delay in training meaning that they cannot progress to attain other ratings. We're doing everything we can to try to improve the throughput of training, but it's incredibly challenging without sacrificing quality.
• Peer competence: Many respondents indicated in their feedback submissions that peer competence was of note, specifically at the aerodrome level. We encourage everyone to make use of the feedback system (https://vats.im/atcfb) and rest assured that action is taken on these - more on that below.
• Bureaucracy/Big Business: A few commentators felt that VATSIM UK was either too bureaucratic or operated too much like a corporate organisation, with a hierarchy that creates a disconnect with the wider membership. In some areas, it's not clear what commentators mean by this, but I have to challenge part of this: several commentors complain that their feedback goes unactioned and yet I can count on one hand the number of occasions in the last 16 months on which someone has approached me to discuss something. I cannot speak for other members of the DSG, but I know that they strive to be as open as I am. My DMs are never closed and I welcome conversations on what we're doing and why and I hope that the publication of statistics related to the feedback surveys we sent demonstrates that.
• Transparency: A number of commentators left feedback about transparency, either with respect to waiting times or with respect to what the DSG are doing. Minutes of our DSG meetings can be found here and we are working on providing documentation to detail VATSIM UK's expenditure to indicate where people's donations go. I had hoped that any question of transparency about waiting times would be address with my quarterly blog posts; if anyone has questions, please feel encouraged to ask.

Initiatives
As ever, we're pursuing a number of initiatives to try to improve training capacity in VATSIM UK:

Transferees
We're acutely aware that a number of people have been brazenly gaming the transfer system, transferring outside of VATSIM UK to pursue a rating, waiting their 90 days and then apply to transfer back in. There is roughly a three month wait to transfer at all ratings and so this method is a shortcut for many.

I have spoken with the Region on this matter and obtained their full support. Anyone that we suspect of gaming the system in this way will have their transfer rejected. It is materially unfair that we occupy training places with impatient people, rather than paying diligence to those who have patiently waited in our length queue for training. Only recently, one member has been told that **VATSIM UK will never provide them with ATC Training** for their apparent gaming of the system twice in less than six months and I have the full backing of the region to do this.

OBS > S1 Mentoring
I held several discussions with the Region recently about the topic of S1's being unable to run Sweatbox sessions. The region were sympathetic and explained restrictions that are in place. FSD is actually more permissive than we thought and I believe that **we now have a solution to permit S1s to mentor using Sweatbox**. Some planning is required but we're on the cusp of really being able to unlock this - watch this space...

Moodle Team
In order to ensure that we have high-quality content available for our members to support them in their controlling, including after the award of ratings, Will has created a Moodle Team of enthusiastic members who are currently combing our documentation to ensure it's up-to-date. Over time, we'll work on the provision of new courses to provide supplemental training to people on specific areas. We also recognise the need for up-to-date C1 and transferee Moodle courses

S3 Syllabus
In order to reduce the administrative burden on our S3 mentors, I'm reviewing the syllabus to try to condense a number of elements. For example, currently, discrete boxes exist on the mentoring reports for Basic Service, Traffic Service, Deconfliction Service and UKFIS - quite a lot of writing in quite a lot of boxes when we can meaningfully condense this without losing content. I've drafted this with Will already, we have an agreed new syllabus that simply needs to be documented and rolled out.

Exam Grading Criteria
Exam grading continues to be an area of some scrutiny - and rightly so. It's important that we mark consistently and fairly. We've agreed a plan of action to document what we mean in each of the grading criteria in more specific detail.

Controller Feedback
There's been rather a lot of recent conversation - including some narrative feedback within the Member Retention Survey - to the effect that feedback about VATSIM UK's controllers is ignored, or that standards are slipping. This couldn't be further from the truth. Only this week, I've had conversations with four controllers within VATSIM UK - all of whom will, of course, remain anonymous - regarding their controlling. That might stem from a quick conversation to point a mistake out, to following up on feedback or an offer of remedial training where it is warranted. We currently have a variety of controllers receiving remedial training with other offers on the table.

Equally, where trends are identified in exam results, those trends are passed to the TGI responsible and that feedback should be cascaded regularly to the mentors in order to ensure that this is addressed in the course of regular training. 

We've been discussing for really quite some time the implementation of a 'feedback team' to review and address negative feedback. This is still on the list of things to do, but comes with all manner of data protection concerns (how do we give the feedback team the ability to message controllers without giving them an e-mail address?) and tech considerations (I am likely to ask for some changes to how we manage feedback soon) before we can do it. Everyone in VATSIM UK is a volunteer and these things take some time to implement - but I am keen for nobody to be under the false impression that feedback doesn't matter. I will openly admit that we don't action each and every single submission of feedback - a quick scan suggests we receive something like 7 submissions on average per day and the overwhelming majority of these are ATC feedback submissions. We simply lack the capacity to verify the feedback, look for trends and send messages for all submissions, but where we spot patterns or trends, they absolutely are addressed.

In Closing
ATC Training remans a challenging environment for VATSIM UK to deliver, with high demands on the time of everyone involved. We are, as ever, open to suggestions on how we can improve and I urge people to be courageous and come and have conversations, whether you think we're doing something right, doing something wrong, have suggestions or criticism. I had a very productive meeting with a number of community members some weeks ago which they indicated they found helpful - we are not just saying that we are transparent, we really mean it. Please feel encouraged to speak to me, to Will or to any of my team and we'll be happy to help.

Of specific note, if anyone has mentored previously, or has considered mentoring, and a conversation would aid in your return to mentoring, I would be very grateful if people could reach out to me or Will. A number of respondents to our mentor retention survey indicated that they felt they lacked the skills or experience to help; the DSG are all committed to ensuring that we support people who are interested in volunteering and we encourage people to reach out. 

All the best,
Adam